State of the Debate 2008

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State of the Debate 2008

Post by 2046 » Sun Jan 27, 2008 4:03 am

http://www.st-v-sw.net/weblog/2008/01/s ... -2008.html

There's a lot more I'd like to comment on regarding the state of the debate, though truth be told I'm a little out of the loop. And besides which, it's me . . . who gives a crap what I say?

So what are your views overall on the state of the debate? This can range from levels of vitriol to grand argument themes to your own personal observations. Where do you think the debate is, and where do you think it's going?

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Post by Narsil » Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:27 am

I've never really seen the point of making the debate as political as it is, and this is speaking towards whoever seems to want to make it political without naming any names; it's a debate about science fiction and fantasy which is not completely important and is, at the end of the day, supposed to be for a laugh. Surely, you can use real science (to an extent, of course; sometimes you have to accept that what these things do is impossible by most laws of physics) to debate it, I'm not going to dispute that point as real science would be more useful to actually reaching a conclusion and if you can't reach a conclusion in any way then it would be even more of a pointless and insane topic than it already is. But try not to turn it into an us-versus-them situation, because then it just becomes nothing more than insanely pointless bickering that has absolutely no real bearing on reality. Mind, most British Football Hooligans do the same, but I treat them with the same sort of disdain as I do people who take a versus debate as if it's supposed to be serious business. (Except in a joking manner, of course.)

I haven't actually involved myself in Star Trek versus Star Wars in any meaningful fashion for over two years now, and ignore the topic whenever it comes up in favour for having a laugh at someone like GStone's expense whenever he says something extremely silly. Like 'the Federation/Borg would defeat the Culture/Daleks/Time Lords', which was one of the most completely and utterly amusing topics I've ever been involved in. I mean, versus debates aren't meant to be serious, but anyone who tries to seriously argue that a single ant can move a mountain takes hilarity to a different level.

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Post by l33telboi » Sun Jan 27, 2008 1:46 pm

Narsil wrote:I've never really seen the point of making the debate as political as it is, and this is speaking towards whoever seems to want to make it political without naming any names; it's a debate about science fiction and fantasy which is not completely important and is, at the end of the day, supposed to be for a laugh. Surely, you can use real science (to an extent, of course; sometimes you have to accept that what these things do is impossible by most laws of physics) to debate it, I'm not going to dispute that point as real science would be more useful to actually reaching a conclusion and if you can't reach a conclusion in any way then it would be even more of a pointless and insane topic than it already is. But try not to turn it into an us-versus-them situation, because then it just becomes nothing more than insanely pointless bickering that has absolutely no real bearing on reality.
Pretty much my thoughts on the matter.
I haven't actually involved myself in Star Trek versus Star Wars in any meaningful fashion for over two years now, and ignore the topic whenever it comes up in favour for having a laugh at someone like GStone's expense whenever he says something extremely silly. Like 'the Federation/Borg would defeat the Culture/Daleks/Time Lords', which was one of the most completely and utterly amusing topics I've ever been involved in. I mean, versus debates aren't meant to be serious, but anyone who tries to seriously argue that a single ant can move a mountain takes hilarity to a different level.
What was that about pointless bickering you just said? ;)

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Post by Narsil » Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:13 pm

l33telboi wrote:What was that about pointless bickering you just said? ;)
There's a distinct difference between pointless bickering and hilarious comedy.

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Post by l33telboi » Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:16 pm

Narsil wrote:There's a distinct difference between pointless bickering and hilarious comedy.
Indeed.

What Gstone does can sometimes be classed as comedy, what you just did I'd class as bickering.

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Post by Narsil » Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:17 pm

I was pointing his posts out as being immensely comical, even if they were comical in an unintentional fashion. I wouldn't be British if I couldn't laugh at someone else's expense.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Jan 27, 2008 3:16 pm

Meanwhile, we have argued since at least 2002 that the EU is not valid for the purpose of understanding the Star Wars universe of Lucas. While there might've been room for almost-reasonable doubt at first, the matter became quite settled a couple of years ago, what with Lucas et al. repeatedly stating that there are two separate, parallel universes with the EU being the other. This means that analyzing the Expanded Universe for info on the Lucas universe would be like watching "Mirror, Mirror" to find out about Trek technology, or learning history from alternate history books like Fatherland.

The pro-Wars debaters still refuse to accept this point, instead choosing to ally with the similarly-stuck "EU Defense Force" types who are also emotionally invested in claiming that the EU is not to be discounted for any purpose. But despite such irrational resistance, their position has been thoroughly discredited.
It is not that irrational. From the EU holders, this extra pool of material has auto defined itself as bound to the films. We saw this, when the new films were made.
Although I always look away at those claims of unseen ships (Victories and all that stuff) present in places in the films where only mere imperial star destroyers were seen, it is not possibly to deny that the EU is clearly trying its best to fit with the films, while allowing itself some extra matter.

Truth said, much depends on how much value you give to Lucas' words. EUphiles generally ignore him, or spin his words, while purists take his words as if they were canon themselves, somehow, and see there evidence that no matter how the EU tries to fit with the films' upper canon, paths still diverge.

Lucas borrowing more and more elements from the EU, while at the same time rewriting the story of Boba Fett and repeatedly stating he ignores the EU and there are two universes doesn't help.

Globally, any product he's been actively involved in would be treated as canon by purists. That said, for some reason, the Ewok films don't. Nor the SW special holiday, but for that one, it's not much of a surprise really.

Still, the two continuities being acknowledged was a breathe of air, and we can happily switch from one to another if we want to.

What is clear is that to disprove some of the most extravagant EU claims, you either argue that the EU is not canon in Lucas' eyes, or you use the EU material and play their own game.
For me, doing the second is not much of a problem. Back at Bob's boards, we had two sections, a purist one and an EU one, and we zapped between both without much of a problem. It was really simple, and it's sad that it took LFL so long to come to the same conclusion.
In the purist section, we explained the superior canon with matter from that canon only, and eventually, formulating theories remotely inspired from some of the EU fragments, eventually, if we considered them sound, but we were not afraid of ignoring it purely and simply. Generally, the less EU, the better. In the second section, any bit of the EU was considered canon.
As for the Death Star, we have maintained since at least 2002 -- based on analysis of the films and novelizations thereof -- that the Death Star is not a brute-force weapon directly transferring its reactor's energy . . . instead, the superlaser produces a highly destructive hyperspace-related matter-energy conversion. This was the only useful way to explain the rings added to the Special Editions, material disappearance, and so on, effects which the other side chose instead to ignore. It was also the only way to satisfactorily explain how a vehicle powered by simple fusion could have a planet-busting raygun.
In that light, the ANH line can be understood in two different ways:
"Space filled temporarily with trillions of microscopic metal fragments, propelled past the retreating ships by the liberated energy of a small artificial sun."

Either it had a small artificial sun in its guts, or the energy which got liberated is the energy you'd get from a small artificial sun, without necessarily being coming from one in that case, an interpretation that is favourable to the EU and its hypermatter anihilation - and not fusion - claim.
The original ICS had the rebel fighters being powered by fission generators, and Vader's prototype fighter being equipped with a "solar ionization core", which could be understood as fusion at best.
Luke used a small fusion furnace, in Obi-Wan's home.

The Death Star was the result of the "Empire's most advanced discoveries in super-engineering."

How this translated as all ships in SW have hypermatter anihilation cores is bizarre.
In what must seem the ultimate betrayal for the EU-phile pro-Wars side, the Star Wars Expanded Universe now forces this position, as well. October 2007's Star Wars: Death Star novel also discusses the superlaser in terms of a hyperspace-related matter-energy conversion, with hyperspatial reflux rings and target matter that disappears into hyperspace. Even the reactor technology, despite use of the EU's "hypermatter" nonsense, is incapable of planet-busting energy levels except under catastrophic superlaser misfire conditions, similar in broad strokes to our explanation of the destruction of DS1.
I recently explored that point in details in a thread at Spacebattles here and here.

According to the book, and to make everything fit, the superlaser has three levels of destruction. The first is what appears to be a simple matter of direct energy transfer.
The second one is a threshold reached as a target is saturated with superlaser particles, and triggers some energy boost. A gain of energy obtained from somewhere, but certainly not from the station itself. It's probably from hyperspace. This helps to understand the events of Despayre.
The third level of destruction is the second hyperspace threshold, where the saturation reaches such a level that an hyperspace rift is created, and matter is boosted into hyperspace. Whatever happens to that matter is unknown, and the mechanics are unquantifiable. The side effect of that matter boost is the generation of rings.

What we can notice is that the pure DET aspect of the superlaser produces effects which crack the crust, move mountains up and down as the mantle wiggles, and everything burns at the surface.
Which quite corresponds to the first explosion as seen when Alderaan blew up.
Most of all, a beam at 1/3 of the final power - which means not that much lower, will not tear all of the atmosphere away from the planet (the book is very clear on that when Despayre was hit, and the first explosion on Alderaan proves it as well).

Another interesting point is how the Death Star novel even describes the propagation of a wall of fire over the surface that is not too dissimilar to your white ring that grows over the surface, but it could be just the effect of the wall of fire expanding as a simple matter of gas expulsion and gravity keeping all of it close to the surface.
That said, it still sounds like your theory, which I didn't agree with a lot, would fit with the description from the book.

The final fact, anyway, is that this book simply disproves the simplistic claim of a turbolaser on steroids, and can't be scaled down anymore. Not that it made much sense anyway, since as you say, it posed problems when you scaled it down to blaster levels. But I guess that's why they were so hellbent, at some point, arguing that blasters and turbolasers were different... when they're not in the films, and when even some EU sources I recall pretty much identified them as the same.

Another surprising note is how the book apparently put a cap on the firepower of an ISD. Though it still can be interpretated in a most generous way to reach the highest numbers possible, it's still lower than ICS numbers.
When made to fit with the descriptions from Vector Prime of Allston's duology, the yields plummel down to more reasonnable levels.


- When faced with devastating facts from the EU regarding troop numbers far smaller than their pulled-from-the-air quadrillions, they attacked and made threats against the author, who now seems to rather enjoy slipping in additional jabs in her continuing EU writings. Nowadays, the author's numbers are ignored despite their repetition in the EU.

The pro-Wars Vs. Debate subculture has seen its heyday, what with one of its members contributing to the EU a few years back, but with its assorted attacks on EU personnel they have served to isolate and marginalize themselves rather effectively, and as they continue to spout quadrillions in the face of everyday Star Wars EU readers who see millions, they will continue to be viewed as off their collective rocker . . . especially as their vitriol increases.
Is that true? What I know is that the quadrillon numbers came for the droids, and as such, a kill ratio of something like 200 to 1 for clonetroopers emerged, as some sort of explanation.
Well, I don't know the details, I don't know how EU authors have tried to fill the gaps, like, for example, saying that a huge concentration of droids could have been destroyed all at once. Say a BDZ against an insane concentration of CIS mechanized units.
Most interesting is how in Battlefront II, the speech let through by a clonetrooper highlights how the reactivation of a fairly minor droid production line on Mustafar would actually pose a threat to the Empire and evoque memories of the former war - and they didn't want to go through another one.
And, with the continuing presence of StarfleetJedi.Net in the pro-Trek side, along with its forum that the SDN pro-Wars side have failed to destroy, the debate itself is proceeding apace.
Failed to... destroy? :)


Narsil wrote:I've never really seen the point of making the debate as political as it is, and this is speaking towards whoever seems to want to make it political without naming any names; it's a debate about science fiction and fantasy which is not completely important and is, at the end of the day, supposed to be for a laugh. Surely, you can use real science (to an extent, of course; sometimes you have to accept that what these things do is impossible by most laws of physics) to debate it, I'm not going to dispute that point as real science would be more useful to actually reaching a conclusion and if you can't reach a conclusion in any way then it would be even more of a pointless and insane topic than it already is. But try not to turn it into an us-versus-them situation, because then it just becomes nothing more than insanely pointless bickering that has absolutely no real bearing on reality. Mind, most British Football Hooligans do the same, but I treat them with the same sort of disdain as I do people who take a versus debate as if it's supposed to be serious business. (Except in a joking manner, of course.)

I haven't actually involved myself in Star Trek versus Star Wars in any meaningful fashion for over two years now, and ignore the topic whenever it comes up in favour for having a laugh at someone like GStone's expense whenever he says something extremely silly. Like 'the Federation/Borg would defeat the Culture/Daleks/Time Lords', which was one of the most completely and utterly amusing topics I've ever been involved in. I mean, versus debates aren't meant to be serious, but anyone who tries to seriously argue that a single ant can move a mountain takes hilarity to a different level.
It's a game, but like in any games, there are rules.

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Post by Narsil » Sun Jan 27, 2008 3:30 pm

It's a game, but like in any games, there are rules.
Of course, what my point is that there's no point being so political about it. People talk about pro-Wars and pro-Trek as if they're nationalities or political parties sometimes.

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Post by GStone » Sun Jan 27, 2008 4:24 pm

Narsil wrote:
It's a game, but like in any games, there are rules.
Of course, what my point is that there's no point being so political about it. People talk about pro-Wars and pro-Trek as if they're nationalities or political parties sometimes.
Political parties have a philosophy about looking at things. This is how the camps share a similarity to political parties.
Narsil wrote:I haven't actually involved myself in Star Trek versus Star Wars in any meaningful fashion for over two years now, and ignore the topic whenever it comes up in favour for having a laugh at someone like GStone's expense whenever he says something extremely silly. Like 'the Federation/Borg would defeat the Culture/Daleks/Time Lords', which was one of the most completely and utterly amusing topics I've ever been involved in. I mean, versus debates aren't meant to be serious, but anyone who tries to seriously argue that a single ant can move a mountain takes hilarity to a different level.
You need to get over this. You can't even quote me properly anymore. I never said 'the Federation/Borg would defeat the Culture/Daleks/Time Lords'. What I did say is in there, but you added other stuff. This smear campaign will not stop me. Accuracy is not a bad thing.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:54 pm

Narsil wrote:
It's a game, but like in any games, there are rules.
Of course, what my point is that there's no point being so political about it. People talk about pro-Wars and pro-Trek as if they're nationalities or political parties sometimes.
Not terribly suprising since it is a form of human social interaction, and therefore is politics, even though it is on a vastly smaller scale than say a Presidential Primary is.
-Mike

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Post by Trinoya » Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:34 pm

I wouldn't be British if I couldn't laugh at someone else's expense.
I actually had a long well written post and for some reason it got replaced with that line of text in one of my quote boxes... I'll debate rewriting it later...

...

That said... I can find no fault with the above statement. :P

Final note before I head to work: Great to see the blog alive!

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Mar 18, 2008 9:41 pm

It's a game, and when people openly cheat the rules, it's easy to take the piss.

...

I feel like starting my own SoD thread. Dunno why...

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