Some peripheral physics wank.

Subject: Some peripheral physics wank.
Author: AdmiralSakai
Posted on: 2013-09-09 21:22:00 UTC

I'm not terribly familiar with Thor lore (Norse or Marvel versions), but I sort of thought of "cannot be lifted by anyone other than Thor" as more a security "device" that prevents it from being picked up by people. Inanimate objects can support just fine, although it probably really is quite heavy. (Although what the hammer classifies as an inanimate object (like, I don't know, giant transforming robots) is an interesting discussion to have!).

Another possibility is that the hammer really can only be LIFTED by Thor. That is, only Thor can increase its altitude (technically, only Thor can increase the magnitude of its vector in the direction opposite that of the gravitational field at that point). Other objects or people can move it laterally, or control or stop its descent just fine, but they just can't make it RISE. Although, once again, it is probably still quite heavy regardless.

Both of these interpretations involve a lot of "exact words"ing, but given that the hammer's properties are pretty much magical in nature, this doesn't seem unreasonable. There has to be SOME limit on its liftability.... otherwise, if Thor ever dropped it, it would tunnel directly to the core of the planet!

As for the hammer being made of neutronium, I'd say it's possible, but unlikely without magic. We don't really have very good models of what that kind of density would DO when brought into a terrestrial environment.

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Debate Time! *yay* by dramaticsoprano on 2013-09-06 23:21:00 UTC Reply

Who do you think would win in a fight to the death? Starscream from the G1 "Transformers" or Thor from "Thor: God of Thunder"?

Rules For The Debate:
1.Please give specific details to back up your argument. Do not say "Because he's more awesome" or other such things because they don't mean anything and are not convincing enough evidence. I want good and reasonable arguments here.

2.Make note of their various weapons, abilities, and their temperaments.

3.Please, no name-calling, curses, damnations, etc. I want this to be civil.

No contest by World-Jumper on 2013-09-07 08:36:00 UTC Reply

Thor, beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, I am getting way, way ahead of myself. Before we get too far into 'who would win in a death battle,' we have to know what each one brings to the table as far as combat goes.

While I have seen Thor, I have not seen much of g1 Transformers (not even a full episode), so most of my Starscream knowledge has to come from somebody else. It just so happens that the information I am using comes from Death Battle, the episode where g1 Starscream fought against g4 Rainbow Dash, from My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. ~~and got crushed like a tin can~~ He fought well, and provided the data I need for my argument. It also happens that Thor was also involved in a Death Battle, this time against Raiden from Mortal Combat. For the sake of being fair, I will use most of the points they raised in that battle for support, including his weaknesses, though most of my argument comes from the movies.

Let's start with Starscream, and run down his armor, weapons, and skill.
Starscream comes in two forms: F-15 Eagle fighter jet, and giant-frickin-robot. In his land based form, Starscream comes with an assortment of weapons, including:
Cluster bombs
Missiles
Machine guns
Some laser guns
Null-Ray: The Null-Ray focuses energy into a contained blast to shut down anything that runs on electricity. (How he did not manage to take over the Decepticons with this thing alone baffles me, but that's unimportant)
As a jet, his weaponry includes:
AIM homing missiles
-7F/M Sparrows
-120 AMRAAM Slammers
-9L/M Sidewinders
M61A1 Vulcan gatling gun
I have little idea of what these truly are, but from what I have gleamed, the three missiles are basically different ranges. In order as presented above: Mid-range, long-range, short-range. The gatling gun shoots really, really fast. It's rather good. Not much else to say on it.

Starscream can fly, either over short distances in his robot form, or long-ranges in his jet form. As a jet, he can fly at top speeds of Mach 2.5+ or 1,650+ mph.

Starscream likes to think of himself as a strategist, though several of his plans fail. Miserably. Despite this, he does have a way with words, and manages to be just competent enough to stay as one of the higher-ranking officials. He is fond of stabbing people in the back and utilizing the element of surprise. That said, he is also headstrong, so his idea of 'surprise' is often "charge in front of the enemy, fein damage and inhabitation, then shoot them when they least expect it." This makes his Null-Ray more effective, as it seems to work best at close distances. This may be because Starscream is a horrid shot. There is a reason his missiles are tracking.

Now let's cover Thor.
Thor is the Norse god of thunder, giving him mastery over storms and lightning. His weaponry includes:
Lightning bolts
Thunder blasts
Vortexes
Storms
Mjolnir

Mjolnir is Thor's signature weapon. This one handed hammer, forged by the dwarves as an ultimate gift, can perform a variety of attacks. When the dwarves gave the hammer to Thor, they described it as such: "Thor might smite as hard as he desired, whatsoever might be before him, and the hammer would not fail; and if he threw it at anything, it would never miss, and never fly so far as not to return to his hand; and if be desired, he might keep it in his sark, it was so small; but indeed it was a flaw in the hammer that the fore-haft was somewhat short." Beyond these powers, it seems to be a conduit for Thor's energy. He can send lightning bolts out of the head, call forth his armor, and even fly after spinning the hammer in his hand really fast. It has also been known in the comics to control electro-magnetic fields, though this ability has not been shown in the movies yet.

Thor is a mountain of a man, as well as a god. His skin is neigh invulnerable, though he can be damaged if enough force is applied. Thor has had numerous fights with the Hulk, one of the strongest and hardest hitting things in the universe, and has escaped with only a few bruises. Even though his hammer carries most of his strength inside of it, Thor is no weakling himself. He among the strongest of the Asgardians, and as stated before, has traded blows with the Hulk, one of the few beings that can be stronger then him.

So, now it comes down to this. Who would win? As I said in the beginning, Thor would not only win, but annihilate Starscream.

Starscream's best weapon, the Null-Ray, is completely useless against organic beings, which Thor is. The rest of his arsenal, while it may be able to damage Thor if he concentrated almost all of his firepower onto the god at once, but even then it seems unlikely. Starscream's best chance is to grab Thor in a bear hug and transform into a jet as soon as he could, crushing Thor in the process. Of corse, that would probably only allow the god to rip him apart from the inside.

Thor on the other hand has a much greater offensive capability. All electrical systems can be overpowered, and several bolts of lightning should overcharge any robot, no matter how advanced their technology is. Should Starscream attempt to fly away, Thor could easily catch up to him, using his hammer to fly up to the jet. Once close enough to Starscream to hit, Mjolnir would be more then strong enough to tear right through him. In fact, Thor does not even need to be close to hit, as he has shown remarkable throwing capabilities with his hammer. Finaly, should Starscream manage to fly far enough away that Thor could not catch him, the god of thunder could call in a vortex to rip Starscream's body apart with lightning and extraordinarily heavy wind.

The winner is Thor.

I think you've missed a key point. by Huinesoron on 2013-09-09 15:25:00 UTC Reply

Ignore virtually everything about the two, and just consider the implications of Mjolnir. It's a hammer which cannot be lifted by anything other than Thor. That's been shown^{[Citation Needed]} to include the Hulk.

The battle goes something like this:

-Thor, being smaller and thus more maneuverable, gets above Starscream.
-Thor drops Mjolnir on Starscream, pinning or pushing Starscream to the ground.
-Thor hits the grounded Starscream with lightning until he's dead.

The key point is that, unlike the people-sized things Thor usually fights, Starscream has large flat areas. That means Mjolnir won't slide off or anything. And a stationary target is more correctly known as target practice.

(Also, if this isn't how it works - like if Thor dropped Mjolnir while on the Helicarrier or something and didn't thereby tear a hole through it/smash it to the ground - that's stupid and Marvel haven't thought the physics through. I know, I know, crazy notion...)

hS

Some peripheral physics wank. by AdmiralSakai on 2013-09-09 21:22:00 UTC Reply

I'm not terribly familiar with Thor lore (Norse or Marvel versions), but I sort of thought of "cannot be lifted by anyone other than Thor" as more a security "device" that prevents it from being picked up by people. Inanimate objects can support just fine, although it probably really is quite heavy. (Although what the hammer classifies as an inanimate object (like, I don't know, giant transforming robots) is an interesting discussion to have!).

Another possibility is that the hammer really can only be LIFTED by Thor. That is, only Thor can increase its altitude (technically, only Thor can increase the magnitude of its vector in the direction opposite that of the gravitational field at that point). Other objects or people can move it laterally, or control or stop its descent just fine, but they just can't make it RISE. Although, once again, it is probably still quite heavy regardless.

Both of these interpretations involve a lot of "exact words"ing, but given that the hammer's properties are pretty much magical in nature, this doesn't seem unreasonable. There has to be SOME limit on its liftability.... otherwise, if Thor ever dropped it, it would tunnel directly to the core of the planet!

As for the hammer being made of neutronium, I'd say it's possible, but unlikely without magic. We don't really have very good models of what that kind of density would DO when brought into a terrestrial environment.

I think it is more akin to a security feature. by Outhra on 2013-09-10 16:50:00 UTC Reply

Thor's hammer has an incantation of some sort on it that prevents it from being picked up by anyone save those who are deemed worthy or honorable enough to wield it, suggesting that the hammer has some capacity to scan minds and judge people by its near-unattainably high standards. In the comics, there have been a few others that have been seen by Mjolnir as worthy to bear it, and then those individuals can carry it around with one hand the way Thor does.

Mjolnir tends to blow a huge hole in the ground whenever Thor drops it while flying, though, so it is still crazy heavy, but someone with a Decepticon's level of strength should be able to move out from under it. Starscream couldn't grab the hammer and throw it off of him, since that would count as using the hammer, which might also preclude pushing it with his hands and feet, but he should be able to tilt himself so it slides off, or activate his jet thrusters and then flip over, causing the hammer to fall off of him and land on the ground below.

As for whether it was made of a neutron star(warning: this is probably going to come across as a huge nitpick to some people), the stars in Norse mythology were actually fragments of a planet-sized primordial giant named Ymir, set on fire with unending flame in a world composed almost entirely of lava and other high-temperature substances, and then hung on the inside of the night sky, a.k.a. Ymir's skull, which had recently been set over the world by the Aesir as part of their celebration for killing the world-giant.
A "dying star" in that context would still be very dense and strong, since it was made out of divine biomass, but it wouldn't be neutronium.

That is a really good point. by dramaticsoprano on 2013-09-09 20:37:00 UTC Reply

I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. I saw the Thor vs. Raiden "Death Battle" video yesterday, and I found out that according the Norse legends, Mjolnir was made from the remains of a dying star. That star would have been a neutron star, and that could weigh up to one million tons! No wonder the Hulk would not able to lift it!

The Game is Called "Mortal Kombat" (nm) by dramaticsoprano on 2013-09-07 22:10:00 UTC Reply

Sorry, remembered the name, forgot the spelling. My bad. (nm) by World-Jumper on 2013-09-07 22:20:00 UTC Reply

Technical note by Techno-Dann on 2013-09-07 18:28:00 UTC Reply

Airplanes don't much mind getting hit by lightning. It happens on a regular basis (about once a year in the US alone). The last serious accident caused by lightning strike was in 1967, and airplane lightning protection systems have been completely redesigned since then - including the ones that protect the F-15 Eagle.

That said, I agree with your analysis completely.

Point about the lightning, here. by Legacy on 2013-09-07 19:50:00 UTC Reply

In the Avengers movie, Thor's lightning is show to be powerful enough to melt holes in Iron Man's armor. While the Iron Man suit is repeatedly torn to shreds in all it's appearances so far, it's made out of super-strong alloys and capable of withstanding a direct hit from a tank. Also, this is Tony Stark we're talking about here, who would likely include every defense against the elements he possibly could (including updated lightning protection).

Thus, Thor's lightning is far hotter than the explosion of a tank shell, and would likely do at least some damage. There you go.

Sorry for the run-on sentences.

I don't think it was that version of Thor, though. by Outhra on 2013-09-07 20:55:00 UTC Reply

The Avengers movieverse version of Thor is different from the comics version of Thor, and the two Thors may not have the exact same capabilities and levels of power for the capabilities that they share.
I say it "may not" be the same Thor because a quick Google search told me that "Thor: God of Thunder", the Thor incarnation that the first post said the fight was dealing with, was a MARVEL NOW! comic series, which would make it the comics' Thor, or at least a comics' Thor. Yet, the same title is also given to the Thor movie licensed video game, which would presumably use the same Thor or at least one with the same combat potential as the Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor, which would mean that your point would unequivocally apply.
Canon apocrypha can be difficult.

Basically, you've got to have consistent universe framing for this sort of fight speculation. Starscream G1, Unicron Trilogy Starscream, and Transformers Animated Starscream have different abilities and levels of power, so treating them all as "Starscream" would keep the potentials from being objective, so it should be the same with "Thor".
Transformers Animated Starscream might even be able to take certain versions of Thor on, since the Allspark fragment embedded in his head gives him enhanced powers (also, the head apparently becomes indestructible, but that's a minor detail) and blasts from his weapons are capable of ripping apart buildings, which makes him much more powerful than the G1 Starscream, who as World-Jumper said, really only had the Null-ray going for him aside from the traditional plane-caliber missiles that most Thors would probably just be knocked back a few meters by.