Starfleet Jedi

As you know, I've been occasionally reading on SB.com, and I've been seeing occasionally some very nice work, particularly in the "Technical Discussion" section, lately.

This time I happened to read this thread. I was terribly unimpressed by the amount of evidence presented by either side; in seven pages of posts, I saw almost nothing, and barely even any decent critique of claims being made.

So is the quality of debate on SB.com unchanged, improving, or getting worse? What would you say - and why would you say it?

I notice that depending on the enemy of the versus, standards of observation tend to change when there's been a lot of debate about a given universe.

While I recently tried to get the crux of firepower figures for WH40K, by going through some of the books the fans pick quotations from, when I realized that authors often sprout big numbers without being consistent within one book, be it about displayed firepower or the materials used for hulls and effects of internal explosions.

http://forum.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=145456

It was rather clear that the petals of flame quote, for example, tells a totally different story, and some heavy bombardment events could even easily be interpreted as kiloton or megaton firepower.

I'll probably return to this. While rereading it, I notice white_rabbit posting a link to an older thread.

His calc, basically, was as follows (about demolition charges):

white_rabbit wrote:Okay, hopefully I haven't fucked this up, but if I have, I'll dig up that nova cannon/bombardment cannon calc, and distract you with something isn't fucked up :p.

The Imperiums explosives

" Each boxy device was fitted with six kilos of a high explosive compound developed specifically for the destruction of space hulks

The demolition charges had a wide blast area, and the destructive power unleashed within that area was an order of magnitude greater than almost any other explosive of similar size"

page 276 " Leviathan" Crucible of War anthology.

"as each bomb exploded it instantly vapourised an area one hundred metres in diameter with a huge reverberating thunderclap...the explosion from each demolition charge roared into a seething ball of plasma, burning with the heat of a star.

Volume of a 100 metre diameter sphere = 523598.78 cubic metres

Density of Iron:7860 kg/m3

Mass of 100 metre diameter sphere = 4115486410.8kg

Charges placed at "key structural locations" indicating likelyhood of lots of solid bulkheads and structures.

1% of mass = 41154864.108kg
Energy to vape a kg of iron 7.63 MJ/kg

assuming 25% solid iron mass 1028871602.7kg
energy to vape= 7850 TJ

Assuming 50% solid iron mass 2057743205.4kg
energy = 15700 TJ

Assuming 75% solid iron mass 3086614808.1
Energy = 23550 TJ

Just about 7.5 megatons if its a full sphere of iron.

Ignoring how efficient this weapon may or may not be, six kg for a megaton explosion is fairly impressive, I think the modern US equivalent is a thousand kg nuke warhead.

Basic meter of explosives, one ton releases 4184 MJ
Low end, a single kg of this releases 1300 TJ.

As long as I haven't fucked it up, We'll never shut Ralson up about nuclear shells now.

Interestingly, they have other none-specialised munitions of a lower order of magnitude in capability, as well as other explosives that are not specialised anti-spacehulk weapons.

So what quality of these explosives makes them better for taking out spacehulks ?

We observe the traditional ultra literal interpretation of about anything that can sound big.
First, the demolition charges are stated as being used for the destruction of space hulks. Although it would obviously lead them to go for the high ends with such a premise, let's consider that no matter how wanked up the number, it just doesn't get anywhere close to the high gigatons or teratons claimed to get through space hulks. There we get megatons doing the job, by taking the most absurd over the top understanding of vapourizing an area.

Of course, if you just think it's only about how far the fireball ranged, you *only* get 9-10 KT. If you understand vapourize as level, make flat most structures, it gets quite lower.

Now, some demolition charges tend to be hollow charges causing deflagrations, so they're less powerful. This would make the energy yields a tad superior, but not by absurd ends.

I'd also take Drachyench's claims in the thread you pointed to with a huge grain of salt.

I also like how none of the guys in that debate seem to realize that even a few months ago, there's been a couple of threads talking about the Death Star.
They completely ignore that Alderaan's mass was partially shoved into hyperspace instead of pushed outwards, by citing SWTC. We however know that the explosion is assymetrical and debris were slowed down, as a field formed at Alderaan's former coordinates. And that's, again, with a part of its mass spirited away into PlopLand.

There's also an unsourced quote about the Eclipse's superlaser that flies against anything else established about the weapon.

Of course, they think that a SW fleet can stand against a WH40K. That's old style SW Wank vs. High End WH40K.
This is typical post ICS debate.

Vehrec is basically doing very little work safe citing old sources. Hey, I think I'll drop a brick over there.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: We however know that the explosion is asymmetrical and debris were slowed down, as a field formed at Alderaan's former coordinates. And that's, again, with a part of its mass spirited away into PlopLand.

That's the interesting contradiction of the movie canon; on one hand we witnessed the explosion of Alderaan, which sent debris away a thousands of km per second, and yet when the Falcon arrives some time later, there is debris still drifting around either in a planar or spheroidal shaped cloud pretty close to where the planet should have been despite the fact that the velocity imparted to the debris should have not only sent it all to escape velocity, but to solar escape velocity as well!

According to the novelization, the Falcon came out of hyperspace about one planetary diameter distance from where Alderaan should have been and was encountering substantial debris. But if the velocity imparted to the debris was thousands of km/s, then why were they hitting anything at all? There should have been absolutely nothing! The hyperspace shunting may actually explain this away as when the hole closed up, it pulled some of the debris back, or substantially slowed it down, or both.
-Mike

I don't even think the hyperspace shunt is necessary. Depending on where the explosions really occurred, some parts of the mass could have been pushed away at a slower pace.
That said, claiming that the superlaser could trigger some kind of gravitational anomaly would help a great deal, story wise.

It even was supported by the tale about Vader's glove, dropped in the anomaly left in place of the DSII, and which I think ended on MonCalamari or something.
Obviously totally far fetched, but you have it.

Given the mechanics of the Death Star explosion, it seems to start briefly on the surface of Alderaan, then suddenly the main explosion occurs as though from the core itself, rather than a lop-sided one as you might expect were a DET beam to hit one side of the planet, or where a 1e38 joule beam would punch right through it, and cause massive disruption in it's wake. The Star Wars Manga shows the latter happening.
-Mike

I don't get it, what excatly is the point of this thread

Sb improving, in what way? what do you mean by that?

and about no one citing any sources, most of the people in this debate are quite familiar with the most common examples of firepower for both sides, no read need to always present the full qoutes

Enosh wrote:I don't get it, what excatly is the point of this thread

Sb improving, in what way? what do you mean by that?

and about no one citing any sources, most of the people in this debate are quite familiar with the most common examples of firepower for both sides, no read need to always present the full qoutes

If anything, the people in this thread have actually demonstrated the exact opposite of what you claim. I would almost want to say that it didn't hold up to the standards of SB's versus threads at all.

Enosh wrote:I don't get it, what excatly is the point of this thread

Sb improving, in what way? what do you mean by that?

and about no one citing any sources, most of the people in this debate are quite familiar with the most common examples of firepower for both sides, no read need to always present the full qoutes

I've seen people supposedly familiar with sources make egregious mistakes when they don't cite them directly. In fact, I make mistakes myself sometimes and misremember something.

One common example is the line in the Thrawn books about the size of the Imperial fleet. Here's the exact quote:

Specter of the Past wrote:A thousand systems left, out of an Empire that had once spanned a million. Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them.

Very commonly, I see the unsourced claim that the Empire had "at least 25,000 ISD-IIs." This is accompanied by a vague reference to "the Thrawn books." Sometimes the trilogy instead of the later duology the quote is actually from.

There's nothing in the quote that has the least bit to do with the ISD class. It simply talks about Star Destroyers in general. This includes not only ISD-Is, but the ancient Victory class Star Destroyers (still in service the decade after the Empire's fall), perhaps their contemporaries, the Venators, and other smaller-than-ISD ships classed as Star Destroyers.

Now that's a universe that's much more widely known than Warhammer 40,000. My experience with debating WH40k material is that almost nobody actually knows much about WH40k at all (because while the game is popular, written fluff is quite obscure), and that you can't trust anything that isn't accompanied by a citation and a context.

Jedi Master Spock wrote: I've seen people supposedly familiar with sources make egregious mistakes when they don't cite them directly. In fact, I make mistakes myself sometimes and misremember something.

I think that is something that is all too often abused, not only on SB, but other versus forums as well, including this one. It is easy enough to cite some, even say that something happened in an episode, movie, book, or game. But when it comes down to it, no one really provides any kind of actual quote. If they do, in some cases, it is an out of date source or out of context one.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:I think that is something that is all too often abused, not only on SB, but other versus forums as well, including this one. It is easy enough to cite some, even say that something happened in an episode, movie, book, or game. But when it comes down to it, no one really provides any kind of actual quote. If they do, in some cases, it is an out of date source or out of context one.
-Mike

I hope we haven't gotten too bad about it. This is one reason why I liked having a rather more formal than usual debate with Thanatos - lots of direct quotes, more than is usual for our discussions here.

I'm actually starting to wonder if the difference isn't between the Technical Discussion section and the Versus Debate core section in SB.com. It seems like most of the recent threads I'd been paying attention that were actually examining evidence ere in the TD subsection.

I think one way that leads down the road of not citing sources so formally is when groupthink takes over and everyone, as has beeb noted, takes on the mentality that anyone else ought to either look up past threads or should automatically know what is being discussed. Among long time members of a forum, that isn't a serious problem, but among new members, it can no doubt prove fustrating in their desire to understand what is going on. It also becomes a way in which the old guard becomes entrenched in their views and in reinforcing their particular dogma; see SDN for this sort of behavior.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:I think one way that leads down the road of not citing sources so formally is when groupthink takes over and everyone, as has beeb noted, takes on the mentality that anyone else ought to either look up past threads or should automatically know what is being discussed. Among long time members of a forum, that isn't a serious problem, but among new members, it can no doubt prove fustrating in their desire to understand what is going on. It also becomes a way in which the old guard becomes entrenched in their views and in reinforcing their particular dogma; see SDN for this sort of behavior.
-Mike

Most of the guys posting in the thread in question have just as many posts as me, and some clearly are regulars of the vs debate. Nonetheless, they still inadvertently reboot evidence, if not doing it on purpose like some group thinks, as you say, would attempt to to promote their views and only theirs.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Most of the guys posting in the thread in question have just as many posts as me, and some clearly are regulars of the vs debate. Nonetheless, they still inadvertently reboot evidence, if not doing it on purpose like some group thinks, as you say, would attempt to to promote their views and only theirs.

I would think it's mostly unintentional, but the speed with which some people completely reboot is difficult to believe.

I'm surprised that when the ICS is mentioned on SB.com, nobody links to any of the SB.com ICS threads, but then it sometimes seems like linking to other threads in SB.com is a rare thing, a last resort in argument rather than a common courtesy.

That's another thing I try very hard to remember to do here - link to the older threads and discussions I casually refer to. It's a great help to people who are newer or haven't previously been interested in a specific sub-topic; the less familiar you are with a forum, the more of a pain in the neck it is to search for old threads.

Jedi Master Spock wrote: I'm surprised that when the ICS is mentioned on SB.com, nobody links to any of the SB.com ICS threads

that's beacose bringing up the ICS in vs debates always turns into a shit fest of pro ICS people and people that aren't agreeing with the ICS, so it is in general not liked by the mods. The ICS is canon on SB and unless specificly excluded, to be included into the versus debate. for all the "is the ICS valid or not" talk there is a thread about this on the technical discusion forum

There was a thread on it; two of them actually. I think that they were both closed (the first I believe was because it was getting too large. I don't know if the second was closed or not, but I do think it was. It hasn't been posted in for a long time.).