This is the first post where his ships actually shoot at the Dreadnaughts that have passed into the planet (other than the first exchange when Omega breezed past).
Since Omega posted his ship breaking up and falling into the "hole" as Dolash described, he waved any right to comment on the one post damage rate of Dolash's atmospheric cruisers.
Below is the description in question regarding the breakup of the ship, as described by Dolash:
Ah, ok. The entire dreadnought slid into the hole, then once it was inside of the hole, a second particle shot blew the wreck apart. Depending on the timing between the two statements, Omega may have been able to get his order off before the second shot arrived.
Well, here's my arguement for the self-destruct. All warships are compartmentalized, that's why they all tend to carry those big thick blast doors everyone has seen in the movies like in Episode 4 with the Death Star and in Episode 1 aboard the Trade Federation cruiser at the bridge access point. So, even if you blow a starship into pieces there is still auxiliary power, as is seen with the Invisible Hand's breaking up during Episdoe 3 in which the front still had power even with its back gone, which I'm betting carried the reactor since reactors tend to be near the Ion drives to feed them more directly as well as to save space on the starship. So from that logic even a segmented dreadnaught could still have an operational reactor that could detonate, an order given over comlinks which don't require the ship's own systems to be connected or functioning correctly.
Arbitration would still be necessary even just to decide wether the reactor would still be on the surface or in the hole (Or stuck in the hole, or turned into junk, or whatever) before the question of wether it could blow or not could be fully decided. I guess at this point we await only a decision.
I don't see why we are having this conversation, really. Th Dreadnaught has fallen to the planet, which as I understand it has an underground tunnel network stretching across it. That much weight landing on the surface would do massive damage to the tunnels below, crushing them, likely over each other, from the concussive effect of the landing. There's a hole that a piece of ship fell into (which Dolash doesn't seem to dispute), which would compound the issue as it would cause the fractuired system to sink inside, essentially imploding in on itself, just giving you one gigantic crater. Of all the things these tunnels were designed for, earthquakes, explosions, impact, roll them all in to one, there is no way they would not collapse under the force.
To the reactor exploding, it's really a moot point. The tunnel network is now tiwsted and mangled and destroyed beynd recognition, broken and unusable by the crushing it recieved from the ship's impact, does it really matter whether it's vaporized or not? Now, let's say for a second that you could successfully target with pinpoint accuracy areas on the ship to sever it and prevent a self destruct, which I'm not saying you can, but let's say for the sake of arguement, you have. There is no possible way you could shoot with said accuracy to avoid breaching reactor containment or cooling systems. Even if the reactor isn't going to go critical, the ship is still leakig reactor fuel or reactor coolant, both of which are now spreading and causing massive radiological damage. As to the poisition of the reactor, Brutus is right; main reactors tend to be near the ion drives, so I'd say the main reactor was on the rear quadrent of the ship, which if I understand correctly, would have impacted the surface and not the hole. It's all a mess anyway, and is really irrelevent. That kind of pollution will spread every way, everywhere, and persist for a very, very long time.
So, for the sake of compromise, Brutus, drop the reactor explosion, since you're already doing massive and long term damage to both the planet as it stands now, and Dolash's future ability to rebuild said planet.
Something that I was going to bring up, is that even if the tunnels don't collapse, the molten metal and other fires would suffice to suck all of the oxygen out of the tunnels, suffocating everyone.
As for the wormhole issue, tough question here. Does the rip in space created by a wormhole issue the same effect as a mass body? I would think not, since most planetery bodies that create gravity do so by spinning or rotating, since that's how gravity is mostly generated. On the other hand, it could generate a weak black hole effect, giving off a warning to a ship's hyperspace sensors, but not being powerful enough to suck in everything. And if it wouldn't project a mass hole, I would imagine the wormhole wouldn't have definite measurements, so how would the ships, coming in blind, not jump into the wormhole it's self, or know precisley where alone the opening of the wormhole the enemy ships would come out at?
