An "ICS fact page"

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Re: An "ICS fact page"

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:56 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:I hesitated posting the link for a while, really. It's unfinished, though it's already starting pretty badly.

ICS "fact" page.

Ultimately, if you feel like adressing certain misconceptions, absurd claims and glaring errors...
Rather than go into a detailed review of the ICS as some of our residents have begun, I would like to offer some less controversial feedback.

The EU is usually considered short for "expanded universe" rather than "extended universe." And I spotted one "cahllenged" (challenged) which you might also like to fix when you're revising. "This veritable campaign" would come off better as "This campaign," IMO.

Also, I recommend aiming to trim the length of the article a little bit - in particular, I think it's not necessary to list all the pages of the ICS, and you could probably get your point across much better without spending so many adjectives and adverbs.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:08 am

Although I really shouldn't let some of these comments by Kane about the ICS slip by:
Kane Starkiller wrote:It is interesting that people who accept ICS are always accused of being fan boy wankers because of the numbers yet no one had any problem with ICS BEFORE the numbers.
IMO, nobody in the VS community really cared about the ICS books before some of the pro-Star Wars folk started using AOTC ICS numbers. There's not really anything special about them otherwise, and they're pretty much fairly slender picture books.
Naturally hardly anyone ever tries to dispute the actual numbers or explain how exactly do they contradict the films preferring instead to declare ICS non canon altogether.
For the record, Kane, it's completely clear that the actual numbers are disputed, and explanations offered as to exactly how they contradict the films, by most of those critics.

Some of them also say it's not at all canon, but to say that "hardly any one ever tries to dispute the actual numbers" is incorrect.

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Post by 2046 » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:46 am

Kazeite wrote:{...} contrary to what you write {...}
Jedi Master Spock wrote:{...} you could probably get your point across much better without {...}
So wait, O really wrote that? I mean, I had wondered that initially, but I assumed I was just being mean.

Surely it isn't so, though . . . he calls it a "fact" page, and suggests it's starting out badly. Surely that's something O found and passed along, right?

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 03, 2007 12:15 pm

There seem to be some sort of confusion going on here.

This page is not mine.

The content on this 'fact" page is almost totally opposite to my ideas, and that it's precisely why I refer to them as "facts", and not facts.

I found the link on some random thread at SD.net a while ago, and didn't feel it was right to post the link.

The page evolved a bit, but its devlopment has now stopped. That is precisely why I also said that it was "already starting pretty badly."

Just read the OP a bit *more*.
For anyone paying attention, and especially in the light of my comments on this site, there should have been no possible confusion at all.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:12 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Oh, there are examples. Like the LLAT shields. Basically, an assault troop transport. Let's see... weren't there any megaton shielding claims around?

Let's see what destroys a LAAT... geonosian fighters.
Let's look at their firepower... ah, yes.
Kicks sand puffs off dunes, and create small sparkles and sub-grenade explosions when hitting rock walls.

POint is, for all the yields claimed in the ICS, every single time they can be verified in the films, they are shown wrong. That also applies to the Slave-I weapons.
Megaton shielding for LAAT in ICS? I am not aware of any such claims.

Mr. Oraghan wrote:No. The right question is any evidence that all the hull was damaged?
Wrong. We have just seen the ship in heavy exchange of fire. If you wish to use it as benchmark for how capital ships handle atmospheric entry then you better provide evidence that the fire exchange we all witnessed didn't damage it sufficiently to throw the results off.

Mr. Oraghan wrote:Controlled reentry, ffs. Even the NASA can manage a controlled reentry.
Not with ships the size and shape of a TIE.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:For the record, Kane, it's completely clear that the actual numbers are disputed, and explanations offered as to exactly how they contradict the films, by most of those critics.

Some of them also say it's not at all canon, but to say that "hardly any one ever tries to dispute the actual numbers" is incorrect.
There's simply none.
Oh I'm sure many state that numbers are incorrect but they don't actually explain or prove where and how they are incorrect. Other than the usual "I didn't see it in the films!" but then if you need to see everything in the films then it's not exactly EXPANDED universe but RESTATED universe or something and I don't see why anyone would give money for that.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:46 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:For anyone paying attention, and especially in the light of my comments on this site, there should have been no possible confusion at all.
Apologies, Mr. Oragahn. Consider my comments redirected to the actual author, should they ever be directed to this thread.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Oh I'm sure many state that numbers are incorrect but they don't actually explain or prove where and how they are incorrect.
Actually, they do explain. At length. Perhaps too great length, on everything from LAATs to Slave I to the qualitative discussion of what a turbolaser is on out. You may not agree with the analyses offered, but you should admit to its existence.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:53 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Oh, there are examples. Like the LLAT shields. Basically, an assault troop transport. Let's see... weren't there any megaton shielding claims around?

Let's see what destroys a LAAT... geonosian fighters.
Let's look at their firepower... ah, yes.
Kicks sand puffs off dunes, and create small sparkles and sub-grenade explosions when hitting rock walls.

POint is, for all the yields claimed in the ICS, every single time they can be verified in the films, they are shown wrong. That also applies to the Slave-I weapons.
Megaton shielding for LAAT in ICS? I am not aware of any such claims.
Between claims about megaton shielding for the Millenium Falcon, and often touted fighter kiloton firepower (laser cannons), any troop transport with less of a shield able to withstand several shots of that calibre would be stupidly pointless.

Of course, the film has shown that the yields and shields need not to be so high. A troop transport shot down by very low yields bolts is enough to dispute all those absurd claims, simply because if such a standard top notch army transport have such limited shields, and still hold on for a couple of minutes against peashooters, it just means that all other weapons of similar crafts can't be orders of magnitudes higher than the firepower demonstrated by geonosian fighters.
And since we know that one of the classical methods to guess firepowers is to scale yields according to artillery size and so forth, it would severely put a cap on the yields of bigger ships, especially mass produced ships, military or not.

Mr. Oraghan wrote:No. The right question is any evidence that all the hull was damaged?
Wrong. We have just seen the ship in heavy exchange of fire. If you wish to use it as benchmark for how capital ships handle atmospheric entry then you better provide evidence that the fire exchange we all witnessed didn't damage it sufficiently to throw the results off.
Nope. Your mission is to prove that all of the bits that were either crushed during the landing, or which were stripped off the ship during the reentry, were previously hit.
We've seen that not all of the ship was hit by the previous fire exchange.
By default, the hull should be considered structurally intact, until it's been proven it's been damaged. It wouldn't be correct to assume the contrary.
Mr. Oraghan wrote:Controlled reentry, ffs. Even the NASA can manage a controlled reentry.
Not with ships the size and shape of a TIE.
What do you mean, exactly? Are you saying that TIEs can withstand uncontrolled reentry?
At the speed which they're flying at, hitting the atmosphere of a planet could very well be like hitting a brick wall.

Oh I'm sure many state that numbers are incorrect but they don't actually explain or prove where and how they are incorrect. Other than the usual "I didn't see it in the films!" but then if you need to see everything in the films then it's not exactly EXPANDED universe but RESTATED universe or something and I don't see why anyone would give money for that.
Actually, I concur that it's a problem that there's no real index available that points to all the webpages and forum threads were the figures are disputed, documented and debunked.

We keep saying it's been done, and I know it's been done, but to do so, we always have to point to links, and find them. Not all of these discussions or rebuttals can be found on webpages.
I've seen them here and there, they're sound, but one of their main tactic to dispute/ignore them is simply to point to their lack of existence, or organisation, along other methods like simple denial of the results.

For example, I could ask anyone where the Slave-I's seismic charge yield was adressed. We know it's been done *somewhere*.
Only a few remember where.
Same for the ship's missiles for example.

A good way to present a solid front against the ICS wankery would simply be to assemble a page that lists all sources which adress these numbers and the elements which pertain to these questions, notably those which help to judge the validity and methods used to obtain such numbers.

There's like a massive archiving job to do there, going back to 2002-2003 I think. The stuff's spread over Spacebattles.com, st-v-sw.net, SFJ.net, on forums and many other places.
  • Directly analyse the presented figures and theories (the way how TLs or shields work, the babble about neutrinos to excuse the absurd yields), deal with them one by one, by confronting them with canon evidence, and show how they're wrong. This requires looking at the ICS themselves, and pulling the info out of it, quote by quote.
  • Adress each, single, behind-the-scene pillar which supposedly supports these numbers. This can go from examples which, though undirectly related to the ICS, point to the Saxton-Wong club's habits to exagerate figures. Looking at SD.net's pages, threads, and Saxton's site would already be a lot. Spacebattles is probably a very good source to find, at least, examples of bad argumentation to support those numbers as well.
    This can go as far as literally adressing the whole Base Delta Zero, or the Superlaser and adress the idea that it's a just a turbolaser on steroids.
    There's also all the Solo/Dodonna quotes. We know it would be stupid to exclude the surface defenses from the briefing, but it may not be that clear to everyone.
  • List all the EU elements which support more reasonnable yields. I think it's very simple. One of the main reasons certain EU-philes only use the ICS figures, is apparently because they are more detailed and more numerous than anything else that could be found in the whole EU lore. But I'm firmly convinced of the contrary.
    This would mainly serve to point out the immense cherry picking these guys go through.
  • Adress the completely made up myth that the material the ICS introduces is of superior value to any material from the EU, and not forget to mention that the EU is not necessarily canon to everyone, especially since an LFL official recognized the existence of two canons, one that completely ignores the EU.
  • Check out the debating profiles and argumentation methods used by those who are behind those numbers, and their past records with the people who disagreed with them.
    The Talifan controversy would be one of the major examples, just to point out how far these people can go.
Ultimately, this would not serve to convince those who crafted those ideas, theories and numbers, but that would be particularily useful to those who are new to this special kind of mixed fandom.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:57 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:Apologies, Mr. Oragahn. Consider my comments redirected to the actual author, should they ever be directed to this thread.
Ah nevermind, I didn't really beg for excuses either. :)

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Post by Kazeite » Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:16 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:There seem to be some sort of confusion going on here.

This page is not mine.
Oh. Then I also apologise, oh big O, for assuming it was.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:52 pm

Kazeite wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There seem to be some sort of confusion going on here.

This page is not mine.
Oh. Then I also apologise, oh big O, for assuming it was.
"Big O"? :)
Makes it sound like an enlarged hole. O_O

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Post by Socar » Wed Jul 04, 2007 12:22 am

The page is by Surlethe. I haven't really seen any update on this since the time of its original posting (which was sometime around March).

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:00 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Between claims about megaton shielding for the Millenium Falcon, and often touted fighter kiloton firepower (laser cannons), any troop transport with less of a shield able to withstand several shots of that calibre would be stupidly pointless.

Of course, the film has shown that the yields and shields need not to be so high. A troop transport shot down by very low yields bolts is enough to dispute all those absurd claims, simply because if such a standard top notch army transport have such limited shields, and still hold on for a couple of minutes against peashooters, it just means that all other weapons of similar crafts can't be orders of magnitudes higher than the firepower demonstrated by geonosian fighters.
And since we know that one of the classical methods to guess firepowers is to scale yields according to artillery size and so forth, it would severely put a cap on the yields of bigger ships, especially mass produced ships, military or not.
Really now. A Black Hawk without an ability to withstand F-22A missile load would be stupidly pointless?
What if someone claimed USA actually has the technical ability to equip it's fighter launched missiles with kiloton level nuclear warheads? Now that would be really outrageous claim if we saw a Black Hawk troop carrier shot down by a bunch of Somali militia right?

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Nope. Your mission is to prove that all of the bits that were either crushed during the landing, or which were stripped off the ship during the reentry, were previously hit.
We've seen that not all of the ship was hit by the previous fire exchange.
By default, the hull should be considered structurally intact, until it's been proven it's been damaged. It wouldn't be correct to assume the contrary.
Ah I see. The ship was blasted by heavy fire, broke apart in two but it if I wish to claim that the remaining hulk was anything less than a perfect benchmark for a SW ship hull endurance it is up to me to provide evidence for that every square milimeter of it was damaged right?
Not to mention this is completely irrelevant to the ICS that only rates the shields not bare hull.


Mr. Oragahn wrote:What do you mean, exactly? Are you saying that TIEs can withstand uncontrolled reentry?
At the speed which they're flying at, hitting the atmosphere of a planet could very well be like hitting a brick wall.
I mean exactly what I said. NASA cannot accomplish a controlled reentry with a ship the size and shape of a TIE. It's materials are not tough enough.

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Post by Praeothmin » Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:38 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:
I mean exactly what I said. NASA cannot accomplish a controlled reentry with a ship the size and shape of a TIE. It's materials are not tough enough.
No, NASA cannot accomplish it because it has no ship the size of a TIE, for the simple reason that modern day technology doesn't have the equivalent TIE engines, antigrav and life support capabilities.
As far as the material goes, if NASA had a TIE, all it would need to do to accomplish this is put the same material that is under the space shuttles, and the TIE would then be able to survive re-entry.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:21 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Between claims about megaton shielding for the Millenium Falcon, and often touted fighter kiloton firepower (laser cannons), any troop transport with less of a shield able to withstand several shots of that calibre would be stupidly pointless.

Of course, the film has shown that the yields and shields need not to be so high. A troop transport shot down by very low yields bolts is enough to dispute all those absurd claims, simply because if such a standard top notch army transport have such limited shields, and still hold on for a couple of minutes against peashooters, it just means that all other weapons of similar crafts can't be orders of magnitudes higher than the firepower demonstrated by geonosian fighters.
And since we know that one of the classical methods to guess firepowers is to scale yields according to artillery size and so forth, it would severely put a cap on the yields of bigger ships, especially mass produced ships, military or not.
Really now. A Black Hawk without an ability to withstand F-22A missile load would be stupidly pointless?
What if someone claimed USA actually has the technical ability to equip it's fighter launched missiles with kiloton level nuclear warheads? Now that would be really outrageous claim if we saw a Black Hawk troop carrier shot down by a bunch of Somali militia right?
In the context of an universe where, supposedly, all the smallest combat ships have, at least, cannons ranging in the kiloton range, missiles ranging in the tens or hundreds of megatons, and shields rated in the same ranges, a heavily armed troop transport ship with shields which can't withstand a couple of hand grenade level shots would make sense?

It would be particularily funny if the ICS had a line about LAAT shield rates you know.

But I think there's also a yield given to the LAAT missiles used in AOTC.
Something, once again, near the megaton range, or right in it.
The same missiles which are used against CIS wheel droids...
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Nope. Your mission is to prove that all of the bits that were either crushed during the landing, or which were stripped off the ship during the reentry, were previously hit.
We've seen that not all of the ship was hit by the previous fire exchange.
By default, the hull should be considered structurally intact, until it's been proven it's been damaged. It wouldn't be correct to assume the contrary.
Ah I see. The ship was blasted by heavy fire, broke apart in two but it if I wish to claim that the remaining hulk was anything less than a perfect benchmark for a SW ship hull endurance it is up to me to provide evidence for that every square milimeter of it was damaged right?
Not to mention this is completely irrelevant to the ICS that only rates the shields not bare hull.


1. It is just so relevant it's not even funny. You claiming the contrary, however, is not surprising.
2. Prove that all the parts which broke apart, or all the plates that glowed red and/or were ripped off were previously damaged by the enemy fire. As as we can tell, even on single side was heavily damaged by a venturous Venator. Before that, there were no sign of significant enemy activity, and above all, no sign of structural damage to the ship.
Yet, during the fall, all sides were burning and falling off.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:What do you mean, exactly? Are you saying that TIEs can withstand uncontrolled reentry?
At the speed which they're flying at, hitting the atmosphere of a planet could very well be like hitting a brick wall.
I mean exactly what I said. NASA cannot accomplish a controlled reentry with a ship the size and shape of a TIE. It's materials are not tough enough.
Read Praethomin's post, please.
And again, please show where we've seen TIEs withstand uncontrolled reentries.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Thu Jul 05, 2007 2:47 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:I mean exactly what I said. NASA cannot accomplish a controlled reentry with a ship the size and shape of a TIE. It's materials are not tough enough.
Quick clarification: The size of the TIE is not an issue. NASA has de-orbited both larger and smaller objects. The only potential problems are with the shape of the TIE. You don't want the wings tearing off; those joints would be the only real problem pieces for an unpowered or uncontrolled re-entry.

If you don't mind throwing the wings overboard, it's easy. The fact that the TIE has repulsorlifts makes a controlled re-entry a very easy task. Not worth talking about with the drive system a TIE has, in other words.

However, an uncontrolled (or unpowered) re-entry of a whole TIE in one piece might be worth looking into. I can't recall NASA ever dropping anything that funny looking ballistically, and it would be quite a challenge to engineer with modern materials.

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