I don't know if this is the right place...

Did a related website in the community go down? Come back up? Relocate to a new address? Install pop-up advertisements?

This forum is for discussion of these sorts of issues.
Sothis
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I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Thu Aug 14, 2014 7:19 pm

... as it's not really a versus site (though it does have a versus section), but I have my own site up and running: http://www.meerkatmusings.co.uk

It's still very much a work in progress and combines a site with a blog, but hopefully it will prove interesting!

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:21 pm

You're okay on the placement of your announcement, Sothis.

Having just skimmed through your articles, I do have to say that I'm a little disappointed with the content as it is very shallow and simplistic in addressing Versus issues, and I hope that you'll take the time at some point and do more detailed analysis work.

For example, you claim a speed superiority for Star Wars, but you fail to mention that the canon Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie and TV series have established that hyperdrive speeds are highly dependent on hyperlanes. That is routes through space that allow safe passage. When the Confederacy of Independent Systems blockades those routes, it strands Republic forces. The EU material stated that it took centuries for the major routes to be established, but that is not canon, if it ever really was, and we don't have any real idea how long it would take the Empire or Republic or anyone else from the Galaxy to do that. But it is safe to assume that any Imperial forces would be heavily bogged down in movement in the Milky Way Galaxy trying to chart or obtain starcharts that are compatible with hyperdrive travel.

Warp drive in Star Trek, on the other hand, has demonstrated many times that it can match or beat many of the Star Wars hyperlane assisted speeds. So an invasion of the Federation by the Empire or Republic, would grind to a halt when faced by Starfleet and allied vessels running rings around them at FTL. But fortunately for Star Wars, and like hyperdrive, warp drive is dependent on good navigational data on the area of space traveled through. This is actually established canonically in several Voyager episodes such as "The Year of Hell, Part I" where obtaining an improvement in navigational data lets the ship shave several years off the trip back home. It is also crucial to the NX-01 crew in "Broken Bow" to have the Vulcan database and starcharts.

So it works both ways, and neither power has the advantage in an invasion of each other's space either way.

You also misrepresent the number of ships the Federation was sending to retake Deep Space Nine. It was stated that the fleet being formed was from "elements of the 2nd, 5th, and 9th fleets", and the Ninth fleet ships did not get there in time due to the schedule for the invasion being moved up when it is discovered that the minefield is going to be brought down in a couple of days. So more ships were intended to be used, but how many is unknown, but if it is roughly equal numbers, then at least around 300 more ships from the 9th fleet were on their way, would have brought the fleet total to around 1,000 ships. Given that Weyon and Dukat assigned 1,254 (according to Dr. Bashir that was an exact 2-to-1 number, thus the number of Federation ships that did make it was actually 627, not 600) of their own ships to the task indicates that the number may have been higher than a thousand ships.

Later on in the war when the Breen enter the war and their power-draining weapon has kept all but 1,500 Klingon ships with special modifications that make them immune from the weapon from the war, a Romulan official tells General Martok that the Dominion and allies have a 20-to-1 advantage over them in ship numbers. This means the Dominion and allies have around 30,000 ships between them. Up until that point, the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons would have likely had a rough parity, or they'd be utterly overwhelmed. If the allies are roughly equal in their division of ships, the Federation would have around 10,000 ships. Also, the Empire with 25,000 ships could not pull all those Star Destroyers off their assignments to fight the Federation, least they open up a lot of their territory to domestic enemies, such as the Rebel Alliance.

Also, while the Death Star represents an impressive technological achievement, we don't know if it's construction can translate into millions of smaller warships being built anymore than can the Federation's construction of the 14-18 km starbases, such as Starbase 74, means the Federation can build hundreds or thousands of Galaxy and Sovereign-class starships. Also, the Empire could not keep the first Death Star's construction a secret, and with the EU being definitively declared non-canon, we don't know what sort of labor was used to complete it. We also know that the CIS forces had being working on the battlestation some time prior to the Empire with working blueprints already drawn up at least some three years before it is seen during early construction in RoTS.

This lack of displayed knowledge of Trek and relying on unreliable reporters (friends at SDN) hurts your case.

Furthermore, you're exaggeration of the Empire's territory and holdings doesn't help much as the ANH novelization states that the Empire occupied one small part of a modest-sized galaxy. Given that the Milky Way is considered a large barred spiral galaxy, The Galaxy must be considerably smaller, and in AoTC we see when Obi-Wan looks up in the Jedi Archives the location of Kamino, we see that the graphic display zooms into an area that is supposed to be in the Outer Rim, but rather than zooming in on the edge of The Galaxy, it zooms into a middle part of it. Later, when Padame tries to convince Anakin to go rescue Obi-Wan, she brings up a graphic that shows Tatooine and Geonosis are located in the mid-point of their galaxy, not the very edges. The million systems Tarkin tells Leia about is never defined as member worlds, either. That could include non-member worlds and colonies as well as member worlds and that idea is supported strongly by the TPM novelization as well as by movie canon statements in AoTC which suggest that the Separatists having several thousand systems represented a halving of the Republic, which means the total member worlds might be no more than 20,000 strong.

Citing Vance claiming faster FTL communication again hurts your case as why would anyone not familiar with SDN want to bother looking up that person's posts? Also it shows again ignorance and unfamiliarity with Star Trek communications, which have shown the ability to transmit in real time across vast distances, and only show time lag in areas that lack suitable infrastructure.

Anyway that's from the small sampling of your blog site so far, and again I hope you take more time to elucidate your positions better.
-Mike

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Sun Aug 17, 2014 11:13 am

Thank you for your feedback Mike.

The site is very much a work-in-progress, and I will try to address your feedback as and when I get the chance.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Sun Aug 17, 2014 7:27 pm

Just as an aside, I've just changed the theme to make the site look (hopefully) a little better. It was a bit plain before, so hopefully, it's a bit brighter and bolder now.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Aug 17, 2014 8:46 pm

Looks nice. Always good to have those dedicated websites being given birth. The hobby's still alive more than ever.
I'll read it in depth later.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:18 pm

Good afternoon (or morning or evening, depending on where you are!). Mike, I did attempt to PM you my initial response to your feedback, to give you a heads-up, but something went wrong, so I present it here instead. http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/the-mike-di ... esponse-2/

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by 2046 » Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:53 pm

To summarize Sothis:

1. Hyperlanes are only a road safety thing. Going off-lane is perfectly fine.

The fact that Republic and Seppie defenses were oriented along lanes and that the long-forgotten-but-still-thought-safe-I-guess Nexus Route was a thing would seem to contradict such notions.

2. Voyager's potential 75 year trip was supposed to be at a steady warp nine because racecar, meaning warp nine is 1000c.

Ugh. Just no.

3. If the Feds had 10,000 ships then they were probably just old crap ones.

I think JMS made the point once that easily upgraded torpedoes are quite helpful in such a circumstance.

4. The Death Star owns.

Yes, an impressive display of fusion and steel. The Spruce Goose was impressive, too.

5. The Empire is big because Republic-era zoom-ins are inaccurate, and "split in two" could mean anything.

Weird claim… agreeable regarding the Naboo ship *transition* from galaxy view to system view, but the Archive zoom doesn't look like a default zoom cutscene. Also doesn't speak to the size issue, really.

6. Star Wars has faster communications.

I haven't reviewed this much. Both have infrastructure requirements in the form of relays and such (TCW novelization), and we have seen both enable great comm speed (e.g. DS9 to Earth realtime) so I don't know that it goes either way. But, we see Trek be demonstrably slower more often, at least so far. But sort of speed isn't always the case. I will need to review the transmission from Naboo to Iego… that may have been a recorded message, IIRC.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Lucky » Fri Aug 22, 2014 4:23 am

Sothis wrote:... as it's not really a versus site (though it does have a versus section), but I have my own site up and running: http://www.meerkatmusings.co.uk

It's still very much a work in progress and combines a site with a blog, but hopefully it will prove interesting!
If you make a reply, please post it in this thread.

I may have gone a bit overboard and hypercritical at times, sorry.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: Going forward, it’s clear Idazmi7 isn’t going to address my points (made in other comments) about the poor accuracy of Federation weapons. Both ‘Way of the Warrior’ and ‘A Call to Arms’ show Deep Space Nine’s weapons missing large targets and ships moving in straight lines. I guess Idazmi7 suffers from selective blindness (he certainly does when it comes to his own video).
1) 'Way of the Warrior', 'Call to Arms', and Deep Space Nine fleet combat in general aren't very good examples do to dialog and visuals not matching up well to dialog. It often seems the visual effects crews doing the starships didn't read the scripts.
Have you ever noticed how no one uses their shields even when the problems are fixed, and they are suppose to be using shields?

2) Just because the shot goes flying off screen does not mean it is a miss. Weapons in Star Trek have ranges that are measured in light seconds(TNG: The Wounded,Etc) and AU(The Motion Picture and many others). You can place a particle beam on Mars, and take potshots at Starfleet Academy on Earth.

Conversely ranges are far shorter in Star Wars(Destroy the Malevolence trilogy).

3) It doesn't help ships in Star Trek tool around at high fractions of the speed of light if not faster(Star Trek: First Contact, and many others) while ships in Star Wars might as well be standing still by comparison.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: The recourse of the desperate. Unable to actually prove his point with anything other than gross misrepresentation of the facts, he decides to bar me from the discussion.


There is actually even more- several concurrent threads cropped up regarding different issues. He claims at one stage that Starfleet has 97,000 ships. His proof lies entirely in the registry system- there’s a ship with the prefix NCC 97000, therefore there must be 97,000 ships.
The size of the Federation's fleet is unknown though I've heard the writers of Deep Space Nine assumed at least 10,000 starships in the middle and later parts of the war. The Federation having 100,000 ships doesn't sound outlandish if you are counting things that would never be meant to see combat.

You also shouldn't forget planetary defense forces that aren't part of Starfleet. I seem to recall Vulcan and Earth having their own personal fleets.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: Of course the Federation fleet is not in one spot, but why is this even relevant? With 97,000 ships covering their territory, the Federation should be able to bring to bear a considerable number of vessels at any point within their territory to deal with any crisis. Instead, they were scrounging together a fleet to retake Deep Space Nine, a key strategic outpost!
1) It depends on how fast you think warp drive can be. Much like the hyperdrive in Star Wars mapping seems to greatly effect travel times. Space is a very dangerous place in Star Trek.

No hyperlanes and your hyperdrive might as well be a sublight drive as seen in the Destroy the Malevolence trilogy.

Mean while warp travel seems to slow to about 1,000c over long distances without maps, but can still be much higher in a sprint. Voyager also had a damaged warpcore the entire series.

2) You seem to forget that both sides had relatively evenly matched fleets during the Dominion war, and that either the Alpha Quadrant side could build ships at an insane rate or they had a huge number of ships at the start of the war. The losses were rather large do to shields not working

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: The claim the Dominion had far superior technology is just bizarre, but then it makes in light of his attempts to make the Federation fleet seem much larger. It’s the only way 2,800 ships can possibly pose a threat to 97,000 vessels.
1)The Dominion did seem to have slightly more advanced technology then the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, but not to a degree of say the Borg.

2) The two sides were evenly matched roughly speaking. 2,800 ships appearing for either side would be a great advantage for that side.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: Another salient point is- if the Dominion enjoyed such an advantage, why did they feel the need to put together a fleet twice as large as the one the Federation sent to retake Deep Space Nine?
Space is big, and there is no kill like over kill. Without the limitations of something like Hyperlanes it is hard to block an attacking fleet.

ANH, TESB, ROTJ, TPM all clearly show that you can only enter and leave hyperlanes from a very limited area.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: There is but more to that discussion, such as my mentioning that NCC numbers could easily include runabouts (in fact they do), and quite possibly cargo ships and transports as well. NCC numbers may also be on record but referring to decommissioned ships (another point I made Idazmi7 aware of). His response was that Starfleet recycles the numbers, but we’ve only seen this happen with the Enterprise and possibly the Defiant, so it’s hardly reasonable to assume it happens with every registry.
Don't most runabout and shuttles we see share the NCC number with the ship they are stationed on?

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-2/ wrote: As will be demonstrated later on, the Borg do in fact use their lasers as weapons. Don’t expect Idazmi7 to acknowledge the evidence though.

Not only does Worf describe the beam weapon that cuts out a piece of the Enterprise in ‘Q Who’ (and is used in ‘Best of Both Worlds’) as a cutting laser,
The borg didn't use a LASER until it had disabled the Enterprise-D's shields. There is no contradiction because the laser was used on naked hull, and it wasn't just a laser, but tractor beams and other stuff as well.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-2/ wrote: but we see this weapon used against Voyager in ‘Dark Frontier’ and ‘Unimatrix Zero’, and the difference in effectiveness is dependent on the power of the ship using the weapons.
And what evidence do you have beyond superficial appearance? The borg likes green glowy stuff, and disruptors and tractor beams are also green glowy things.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-2/ wrote: The problem with the no-laser argument is obvious. One type of laser proved ineffective in ‘The Outrageous Okuna’, so the assumption is that all types of laser weapon are ineffective against Federation ships, irrespective of power. To top it off, there is the further assumption that turbolasers in Star Wars share the same properties as the lasers in ‘The Outrageous Okuna’. Yet when the Borg cutting laser is described in such terms, suddenly it’s not really a laser and it’s just a name. The hypocrisy is annoying and also blatant.
1) Gravity will work equally well on all laser. Picard says the navigational deflector on the Enterprise-D is laser proof it is laser proof, and you have no contradictions of this from what i see. It doesn't hurt that the navigational deflector needs to be photon proof or the ship would be destroyed every time it used its faster then light drive.

2) You've provide no evidence that a Star Wars style "laser" will be able to get through a navigational deflector. N.F.E. and black hole levels of gravity are nasty things.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: Firstly, he displays either ignorance about the timeline of the episodes (‘A Call to Arms’ comes before ‘Sacrifice of Angels’). Secondly, he confuses a tactical advantage as a sign that Dominion ships are significantly more powerful than Federation vessels (despite the fact that a Jem’Hadar attack ship couldn’t destroy a puny runabout in ‘Treachery, Faith and the Great River’). The Dominion’s ability to penetrate Federation shields was not due to the power of their weapons but the design of the weapon, and once this advantage was dealt with the two forces were on roughly equal footing, with some Dominion designs proving more powerful than their Federation counterparts, but also some Federation designs proving more powerful than some Dominion designs!
You do realize that Star Fleet was upgrading the runabouts throughout all of Deep Space Nine? A runabout from season one is not a runabout from later seasons.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: Not only is Idazmi7 wrong about the prefix NCC (it has never been canonically defined), he assumes every registry number is recycled, even though this is not demonstrated. It is typically an honour reserved for famous ships, like the Enterprise, but it is hardly a given for every ship in the fleet! Additionally, Starfleet issues registry numbers to runabouts and for all we know, cargo ships and transports, which would inflate the registries in use without referring to military vessels.
As I recall, most runabout sized craft share the NCC number with its parent starship

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: It’s funny how he criticises my use of Memory Alpha, yet if you look through the comments on his videos, he’s quite happy to use it himself when it benefits him. Nor does he provide a source for his claim about the prefix (though I suppose it’s a nitpick at the end of the day). He assumes that because the Enterprise’s registry has been recycled several times this applies to all Federation vessels, convieniently ignoring the fame of the Enterprise and how she’s traditionally been the flagship. He is also wrong about runabouts.

His reference to ‘Valiant’ is yet another example of wilful misrepresentation of the facts. In the episode, a Defiant-class ship by the name of Valiant goes up against a Dominion battleship said to be three times as powerful as a Galaxy-class starship. The Valiant attempts to exploit a supposed weakness in the enemy ship but the plan fails and the Valiant is destroyed.
While the case for is weak, I'm not seeing a case that it isn't done?

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: The episode does not claim all Dominion ships enjoy a 3-1 power advantage over Federation ships, and even if they did, the Dominion would still need more than 2,800 reinforcements to pose a significant threat to a standing fleet of 97,000 vessels. It’s a simple question of maths.
A fleet that you lack a fleet to counter will be a big problem.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: His final reponse on the subject. I’ll take it as an admission on his part that he has no argument left and concedes the point.

As a final thought, one of the denziens of Stardestroyer.net pointed out the registry NCC-97000 actually comes from Star Trek Online, which is not a canon source! (many thanks to StarSword from SD.net for that nugget!).
Arguing fleet size in Star Trek is difficult to to a lack of information both in-universe, and behind the scenes.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: Here, we have a serious attempt to argue the Enterprise could withstand a Death Star blast. That’s right, apparently the Enterprise can withstand a planet-busting weapon, even though we see plenty of instances where far lower firepower can knock out or penetrate Federation shields.
For all practical purposes this happens repeatedly on screen, and we are even told the output of the weapon once.
Kirk's ship gets hit with a planet based weapon stated to be ten times what Saxton and Wong say the Death Star's super laser was capable of.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: In ‘Survivors’, The Enterprise’s shields are knocked out by two 600GW bursts. That’s two 0.5 megaton blasts. Does Idazmi7 really believe the Death Star is less powerful than the Husnock warship in ‘Survivors’? Even the chain reaction numbers I’ve seen given for the Death Star are far higher than the laughable idea that Idazmi7 is suggesting.
1) You realize that there are anti-shield weapons in Star Trek, and the weapon you are talking about barely did anything to the hull. There was good reason Worf sounded confused. The transcript doesn't tell the whole story as Picard figured out what was going on well before the end of the episode because of the weapon you are talking about.

2) Given the powerful R.O.B. with a range seemingly measured in light years, we can't be sure anything seen or said in the episode is true.

3) You've already proven that you realize that different weapons have different interactions with shields so you come across as rather dishonest here. It's worse when you take into account the R.O.B. was the ship firing the weapon..
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: ‘Inheritance’ has them drilling a small hole that is only a couple of kilometres deep and hardly indicative of the ability to wipe out a planet’s surface. This is also after the phasers had been modified to drill- it’s not part of their normal operating parameters.
1) Roughly a third of the way through the planet in less then half a minute is not a small hole

2) Given they planned to generate plasma to melt the planet's insides this episode is one high end after another while the Feds are pulling their punches.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: It took several seconds to drill a 1.6KM hole in ‘Legacy’. Hardly impressive.
Key word is drill. That was a rescue mission, and the people they were trying to save were near where they were drilling.

They also didn't want the captors to know they were drilling the hole.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: in which episode did the Enterprise implode a planet’s mantle?
Sounds like Pen Pals or Inheritance. Both involve doing something to the core of a planet.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: In which episode did a Pird of Prey destroy all life on a planet? 
TNG: The Chase
We are not told exactly how it was done, but is basically sterilized the planet in a minute or two at most, and was done by a single cloaked ship. It's not that they can't easily kill everything on a planet or easily blow up planets if they want to in Star Trek, but that they don't because they are in a M.A.D. scenario with their neighbors.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: Finally, we come to ‘The Die is Cast’, where the visuals are inconsistent with the dialogue and dialogue manages to be inconsistent with other dialogue. Not exactly bullet-proof evidence is it?

The visual evidence shows shockwaves passing over completely undisrupted planetary surface with none of the expected results of such huge destruction. The term ‘grasping at straws’ comes to mind.
The people doing the visuals for Deep Space Nine did a horrible job, but we know blowing up a planet in Star Trek with a fleet is rather easy as it's stated a thousand NX-01 could do it, and we see the results of a bombardment by a fleet armed with primitive(for the 24th century Federation) weapons in Booby Trap.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: Idazmi7 claims the 2800 ships were to take Deep Space Nine alone. Considering that the Dominion already held Deep Space Nine at this point, why would they need to send a fleet to take it? He is having to desperately twist events to try and justify his fleet numbers for the Federation (97,000), and he is backing himself into a corner in the process.
Because both sides were roughly evenly matched, and the wormhole being open for the Dominion means the FKR can't strike at those resources.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: . Imperial vessels look old, and in no way sleek or modern. Federation ships are therefore much more advanced.

Looks aren’t everything. A modern cruise liner looks a lot nicer and more modern than an AEGIS cruiser- I know which one would sink the other though. Imperial ships are designed for function- and that function is war. Who cares if they have fancy shiny controls or sleek aerodynamic designs? These things are not relevant where war is concerned.
1) I've never seen anyone argue that.

2) Imperial ships function is to be scary, and be jack of all trades and masters of none. Heck, over 50% of a Star Destroyer's volume seems to be dedicated to parasite craft and ground troops, with weapon tacked on as an after thought.

2.5) Fear over effectiveness is the Imperial way, and it works great for them so long as it's the ignorant and superstitious stone age spear chuckers they have to deal with.

3) You do realize that Starships in Star Trek are more like jet fighters then blue water craft?

4) The Federation builds ships intended to go into harms way with no back up, and come out on top, and then they furnish them like cruise ships.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 2. Why is this about the Federation vs the Empire? Wouldn’t the Klingons, Romulans etc help?

Why would they? Did the Alpha Quadrant band together to fight the Dominion, who represented the biggest threat to them all bar the Borg? No, they didn’t- the Cardassians joined the Dominion, the Romulans had to be tricked into taking part on the Allies’ side, and the Breen later also joined the Dominion. A number of empires declared themselves neutral too- the Gorn and the Tholians spring to mind.

So there’s no reason to assume everyone would rally round to fight the Empire, although even if they did, it would not affect the outcome of a war.
Given how Imperials conduct themselves I doubt this conclusion. The Dominion has diplomatic skills the Empire does not.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 3. Q would help the Federation. For that matter, so would any number of super-beings within the Milky Way.

Like they did when the Federation was threatened by the Borg, or the Dominion? They have never intervened to help, even when the problem was caused by them (Q introduced the Federation to the Borg, remember).

Furthermore, if Q did help, how is this a sign that the Federation can defeat the Empire? This is a copout- relying on super-beings to win, because the Federation can’t hope to.
The Q made sure the Federation won against the Borg and Dominion as Voy:Death Wish shows. They are casual time and universe travelers, and need not take overt action to ensure their favored side wins.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 4. In the TNG episode ‘The Outrageous Okuna’, Picard scoffs at laser weaponry, claiming it wouldn’t even penetrate their navigational shields. Since the Empire uses turbolasers, this means Imperial weapons would be useless against Federation shields.

This argument falls prey to the ‘no limits fallacy’. It assumes that because Picard made no specific mention of the power of laser weaponry, it doesn’t matter how powerful the laser is- Federation shields can resist it. This is of course wrong.
Firstly, energy has to go somewhere. This is one of the cardinal rules of thermodynamics- energy cannot be destroyed or created. Lets say the Enterprise can withstand 70TJ of energy before her shields fail. Lets say she is hit by a laser carrying 700TJ of energy. That’s ten times the energy her shields can handle. If you listen to the ‘no laser’ crowd, 630TJ of energy just mysteriously disappears. We have never seen or heard of the Federation possessing the ability to make energy disappear.

Secondly, where does Picard say that no laser, of any type or power, is useless against Federation ships? It’s clear he is referring only to the weaponry he is immediately facing. A fact made all the clearer by how other lasers later on are effective.

The Borg cutting laser, as seen in both ‘Q Who’ and ‘Best of Both Worlds’, is described as a laser by Worf, a trained tactical officer, and this weapon is very effective.

Finally, why assume turbolasers from Star Wars have to be like real lasers? They can be seen, which means they travel slower than light- whereas a laser is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and would travel at the speed of light, thus not being visible.
You're going to want to rewrite this. Your understanding of physics appears lacking here as well as what a no limits fallacy is. It sounds like you are claiming that a L.A.S.E.R. can escape a black hole if the wattage is high enough.

A laser can only damage something if it can hit it. Gravity and N.D.E. fields for the win. Picard's statement is physically possible with known physics, and known Federation technology. Yield is irrelevant is the attack can never connect. Gravitational lensing is cool that way.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: So what? Holodecks are usually used for recreational purposes, and whilst they can be used for training purposes it’s not like the Empire would lack training facilities- they possess a million star systems! They could easily have entire worlds devoted to training troops.
1) Modern militaries build exact copies of locations they plan to attack at times, and a holodeck makes this easy. I seem to recall an episode were they wish they had a holodeck on the Defiant for this very reason.

2) Morale is important.

3) Exercise is important.

3) You may want to question claimed planets VS planets the Empire actual uses for anything. How many Hoths, Tatoonies, Naboos does the Empire actually have VS productive planets.

4) Since when does the Epire move planets on a regular basis? Holodecks are easily moved to where you need them.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: Replicators are convenient, but they hardly change the balance of military power. Their usefulness in that respect is quite low.
Replacators greatly simplafy logistics, and make it so a ship almost never needs to resupply. So long as they have fuel they are fine, and can build just about anything they need.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: Transporters would allow for the rapid deployment of troops, but they cannot get through shields, and magnetic fields (even low-level ones that occur naturally, or even simply thick rock or metals) can interfere with them. Imperial ships use jamming as a matter of routine, so there is no guarantee that they would work at all.
Here you try to pass off weird stuff as mundane, and ignore that transport through shields is possible, and these sorts of things only matter if you want what you are transporting to come out on the other end undamaged/alive.

Just because something is natural in Star Trek does not make them any less rare or exotic in the setting. The stars in TNG: Suspicions and Descent are prime examples of rare and exotic natural things that cause a problem while the more mundane versions do not.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 6. The Rebellion defeated the Empire, and they only hand a few dozen ships! Surely if such a paltry force could beat the Empire, the Federation could too!

The Rebels have ships that are of the same technological base as the Empire’s, and they didn’t defeat the Empire in open battle. They fought a guerrilla war, and attacked only when they thought they had the element of surprise. They ‘beat’ the Empire by killing the Emperor, and because the Emperor did not have an official heir, the Empire fell into infighting and civil war with several factions vying for power. Add to this mix the Rebellion continuing to sow seeds of disarray and with (if the end of the Special Edition of ‘Return of the Jedi’ is anything to go by) multiple worlds in open revolt, the Empire fell apart.
The Federation cannot hope to achieve this feat.
1) The Emperor never had the power to pass his "emergency" powers to anyone. There wasn't an Imperial tradition as you seem to claim. With his death, the sensate would need to grant someone else the "emergency" powers that let Palpitene become Emperor, but fat chance of that happening without several generations coming and going first.

2) A tricorder scan would be pretty much all the Federation would need to know everything there was to know about Star Wars technology. It's pretty handy to be able to scan things down to the quantum level.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:00 am

2046 wrote:To summarize Sothis:

1. Hyperlanes are only a road safety thing. Going off-lane is perfectly fine.

The fact that Republic and Seppie defenses were oriented along lanes and that the long-forgotten-but-still-thought-safe-I-guess Nexus Route was a thing would seem to contradict such notions.
I'm a tad disappointed by your gross-oversimplification of what I said:
My issue with this is that the speed is not necessarily dependent on hyperlanes, but rather, the ability to use that speed safely. The Falcon had no trouble simply popping off into hyperspace whenever it needed to, the Rebels never mentioned lanes, and nor did the Imperial forces in any part of the Original Trilogy. Nor are they mentioned in the Prequel Trilogy.

The only mention I can find of hyperlanes via this page is that it’s all about safe passage, and hyperdrive remains fast regardless (albeit more dangerous) when used outside of these lanes. A would-be Imperial invasion force has access to probe droids and could deploy scoutships to survey the area. They could also trade with locals for maps. It isn’t a given that they would be bogged down for long, if at all.
So obviously, I don't claim it's safe to use hyperdrive outside of a designated lane - only that it's very much possible, as demonstrated by the events of the six Saga films, where hyperlanes are not referred to at all, by anyone.
2. Voyager's potential 75 year trip was supposed to be at a steady warp nine because racecar, meaning warp nine is 1000c.

Ugh. Just no.
Janeway states in 'Caretaker' that 'even at maximum speeds, it would take 75 years to get home'. This is a pretty clear statement. She doesn't say 'maximum cruising speeds', just 'maximum speeds'. In the interests of fairness, I have assumed this to be cruising speeds, rather than a 9.9 sprint that would tax the engines considerably more than even warp 9 would.
3. If the Feds had 10,000 ships then they were probably just old crap ones.

I think JMS made the point once that easily upgraded torpedoes are quite helpful in such a circumstance.
I do not recall saying all Federation ships would have been 'old crap ones'. Here is what I said:
Ok, fair enough, if we follow this idea that the Dominion forces outnumbered the Klingons 20-1 then there’s a fair point to be had about numbers. It’s conceivable that the Federation and its allies have managed to build up their forces during wartime to something like 10,000 vessels (assuming they haven’t refitted and recommissioned older ships in an effort to boost their numbers, which would explain the large number of Miranda-class designs seen throughout the war).
I even go as far as to point out that these ships have been refitted, and not simply thrust into battle with no upgrades whatsoever.
4. The Death Star owns.

Yes, an impressive display of fusion and steel. The Spruce Goose was impressive, too.
Are you saying you don't think the Death Star is an impressive demonstration of construction techniques?
5. The Empire is big because Republic-era zoom-ins are inaccurate, and "split in two" could mean anything.

Weird claim… agreeable regarding the Naboo ship *transition* from galaxy view to system view, but the Archive zoom doesn't look like a default zoom cutscene. Also doesn't speak to the size issue, really.
Split in two 'can' mean anything. It does not have to be a 50/50 split in terms of direct territory, as my London example explained. I'm still waiting for the quote from the ANH novel that speeds to a modest-sized galaxy.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Fri Aug 22, 2014 3:08 pm

Lucky wrote:
Sothis wrote:... as it's not really a versus site (though it does have a versus section), but I have my own site up and running: http://www.meerkatmusings.co.uk

It's still very much a work in progress and combines a site with a blog, but hopefully it will prove interesting!
If you make a reply, please post it in this thread.

I may have gone a bit overboard and hypercritical at times, sorry.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: Going forward, it’s clear Idazmi7 isn’t going to address my points (made in other comments) about the poor accuracy of Federation weapons. Both ‘Way of the Warrior’ and ‘A Call to Arms’ show Deep Space Nine’s weapons missing large targets and ships moving in straight lines. I guess Idazmi7 suffers from selective blindness (he certainly does when it comes to his own video).
1) 'Way of the Warrior', 'Call to Arms', and Deep Space Nine fleet combat in general aren't very good examples do to dialog and visuals not matching up well to dialog. It often seems the visual effects crews doing the starships didn't read the scripts.
A lot of combat on Star Trek is fought at close range (not just DS9, though DS9, with large-scale battles, shows this more than most). Whether we like it or not, those examples are as canon as anything we see in any other part of the franchise, and they are very clear in what they depict - short-range fights, and shots missing during those fights. There's also not as much inconsistency between dialogue and visuals as there appears - whilst ranges for Federation ships can be as great as 300,000KM, this doesn't mean such ranges are effective against small or fast targets (especially when there's jamming occurring, such as the jamming the Dominion uses against Federation comms in 'Sacrifice of Angels'.
Have you ever noticed how no one uses their shields even when the problems are fixed, and they are suppose to be using shields?
I don't quite follow.
2) Just because the shot goes flying off screen does not mean it is a miss. Weapons in Star Trek have ranges that are measured in light seconds(TNG: The Wounded,Etc) and AU(The Motion Picture and many others). You can place a particle beam on Mars, and take potshots at Starfleet Academy on Earth.

Conversely ranges are far shorter in Star Wars(Destroy the Malevolence trilogy).
In the battles in 'Way of the Warrior' and 'Call to Arms', none of the attacking ships are more than a few KM away, yet, in both episodes, we see what can only be described as misses. In 'Call to Arms', at one stage several Jem'Hadar attack ships are heading in a straight-line for the station, and the station manages to miss with phaser fire.

Being able to target one planet from another (a planet is a very large, relatively-slow moving object) is not indicative of being able to do the same thing to a ship.
3) It doesn't help ships in Star Trek tool around at high fractions of the speed of light if not faster(Star Trek: First Contact, and many others) while ships in Star Wars might as well be standing still by comparison.
There's no visual evidence to support this in combat scenes. In First Contact, Federation ships meander lazily around the languid Borg cube, and the ships in 'Sacrifice of Angels' do not zip quickly past one another (there are several stationary Cardassian vessels that appear to be doing nothing, apart from looking pretty for other ships to fly past).
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: The recourse of the desperate. Unable to actually prove his point with anything other than gross misrepresentation of the facts, he decides to bar me from the discussion.


There is actually even more- several concurrent threads cropped up regarding different issues. He claims at one stage that Starfleet has 97,000 ships. His proof lies entirely in the registry system- there’s a ship with the prefix NCC 97000, therefore there must be 97,000 ships.
The size of the Federation's fleet is unknown though I've heard the writers of Deep Space Nine assumed at least 10,000 starships in the middle and later parts of the war. The Federation having 100,000 ships doesn't sound outlandish if you are counting things that would never be meant to see combat.

You also shouldn't forget planetary defense forces that aren't part of Starfleet. I seem to recall Vulcan and Earth having their own personal fleets.[/quote]

As I understand it, the 97,000 reference comes from the NCC reg of a ship from Star Trek Online, so Idazmi7 hasn't even used canon material for that reference. Then of course, there's the detail about registrations not always being re-used after ships are destroyed or decommissioned. Famous ships (like the Enterprise) might get their prefix recycled - this doesn't mean they all do.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: Of course the Federation fleet is not in one spot, but why is this even relevant? With 97,000 ships covering their territory, the Federation should be able to bring to bear a considerable number of vessels at any point within their territory to deal with any crisis. Instead, they were scrounging together a fleet to retake Deep Space Nine, a key strategic outpost!
1) It depends on how fast you think warp drive can be. Much like the hyperdrive in Star Wars mapping seems to greatly effect travel times. Space is a very dangerous place in Star Trek.

No hyperlanes and your hyperdrive might as well be a sublight drive as seen in the Destroy the Malevolence trilogy.

Mean while warp travel seems to slow to about 1,000c over long distances without maps, but can still be much higher in a sprint. Voyager also had a damaged warpcore the entire series.[/quote]

What is your source for Voyager having a damaged warp core? And as I have since pointed out to 2046, none of the ships in the six Saga films appear restricted to hyperlanes, and nor are they even referred to. A lot of this though, is Idazmi7 trying to come up with excuses to inflate Federation fleet strength, and he times himself into knots trying to.

He needs to come up with a reason for the Federation to have such a vast fleet, yet be easily threatened by comparatively few Dominion ships (and be vastly outgunned by the Dominion too).
2) You seem to forget that both sides had relatively evenly matched fleets during the Dominion war, and that either the Alpha Quadrant side could build ships at an insane rate or they had a huge number of ships at the start of the war. The losses were rather large do to shields not working
By the time the war started, the Federation had resolved the shield issue, so it's more likely Idazmi7 was greatly over-stating fleet strength. Remember, the 112 ships of the 7th Fleet were seen as making an important offensive move against the Dominion in 'A Time to Stand', and to the Dominion, pulling together a fleet of over 1200 ships to stop the Federation in 'Sacrifice of Angels' was seen as putting together a large force. To both sides, the 2800 reinforcements due to come through the wormhole were seen as a game-changer - to the Federation and the Klingons, those reinforcements spelled destruction.

It's conceivable that as the war wore on, both sides steadily built up their forces, which might, come the events of the second half of season 7, lead to there being roughly 10,000 ships a piece (though all sides could have boosted their numbers by refitting old ships and sending them into battle - quicker than building all of them from scratch).
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: The claim the Dominion had far superior technology is just bizarre, but then it makes in light of his attempts to make the Federation fleet seem much larger. It’s the only way 2,800 ships can possibly pose a threat to 97,000 vessels.
1)The Dominion did seem to have slightly more advanced technology then the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, but not to a degree of say the Borg.

2) The two sides were evenly matched roughly speaking. 2,800 ships appearing for either side would be a great advantage for that side.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: Another salient point is- if the Dominion enjoyed such an advantage, why did they feel the need to put together a fleet twice as large as the one the Federation sent to retake Deep Space Nine?
Space is big, and there is no kill like over kill. Without the limitations of something like Hyperlanes it is hard to block an attacking fleet.[/quote]

Yet the original point I was making here, is that Idazmi7 was arguing for a massive firepower advantage for the Dominion - an advantage that doesn't exist.
ANH, TESB, ROTJ, TPM all clearly show that you can only enter and leave hyperlanes from a very limited area.
Where in any of these films are hyperlanes even mentioned?
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses/ wrote: There is but more to that discussion, such as my mentioning that NCC numbers could easily include runabouts (in fact they do), and quite possibly cargo ships and transports as well. NCC numbers may also be on record but referring to decommissioned ships (another point I made Idazmi7 aware of). His response was that Starfleet recycles the numbers, but we’ve only seen this happen with the Enterprise and possibly the Defiant, so it’s hardly reasonable to assume it happens with every registry.
Don't most runabout and shuttles we see share the NCC number with the ship they are stationed on?[/quote]

So they do (or at least shuttles do). Cargo ships and transports though, would most likely have their own registries.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-2/ wrote: As will be demonstrated later on, the Borg do in fact use their lasers as weapons. Don’t expect Idazmi7 to acknowledge the evidence though.

Not only does Worf describe the beam weapon that cuts out a piece of the Enterprise in ‘Q Who’ (and is used in ‘Best of Both Worlds’) as a cutting laser,
The borg didn't use a LASER until it had disabled the Enterprise-D's shields. There is no contradiction because the laser was used on naked hull, and it wasn't just a laser, but tractor beams and other stuff as well.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-2/ wrote: but we see this weapon used against Voyager in ‘Dark Frontier’ and ‘Unimatrix Zero’, and the difference in effectiveness is dependent on the power of the ship using the weapons.
And what evidence do you have beyond superficial appearance? The borg likes green glowy stuff, and disruptors and tractor beams are also green glowy things.[/quote]

We see the Borg use precisely one type of beam weapon in the show, that was first described as a laser, and never redefined since. In the absence of other data, what else should they be regarded as?
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-2/ wrote: The problem with the no-laser argument is obvious. One type of laser proved ineffective in ‘The Outrageous Okuna’, so the assumption is that all types of laser weapon are ineffective against Federation ships, irrespective of power. To top it off, there is the further assumption that turbolasers in Star Wars share the same properties as the lasers in ‘The Outrageous Okuna’. Yet when the Borg cutting laser is described in such terms, suddenly it’s not really a laser and it’s just a name. The hypocrisy is annoying and also blatant.
1) Gravity will work equally well on all laser. Picard says the navigational deflector on the Enterprise-D is laser proof it is laser proof, and you have no contradictions of this from what i see. It doesn't hurt that the navigational deflector needs to be photon proof or the ship would be destroyed every time it used its faster then light drive.

2) You've provide no evidence that a Star Wars style "laser" will be able to get through a navigational deflector. N.F.E. and black hole levels of gravity are nasty things.[/quote]

What proof is there that turbolasers are anything remotely like the lasers in 'The Outrageous Okuna'? And what proof is there from 'TOO' that any laser, regardless of power, is useless against Federation shields?
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: Firstly, he displays either ignorance about the timeline of the episodes (‘A Call to Arms’ comes before ‘Sacrifice of Angels’). Secondly, he confuses a tactical advantage as a sign that Dominion ships are significantly more powerful than Federation vessels (despite the fact that a Jem’Hadar attack ship couldn’t destroy a puny runabout in ‘Treachery, Faith and the Great River’). The Dominion’s ability to penetrate Federation shields was not due to the power of their weapons but the design of the weapon, and once this advantage was dealt with the two forces were on roughly equal footing, with some Dominion designs proving more powerful than their Federation counterparts, but also some Federation designs proving more powerful than some Dominion designs!
You do realize that Star Fleet was upgrading the runabouts throughout all of Deep Space Nine? A runabout from season one is not a runabout from later seasons.[/quote]

Where is stated the Runabouts received upgrades? And even if they did, should we assume this means they are suddenly as effective as a dedicated warship like a Jem'Hadar fighter?

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: Not only is Idazmi7 wrong about the prefix NCC (it has never been canonically defined), he assumes every registry number is recycled, even though this is not demonstrated. It is typically an honour reserved for famous ships, like the Enterprise, but it is hardly a given for every ship in the fleet! Additionally, Starfleet issues registry numbers to runabouts and for all we know, cargo ships and transports, which would inflate the registries in use without referring to military vessels.
As I recall, most runabout sized craft share the NCC number with its parent starship

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: It’s funny how he criticises my use of Memory Alpha, yet if you look through the comments on his videos, he’s quite happy to use it himself when it benefits him. Nor does he provide a source for his claim about the prefix (though I suppose it’s a nitpick at the end of the day). He assumes that because the Enterprise’s registry has been recycled several times this applies to all Federation vessels, convieniently ignoring the fame of the Enterprise and how she’s traditionally been the flagship. He is also wrong about runabouts.

His reference to ‘Valiant’ is yet another example of wilful misrepresentation of the facts. In the episode, a Defiant-class ship by the name of Valiant goes up against a Dominion battleship said to be three times as powerful as a Galaxy-class starship. The Valiant attempts to exploit a supposed weakness in the enemy ship but the plan fails and the Valiant is destroyed.
While the case for is weak, I'm not seeing a case that it isn't done?[/quote]

Again, not quite following - which part of this argument are you addressing?

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-3/ wrote: The episode does not claim all Dominion ships enjoy a 3-1 power advantage over Federation ships, and even if they did, the Dominion would still need more than 2,800 reinforcements to pose a significant threat to a standing fleet of 97,000 vessels. It’s a simple question of maths.
A fleet that you lack a fleet to counter will be a big problem.
And yet, with such a large fleet, the Federation would eventually be able to get reinforcements in to counter the Dominion. There was not even the suggestion of this, nor has there ever been the suggestion the Federation fleet is dispersed to such a degree.

I shall have to respond to the rest later, as I don't currently have time to respond to all of it now.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:15 pm

Sothis wrote:Where in any of these films are hyperlanes even mentioned?
This is a bad, bad way to dodge the point. We don't need the movies to mention hyperlanes (or hyper lanes as some other sources spell it). The Star Wars:The Clone Wars movie and TV series both have detailed mention of hyperlanes and it is a major plot point. Given that at the time and currently now George Lucas and now Disney consider TCW to be as canon as the movies, this fills in critical information about how hyperspace travel works, you have to address that, Sothis. You can't just handwave it away like that, as in this case there is no canon hierarchy.

Otherwise we can say that Tarkin's statement about the "million systems" in the ANH novelization is never mentioned in the same scene in the movie, and thus is invalid by extension.

I'll be going into this and the other issues into much greater detail in my reply to you, so stay tuned.
-Mike

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:38 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Sothis wrote:Where in any of these films are hyperlanes even mentioned?
This is a bad, bad way to dodge the point. We don't need the movies to mention hyperlanes (or hyper lanes as some other sources spell it). The Star Wars:The Clone Wars movie and TV series both have detailed mention of hyperlanes and it is a major plot point. Given that at the time and currently now George Lucas and now Disney consider TCW to be as canon as the movies, this fills in critical information about how hyperspace travel works, you have to address that, Sothis. You can't just handwave it away like that, as in this case there is no canon hierarchy.

Otherwise we can say that Tarkin's statement about the "million systems" in the ANH novelization is never mentioned in the same scene in the movie, and thus is invalid by extension.

I'll be going into this and the other issues into much greater detail in my reply to you, so stay tuned.
-Mike
I am doing this via a phone right now so apologies if there are any spelling mistakes.

I hope, tomorrow, to respond to the rest of Lucky's post.

In respect of hyperdrive and hyperlanes, you are correct - the evidence cannot be waved away. This, of course, cuts both ways. The Clone Wars are not overriden by the main films but the main films are not overriden by TCW either. The complete lack of any mention of lanes in the six films is as important as its mention in TCW. The best thing is to come up with a logical explanation for why they are never mentioned in the Saga films, and the best explanation I can think of is the one I have already stated - that lanes offer safer travel, with little or no chance of navigational hazards, as opposed to zipping into hyperdrive anywhere else. That doesn't mean, without a decent astrogation system and a willingness to take risks, that hyperspace is completely dangerous outside of those lanes - just more dangerous.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by 2046 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:24 pm

Since Lucky's post was a dogpile of one (which would make an awesome sig or band name, by the way), and since, given my history of being on the receiving end, I try to be cognizant of dogpiling, I'll keep things as short as possible for now.

That said, your hyperspace lane arguments are rather odd. For one, you complain about my summary then make the exact same point in that and later posts. I realize that summarizing and pinning your arguments down is something you find bothersome (a pattern), but to put it as politely as possible there's generally a certain quality to your debate style which makes such things quite necessary.

Two, you argue that absence of evidence for hyperlanes in the films is evidence of absence. That argument type is often fallacious, and it seems to me that your use of the argument is indeed fallacious in this case.

Hyperlanes are not mentioned in the prequel films or the original trilogy and are also absent from many episodes of The Clone Wars, but the fact that they are not mentioned does not in any way negate them. The whole concept of the Nexus Route and its import, plus the related explicit mention that Republic (and, logically, also Separatist) defenses are based around hyperlanes, basically require that it's much more than merely an on-road versus off-road safety type issue as you argue.

If it was easy to map a new safe route simply by sending probes and then fleets after them, such a defensive strategy would be insane. On the other hand, if hyperlanes were the only roads and everything else was off-road, then it might make more sense . . . and of course, it would have to be sufficiently complicated to build a road that it wouldn't be worth bothering to try to build one during a war that might last a few years, whether due to the time involved, the expense, the logistics, et cetera.

Note that my suggested interpretation here doesn't mean that you can't go off-road, but that it doesn't apparently do you much good. It may be significantly, vastly slower, or more costly in fuel, or it may simply be that there is not sufficient infrastructure for refuelling and such at all. We don't know. But what we do know is that whatever the reason, the Separatists in TCW never just drove up to Coruscant by bypassing all the Republic defenses. We know this happened in RotS, but that is presumably related to the Nexus Route, a known secret road.

The most logical reason for hyperlanes to not be mentioned in the films is not that they have somehow ceased to exist or ceased to be important, but that they are simply part of the background. In other words, a story about invaders might feature discussion of defense strategy and logistics relating to interstates and bridges and such (just like in TCW), but for stories about a tiny band of revolutionaries it isn't necessary.

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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:45 pm

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: Here, we have a serious attempt to argue the Enterprise could withstand a Death Star blast. That’s right, apparently the Enterprise can withstand a planet-busting weapon, even though we see plenty of instances where far lower firepower can knock out or penetrate Federation shields.
For all practical purposes this happens repeatedly on screen, and we are even told the output of the weapon once.
Kirk's ship gets hit with a planet based weapon stated to be ten times what Saxton and Wong say the Death Star's super laser was capable of.[/quote]

Which episode does this take place in?
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: In ‘Survivors’, The Enterprise’s shields are knocked out by two 600GW bursts. That’s two 0.5 megaton blasts. Does Idazmi7 really believe the Death Star is less powerful than the Husnock warship in ‘Survivors’? Even the chain reaction numbers I’ve seen given for the Death Star are far higher than the laughable idea that Idazmi7 is suggesting.
1) You realize that there are anti-shield weapons in Star Trek, and the weapon you are talking about barely did anything to the hull. There was good reason Worf sounded confused. The transcript doesn't tell the whole story as Picard figured out what was going on well before the end of the episode because of the weapon you are talking about.[/quote]

Anti-shield weapons are one thing, but the weapon in 'Survivors' still had a measurable effect on the Enterprise's shields, that was quite specific. Low power shots had no effect, then later, the Husnock ship fired two more powerful bursts that collapsed the shields. Increased power to 600GW = shield failure. Key word being power.
2) Given the powerful R.O.B. with a range seemingly measured in light years, we can't be sure anything seen or said in the episode is true.

3) You've already proven that you realize that different weapons have different interactions with shields so you come across as rather dishonest here. It's worse when you take into account the R.O.B. was the ship firing the weapon..
I assume by ROB you're referring to the being in 'Survivors', but his influence/creation of the Husnock ship has no bearing on what the Enterprise's sensors were telling the crew - and they told Worf in very specific terms.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: ‘Inheritance’ has them drilling a small hole that is only a couple of kilometres deep and hardly indicative of the ability to wipe out a planet’s surface. This is also after the phasers had been modified to drill- it’s not part of their normal operating parameters.
1) Roughly a third of the way through the planet in less then half a minute is not a small hole[/quote]

If this is the same hole from which daylight was clearly visible, and people could beam into without dying from exposure to the superheated environment that would accompany such high energy release, then it's not as significant a feat as has been claimed.

[quote[2) Given they planned to generate plasma to melt the planet's insides this episode is one high end after another while the Feds are pulling their punches.[/quote]

What they demonstrate is not even close to the claimed possible feats.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: It took several seconds to drill a 1.6KM hole in ‘Legacy’. Hardly impressive.
Key word is drill. That was a rescue mission, and the people they were trying to save were near where they were drilling.

They also didn't want the captors to know they were drilling the hole.[/quote]

Perhaps I have this episode mixed up with 'Inheritance'. In any event, one of these episodes shows clear daylight above the people beamed into the hole, and no sign of the intense energy required to drill (any lingering heat would have been lethal to anyone beaming down, which suggests a chain-reaction method).

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: in which episode did the Enterprise implode a planet’s mantle?
Sounds like Pen Pals or Inheritance. Both involve doing something to the core of a planet.

'Pen Pals' features a probe performing an act of drilling to an undefined depth. 'Inheritance' features them drilling a two-metre wide hole and managing to drill 1km every 2.5 seconds. At that rate, assuming the core of this planet is as deep as earth's core is (2890KM to the outer core), it would take 2 hours to drill to the core. The Enterprise clearly wasn't drilling for two hours, so it could not have drilled to the core.

Even if it did, it didn't 'implode' the mantle, it was trying to kick-start some sort of chain reaction to keep the core warm. This is not the same as destructive force.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: In which episode did a Pird of Prey destroy all life on a planet? 
TNG: The Chase
We are not told exactly how it was done, but is basically sterilized the planet in a minute or two at most, and was done by a single cloaked ship. It's not that they can't easily kill everything on a planet or easily blow up planets if they want to in Star Trek, but that they don't because they are in a M.A.D. scenario with their neighbors.[/quote]

There's an event (not attributed to any specific ship or government) where a plasma reaction destroys all life on a planet in 'The Chase', but no reference to weapons fire or bombardment.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: Finally, we come to ‘The Die is Cast’, where the visuals are inconsistent with the dialogue and dialogue manages to be inconsistent with other dialogue. Not exactly bullet-proof evidence is it?

The visual evidence shows shockwaves passing over completely undisrupted planetary surface with none of the expected results of such huge destruction. The term ‘grasping at straws’ comes to mind.
The people doing the visuals for Deep Space Nine did a horrible job, but we know blowing up a planet in Star Trek with a fleet is rather easy as it's stated a thousand NX-01 could do it, and we see the results of a bombardment by a fleet armed with primitive(for the 24th century Federation) weapons in Booby Trap.[/quote]

In what episode is it stated that a thousand NX-01s could blow up a planet, or even destroy the surface? And in 'Booby Trap', we have no idea how many ships were involved or how long the feat took.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/the-idazmi7-responses-part-4/ wrote: Idazmi7 claims the 2800 ships were to take Deep Space Nine alone. Considering that the Dominion already held Deep Space Nine at this point, why would they need to send a fleet to take it? He is having to desperately twist events to try and justify his fleet numbers for the Federation (97,000), and he is backing himself into a corner in the process.
Because both sides were roughly evenly matched, and the wormhole being open for the Dominion means the FKR can't strike at those resources.[/QUOTE]

His reference for 97,000 ships still comes from a non-canon source and an inadequate understanding of the prefix system. Even the high-end references from 'When it Rains' do not support such vast numbers for the Federation fleet.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: . Imperial vessels look old, and in no way sleek or modern. Federation ships are therefore much more advanced.

Looks aren’t everything. A modern cruise liner looks a lot nicer and more modern than an AEGIS cruiser- I know which one would sink the other though. Imperial ships are designed for function- and that function is war. Who cares if they have fancy shiny controls or sleek aerodynamic designs? These things are not relevant where war is concerned.
1) I've never seen anyone argue that.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, I have. Some people place a higher value on the appearance of a thing than its actual function.
2) Imperial ships function is to be scary, and be jack of all trades and masters of none. Heck, over 50% of a Star Destroyer's volume seems to be dedicated to parasite craft and ground troops, with weapon tacked on as an after thought.

2.5) Fear over effectiveness is the Imperial way, and it works great for them so long as it's the ignorant and superstitious stone age spear chuckers they have to deal with.

3) You do realize that Starships in Star Trek are more like jet fighters then blue water craft?
The function of Imperial warships is indeed to be scary- and to deploy bombers, fighters, ground vehicles, and be capable of engaging other ships. Star Destroyers are clearly multi-role craft, and are designed to be.
4) The Federation builds ships intended to go into harms way with no back up, and come out on top, and then they furnish them like cruise ships.
And yet even the Federation realised, in the face of the Borg and the Dominion, that they could not afford to waste time and material building ships along those lines - hence why civilians no longer accompany Starfleet personnel on their ships, and there are no schools on new designs. It's a mark of progress that the Feds dropped such things from their ships.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 2. Why is this about the Federation vs the Empire? Wouldn’t the Klingons, Romulans etc help?

Why would they? Did the Alpha Quadrant band together to fight the Dominion, who represented the biggest threat to them all bar the Borg? No, they didn’t- the Cardassians joined the Dominion, the Romulans had to be tricked into taking part on the Allies’ side, and the Breen later also joined the Dominion. A number of empires declared themselves neutral too- the Gorn and the Tholians spring to mind.

So there’s no reason to assume everyone would rally round to fight the Empire, although even if they did, it would not affect the outcome of a war.
Given how Imperials conduct themselves I doubt this conclusion. The Dominion has diplomatic skills the Empire does not.[/quote]

I don't doubt this conclusion. The threat from the Dominion was obvious and they didn't even need diplomacy to get the Cardassians to join them - the Cardies were in a state of complete disarray, partly due to the Dominion, and were desperate. Persuading the Romulans to sit out wasn't exactly a masterstroke (no one seeks out a potentially devastating war), and they dangled incentives at the Breen toward the end of the war, not exactly hard.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 3. Q would help the Federation. For that matter, so would any number of super-beings within the Milky Way.

Like they did when the Federation was threatened by the Borg, or the Dominion? They have never intervened to help, even when the problem was caused by them (Q introduced the Federation to the Borg, remember).

Furthermore, if Q did help, how is this a sign that the Federation can defeat the Empire? This is a copout- relying on super-beings to win, because the Federation can’t hope to.
The Q made sure the Federation won against the Borg and Dominion as Voy:Death Wish shows. They are casual time and universe travelers, and need not take overt action to ensure their favored side wins.[/quote]

Quinn interfered with Riker's life and as a result Riker existed to help stop the Borg, but this is not the same as the Q we know and love, or the Continuum, interfering on a regular basis to help humanity or the Federation.

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 4. In the TNG episode ‘The Outrageous Okuna’, Picard scoffs at laser weaponry, claiming it wouldn’t even penetrate their navigational shields. Since the Empire uses turbolasers, this means Imperial weapons would be useless against Federation shields.

This argument falls prey to the ‘no limits fallacy’. It assumes that because Picard made no specific mention of the power of laser weaponry, it doesn’t matter how powerful the laser is- Federation shields can resist it. This is of course wrong.
Firstly, energy has to go somewhere. This is one of the cardinal rules of thermodynamics- energy cannot be destroyed or created. Lets say the Enterprise can withstand 70TJ of energy before her shields fail. Lets say she is hit by a laser carrying 700TJ of energy. That’s ten times the energy her shields can handle. If you listen to the ‘no laser’ crowd, 630TJ of energy just mysteriously disappears. We have never seen or heard of the Federation possessing the ability to make energy disappear.

Secondly, where does Picard say that no laser, of any type or power, is useless against Federation ships? It’s clear he is referring only to the weaponry he is immediately facing. A fact made all the clearer by how other lasers later on are effective.

The Borg cutting laser, as seen in both ‘Q Who’ and ‘Best of Both Worlds’, is described as a laser by Worf, a trained tactical officer, and this weapon is very effective.

Finally, why assume turbolasers from Star Wars have to be like real lasers? They can be seen, which means they travel slower than light- whereas a laser is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and would travel at the speed of light, thus not being visible.
You're going to want to rewrite this. Your understanding of physics appears lacking here as well as what a no limits fallacy is. It sounds like you are claiming that a L.A.S.E.R. can escape a black hole if the wattage is high enough.

A laser can only damage something if it can hit it. Gravity and N.D.E. fields for the win. Picard's statement is physically possible with known physics, and known Federation technology. Yield is irrelevant is the attack can never connect. Gravitational lensing is cool that way.

Do navigational deflectors work through gravitational lensing? Has this been stated or demonstrated to be the case in any episode? Would such a technique not allow for the deflection of other forms of energy, such as phaser beams (unless phasers are somehow immune to gravity?)

http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: So what? Holodecks are usually used for recreational purposes, and whilst they can be used for training purposes it’s not like the Empire would lack training facilities- they possess a million star systems! They could easily have entire worlds devoted to training troops.
1) Modern militaries build exact copies of locations they plan to attack at times, and a holodeck makes this easy. I seem to recall an episode were they wish they had a holodeck on the Defiant for this very reason.
And the Empire could also do what modern militaries do and set up training facilities across their territory that mimic other locations and scenarios.
3) You may want to question claimed planets VS planets the Empire actual uses for anything. How many Hoths, Tatoonies, Naboos does the Empire actually have VS productive planets.
We don't know what the breakdown is. With a million systems it wouldn't matter if only one out of fifty Imperial worlds were as developed as Coruscant or even 24th Century-era earth - that's still a lot of developed worlds for various facilities.
4) Since when does the Empire move planets on a regular basis? Holodecks are easily moved to where you need them.
I don't seem to recall suggesting the Empire can move planets, but then, they don't need to.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: Replicators are convenient, but they hardly change the balance of military power. Their usefulness in that respect is quite low.
Replacators greatly simplafy logistics, and make it so a ship almost never needs to resupply. So long as they have fuel they are fine, and can build just about anything they need.[/quote]

They have never been demonstrated to make weapons, or large-scale parts for ships, or anti-matter, and this is the reason ships have cargo bays - to have on hand other materials they can't replicate.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: Transporters would allow for the rapid deployment of troops, but they cannot get through shields, and magnetic fields (even low-level ones that occur naturally, or even simply thick rock or metals) can interfere with them. Imperial ships use jamming as a matter of routine, so there is no guarantee that they would work at all.
Here you try to pass off weird stuff as mundane, and ignore that transport through shields is possible, and these sorts of things only matter if you want what you are transporting to come out on the other end undamaged/alive.[/quote]

I wouldn't call magnetic fields weird - they are present on every planet, as is thick rock on terrestrial planets. Beaming through shields is rare, risky and usually not even tried.
Just because something is natural in Star Trek does not make them any less rare or exotic in the setting. The stars in TNG: Suspicions and Descent are prime examples of rare and exotic natural things that cause a problem while the more mundane versions do not.
Transporters were seen as unwise to use in bad conditions in 'The Enemy', dense metals in 'Hero Worship', and by natural minerals in 'Insurrection'.
http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/star-trek-vs-star-wars/common-trekkie-arguments/ wrote: 6. The Rebellion defeated the Empire, and they only hand a few dozen ships! Surely if such a paltry force could beat the Empire, the Federation could too!

The Rebels have ships that are of the same technological base as the Empire’s, and they didn’t defeat the Empire in open battle. They fought a guerrilla war, and attacked only when they thought they had the element of surprise. They ‘beat’ the Empire by killing the Emperor, and because the Emperor did not have an official heir, the Empire fell into infighting and civil war with several factions vying for power. Add to this mix the Rebellion continuing to sow seeds of disarray and with (if the end of the Special Edition of ‘Return of the Jedi’ is anything to go by) multiple worlds in open revolt, the Empire fell apart.
The Federation cannot hope to achieve this feat.
1) The Emperor never had the power to pass his "emergency" powers to anyone. There wasn't an Imperial tradition as you seem to claim. With his death, the sensate would need to grant someone else the "emergency" powers that let Palpitene become Emperor, but fat chance of that happening without several generations coming and going first.[/quote]

I don't actually claim the Emperor can pass on his powers - I seem to use the words 'did not have an official heir', so I am not claiming there was an Imperial tradition to do this as you seem to think I am. There was no Senate to grant anyone else emergency powers either, by ROTJ. Hence why the Empire would have almost certainly fallen into infighting. This is all irrelevant, since the original point was that a typical argument is all about the Rebels (being a rag-tag band) were able to undermine and ultimately trigger the fall of the Empire, and a lot of people take this to mean the Federation could too.
2) A tricorder scan would be pretty much all the Federation would need to know everything there was to know about Star Wars technology. It's pretty handy to be able to scan things down to the quantum level.
Tricorders can be blocked and tricked. They are not omnipotent devices.

Sothis
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Re: I don't know if this is the right place...

Post by Sothis » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:10 pm

2046 wrote:Since Lucky's post was a dogpile of one (which would make an awesome sig or band name, by the way), and since, given my history of being on the receiving end, I try to be cognizant of dogpiling, I'll keep things as short as possible for now.

That said, your hyperspace lane arguments are rather odd. For one, you complain about my summary then make the exact same point in that and later posts. I realize that summarizing and pinning your arguments down is something you find bothersome (a pattern), but to put it as politely as possible there's generally a certain quality to your debate style which makes such things quite necessary.
'Shrug' I made the point in my website post that hyperlanes offered a safer means of travel but that 'going off-ramp' as you put it, was very possible. You summed up my argument as '1. Hyperlanes are only a road safety thing. Going off-lane is perfectly fine., that felt like a dig, and one that didn't accurately sum up what I had actually said. It might have been better to quote me in full. This is precisely what I try to do and it avoids confusion and possible irritation.

Two, you argue that absence of evidence for hyperlanes in the films is evidence of absence. That argument type is often fallacious, and it seems to me that your use of the argument is indeed fallacious in this case.
Hyperlanes are not mentioned in the prequel films or the original trilogy and are also absent from many episodes of The Clone Wars, but the fact that they are not mentioned does not in any way negate them. The whole concept of the Nexus Route and its import, plus the related explicit mention that Republic (and, logically, also Separatist) defenses are based around hyperlanes, basically require that it's much more than merely an on-road versus off-road safety type issue as you argue.
I do not negate lanes nor their importance. I point out that, based on all existing canon information, hyperlanes can be bypassed if you're prepared to risk it. I don't claim it's 100% safe, only that it can be done, and indeed is done, in the PT and OT.
If it was easy to map a new safe route simply by sending probes and then fleets after them, such a defensive strategy would be insane. On the other hand, if hyperlanes were the only roads and everything else was off-road, then it might make more sense . . . and of course, it would have to be sufficiently complicated to build a road that it wouldn't be worth bothering to try to build one during a war that might last a few years, whether due to the time involved, the expense, the logistics, et cetera.
Then perhaps, after the Clone Wars, the Empire invested in new lanes, or perhaps didn't, in order to restrict travel (being tyrannical and all).

This still doesn't mean traveling outside of lanes is impossible, especially if you have good enough astrogation, star charts, probes and scouts, etc.

Note that my suggested interpretation here doesn't mean that you can't go off-road, but that it doesn't apparently do you much good. It may be significantly, vastly slower, or more costly in fuel, or it may simply be that there is not sufficient infrastructure for refuelling and such at all. We don't know. But what we do know is that whatever the reason, the Separatists in TCW never just drove up to Coruscant by bypassing all the Republic defenses. We know this happened in RotS, but that is presumably related to the Nexus Route, a known secret road.

The most logical reason for hyperlanes to not be mentioned in the films is not that they have somehow ceased to exist or ceased to be important, but that they are simply part of the background. In other words, a story about invaders might feature discussion of defense strategy and logistics relating to interstates and bridges and such (just like in TCW), but for stories about a tiny band of revolutionaries it isn't necessary.[/quote]

I will admit your explanation is plausible, but I feel mine remains so. Doctor Who is on now so Ooooohweeeiii oooo.

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