Borbarad
Advocatus Diaboli
Originally posted by Red Nemesis
As Faunus noted, the strength of the various Dovin Basals' singularities varies greatly. In fact, if they did not then the basals themselves would be largely unusable as transportation mechanisms. The force of gravity varies with the inverse of the square of the distance, meaning that each singularity would have to be placed with much, much more accuracy than they appear to be. The basals would also have to have a much longer "casting range" under this system.
Urm. No.
Firstly: The different uses of dovin basals are nigh irrelevant for the general direction of my comment. You can go and do the calculations for power required to redirect and absorb particle beams (like turbolaser shots), propel world-ships or generate interdiction fields that replicate the mass of a small planet or even a black hole. In any case, the amount of energy generated eclipses the conventional showings of force users in SW fiction.
Nai takes two things as given:The second is dubious, even if we allow for the fact that it is a vaguely remembered detail from a poorly written book. Gideon pulled the Wookiee's description, so we'll use that:
This indicates that Luke wasn't overcoming the (yet undefined) mass of a black hole alone. Rather, Luke was overcoming the manipulation of a Dovin Basal on a black hole. The difference here is staggering. Luke would, in the first case, have to overcome the inertia of a (presumably) very massive object. That assumption is, I believe, behind the awe given to this particular feat. However, the actual mechanism may have been very different. I am aware that this isn't the source material, but I have no reason to believe it is inaccurate.
After some search, I found my hardcopy of "Onslaught". Here it is:
Luke sank back into the chair and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and reached out through the Force. He let his sense of things ride above the frayed ones' jagged profile and vectored in toward the vehicle. He got no solid sense of it directly, though a few frayed ones did appear to be housed inside. Instead he used that emptiness as a way point to search out a void, and as it formed, the black hole blossomed fully in the Force. [...]
Luke reached out with that power and latched onto the void that the Yuuzhan Vong vehicle had created. He pushed a bit, then tugged, in nanoseconds getting a feel for the power the dovin basals were able to exert to control the void. He almost smiled, since that amount of power was nothing compared to the Force, but he stopped himself short of pride in that fact.[...]
Immediately the dovin basals started to shift the void to cover this new attack vector. Luke fed the Force into his hold on the void, thwarting them. Their pressure increased, and still Luke held it unmoving. The torpedoes got closer and closer. The dovin basals pulled harder, and when their effort reached a new peak, Luke let the void slip over toward intercepting the proton torpedoes.
The dovin basals devoted their efforts to sliding the void into place, which required both some lateral movement and shortening the arc over which the void would travel. As they brought it close to the vehicle, Luke pushed with the Force. Since the dovin basals were already tugging the void back toward the vehicle, they were not prepared to have the travel accelerated."
So. The dovin basals do create Black Holes but keep that singularities under control. Luke didn't fight against the gravitational pull of the black hole itself, but against the control of the dovin basals. How does that even matter? To control and move a black hole, one would still need unbelieveable high amounts of energy, which Luke was not only able to reproduce but could also overpower.
Even if we would ignore the term "Black Hole" here, we would still be confronted with gravitational energy powerful enough to "absorb" the energy exerted by the detonation of photon torpedos or turbolaser fire - which would again require epic amounts for those tasks and also huge amounts of energy to control the gravitational pull. Hell. Controlling gravitational energy has always been a huge [energy] problem in the SWU, causing the high costs of all ships housing interdictor technology, which generates fields that reproduce the mass of planets or black holes to pull ships out of hyperspace.
The description given indicates that Luke simply canceled out (or even just muted) the controlling basal had over the black hole in question. Unless you want to argue that each ship-sized Basal is capable of putting out energy on the scale of a star it is incredibly likely that some specialized mechanism is behind the manipulation of singularities for maneuvering. This force is all that Luke would have to match. This scenario allows us to avoid a Stellar-Luke (which is not likely in given his other showings) and remain in canon. Luke would only have to match the applied force enough to get the Basal to overcompensate. Then his job is done for him, and down it goes.
See above. There isn't much of a difference between generating a miniature black hole and the effort of controlling it. And how would such an action be "out of canon". Ever heared about Sidious "force storms" that tore the fabric of space-time itself and acted like "summoned" black holes? Why shouldn't Luke, who is - by the words of Lucas himself - equipped with more raw force potential than Sidious, not be able to pull something like this off?
In this way it becomes clear that Luke does not necessarily exceed the Sun in energy output (which is an idea I simply refuse to consider).
I've explained that before. It does depend on the strength of the respective dovin basal. What I presented was an idea of the upper limit of energy those things could generate. Luke took on a group of dovin basals who were manipulating a singularity powerful enough to nullify proton torpedos and concussion missles (note: warheads with the power-output exceeding the "gigatonnage range" of turbolasers). A power that Luke realized as "nothing" compared to the amount of force energy he was capable of wielding.
Does that sound any less impressive, when you think about it?
Nai, you say that the black holes would evaporate almost instantly. Isn't that what we see in the books?
The scene above has the "black hole" existing constantly, as Luke is able to grasp it's shape over an expanded period of time and the black hole is moved. So that singularities remain intact until the corresponding dovin basals are destroyed (which Luke does by pushing that "black hole" into them in the respective scene).
On top of this we have the fantasy elements of the black holes. When they are activated as a method of propulsion, the effects are limited to a single coralskipper.
Again: The power of the dovin basals is "gravity control" which is not necessarily limited to "generating black holes". Creating a controlled gravitational push / pull can (obviously) be used for propulsion without side-effects on nearby space-crafts. And the Vong also run their World Ships with "dovin basal engines" (as far as I remember), which would have a far greater effect on the battlefield. However. This is Star Wars where that kind of energy can be used and contained (Death Star anybody?)
So from your 3.8E28 J we can deduct two thirds, and then lower that even more if the dovin basals only use as much pull as is necessary for the situation.
Urm. 1.3E28 J would still be quite extreme, Neme. Even the amounts of energy required for their respective "tasks" even in that very special situation would be rather high, provided that the things absorbed explosions of warhead that are considered to be more powerful than turbolaser shots (Gigaton range...). That would bring the energy needed down one order of magnitude perhabs, but it would still be outright insane (in terms of physics).