Are the ICS books accurate?

For all your discussion of canon policies, evidentiary standards, and other meta-debate issues.

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Socar
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Post by Socar » Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:35 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:that the asteroid was expected to be fragmented, not vaporized (false considering Chakotay's statement about vaporization)
Actually, if I recall correctly, the reason he came to that conclusion was because of this part of the script:
Rise wrote:Chakotay: "That asteroid should have been vaporized. What happened?"

Kim: "I'm not sure. Sensors showed a simple nickel-iron composition. We shouldn't be seeing fragments more than a centimeter in diameter."
Notice how Kim mentions fragments. Basically their point was that if there were fragments, it wasn't vaporization.

It can be interpreted multiple ways, though most of the people I discussed it with came to the conclusion that normally they would have expected it to be vaporized, but at the very least (under the worst conditions, whatever that might have meant), there should've only have been fragments of a centimeter in diameter.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Sep 14, 2006 7:58 pm

Socar wrote:
Mike DiCenso wrote:that the asteroid was expected to be fragmented, not vaporized (false considering Chakotay's statement about vaporization)
Actually, if I recall correctly, the reason he came to that conclusion was because of this part of the script:
Rise wrote:Chakotay: "That asteroid should have been vaporized. What happened?"

Kim: "I'm not sure. Sensors showed a simple nickel-iron composition. We shouldn't be seeing fragments more than a centimeter in diameter."
Notice how Kim mentions fragments. Basically their point was that if there were fragments, it wasn't vaporization.

It can be interpreted multiple ways, though most of the people I discussed it with came to the conclusion that normally they would have expected it to be vaporized, but at the very least (under the worst conditions, whatever that might have meant), there should've only have been fragments of a centimeter in diameter.
Correct. Dispite what certain Warsies say, you can mostly vaporize something, and still have a few fragments leftover because of rapid thermal expansion. It is not necessarily an either this or that choice false dilemma that keeps getting trotted out. But Young was choosing deliberately to make it fragmentation only, with little or no vaporization occuring. They also largely brushed aside or outright ignore a couple of important salient issues:

1.) The reason for the asteroid not being vaporized were due to it not being composed of what they thought it was, and that oviline and an artifical alien alloy was it's real composition, not iron and nickel.

2.) The Wong asteroid calculator has some serious short comings that were long ago dealt with by Big Hairy Mountain Man on the old STrek-v-SWars.net forum. One problem with using it to calculate the fragmentation energies of the "Rise" event is that it can only calculate the energies needed to fragment an asteroid down to 10 meter chunks. It takes far more energy to break the material of an asteroid down into 1 cm or smaller bits. At least an order of magnitude more.

From what I'am reading into this, Young was starting down the road of honesty by admitting that the "Rise" asteroid torpedo was more powerful than what others initially calculated because it was dedonating at the surface of the asteroid, not planting itself inside it at the center, then blowing up. So that was a suprising bit there. But then Young proceeds to back off from that, and make nearly every effort from there to reduce the energy, and finally just says that even if it's a 70 MT torpedo, it still isn't anywhere near as powerful as a turbolaser. So the one shining bit of honesty was smothered mercilessly under an avalance of falsehoods.
-Mike

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Post by Nonamer » Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:36 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Nonamer wrote:SPHA-T firepower were derived from the ICS claims about shield strength. We never saw Dooku escape at thousands of Gs. And seismic charges are something that were discussioned to death in SB.com and the well established conclusion is that we saw about 100KT of actually firepower, and for a 13GT number to be supported we need the energy rings to go on for thousands of miles and persist for days, something we never saw.
I have explained this many times. SPHA-T power is not mentioned on ICS and therefore has NO BEARING ON THE ACCURACY OF THE ICS itself. No we never actually saw Dooku escape at thousands of g but how long do you think Yoda stood there before picking up his cane? How long do you think took Amidala to run to Anakin? And the number for seismic charge is a lower limit and therefore does not contradict the ICS.
As JMS as said more than once, this is about judging the consistency between the movies and most other canon with the ICS. At every turn there is a major rationalization of contradicting events, whereas dropping the claims of ICS leaves only a few problems, explanable by VFX errors or other mistakes. Just like every time someone lights a candle and we didn't see it go out doesn't mean the candle went on burning for days or weeks, we don't believe absurd energy releases that all happened immediately after it went off screen.
Nonamer wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote:It happened. It is canon. Deal with it.

Not on this board, and not in this thread.
I was refering to events from the films: Dooku escape and Endor approach. Are you saying they are not canon?
VFX errors because other events in canon say they don't make sense.
Nonamer wrote:We know the DSII scaling in the ROTJ was insanely screwed up: http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdeathstarsizes-2.html DS II is not consistent in size with Endor itself, and varies between 11-35 times smaller. Given how we have good evidence of very limited acceleration abilities for SW ships, such as the Falcon in a different setting, we can only believe that it is another VFX error.
You can believe whatever you want proving it is a different matter. How do you know that other scaling of Death Star is not a VFX error? And for Falcon acceleration you do realize that Han intended to perch the Falcon on the ISD and thus he had to limit the acceleration rate to his own reaction time.
Like I said previously, a VFX error can be considered if an event doesn't make sense. Given the larger body of evidence of a smaller DSII, between 160-270km, than the bigger ones as well as consistency with previous movies, the smaller DS is much more reasonable. And it is the MF alone, but just about every combat scene in SW that suggests a much lower acceleration speed, including the opening battle scene of ROTS, the slow escape of all the other SW ships in the ending battle scene of AOTC, etc.
Nonamer wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote:Let me repeat again: It happened. It is canon. Live with it.
Argumentum ad naseum is not a valid debate tactic.
I agree. Therefore stop making them. You claimed "VFX erros", I'm merely pointing out that films are canon and that you must prove those VFX errors .
I've long suggested that those scenes don't make sense given prior history and the context surrounding them. That justifies the VFX error claims. You on the other have said little other than "it's canon" which doesn't give much in the way of logic.
Nonamer wrote:Unless it was a magically teleportation bomb the ICS is soundly contradicted here. There's little need to discuss this further.
Prove that there wasn't a bomb somewhere beneath the ship.
Prove that there isn't a unicorn in my closet first. This old tactic is getting increasingly ridiculous and unteniable.
Nonamer wrote:Since when was the ROTJ sketchbook preproduction? It's published so it's as canon as anything similar out there. Also the Interview is
Beacuse it showed the concept art scetches for DS2. Meaning BEFORE the DS2 was finalized. And the Interview is?
It flat out stated the size of the DS II. If it said 2000km you would just all over it as it's just as credible as anything else. Note that the problem here is not the validity of this particular source, but the decisions of Saxton to choose bigger over smaller.
Nonamer wrote:As it was discussioned in other posts, Dankayo description itself is very inconclusive. The actually description of the destruction of Dankayo is "evenly cratered surface" which is nothing like planetary slagging. The closest we get to slagging a planet is the Imperial Sourcebook which said "the Imperial Star Destroyer has enough firepower to reduce a civilized world to slag." Exactly what constitutes a BDZ is entirely speculative, but the decision to exclusive use the more fanciful descriptions is an exact description of the fanaticism you've described.
Dankyo's atmosphere was blown off. For a standard Earth like planet that is 10^26J. How many times do I have to repeat that? And how does "reducing the civilized world to slag" contradict that? This supports the numbers from ICS. What is the problem?
It's been said many times that Dankayo may not be Earth sized, nor does the final destruction suggest something that would blow off an Earth-like atmosphere. And the second is as open to interpretation as you wish. You could say it means slagging merely the civilized parts, or slagging everything down to the upper mantle. It is not very clear and not useful either.
Nonamer wrote:Those ">" signs are just Saxton's speculation. He can't actually support those claims with visual evidence. Some of them are in fact very question even to begin with like his use of concept art.
And you used ROTJ scketchbook that shows concept art aas evidence a few paragraphs before? Make up your mind.
Not the same thing. Saxton literally scaled the concept art. That's a pretty bad way to find the size of an object.
Nonamer wrote:You clearly didn't listen to the original justification for a VFX, which is contradiction with other scenes or requires massive stupidity on the part of the characters involved.
What contradiction? Are you able to comprehend that acceleration in free space will not always be available in a battle? With spaceraft surrounding you and heavy jamming present?
And what exactly does this jamming do to one's acceleration ability or one's ability to aim at "up"?
Nonamer wrote:That's not the policy of this board.
Too bad SW is not a product of StarfleetJedi.net.
To bad you are posting at SFJ.net and you should follow the rules and guidelines of this site.
Nonamer wrote:And you are blatantly ignoring proof that Saxton was involved in the STvSW debate during his writing of the ICS as well as incidents where he blatantly ignores established scenes in the movies like Naboo cruiser bomb or the SPHA-Ts.
You have proved ZERO evidence about the location of the bomb and your claim that Trade Federation core ship will be "thrown into orbit" is based on your assumptions about it's mass which you don't know.
You should quit it with the Naboo ship bomb. It doesn't help your case. And the ship that was hit by the SPHA-T later crashed back down to the planet. If it was massive enough to absorb the 10^23 some joules of energy, it would flatten the whole region when it crashed.
Nonamer wrote:And how do you explain "hypermatter" which is just as unexplanable? And the ANH novelization stated that it was "mass-energy conversion" which really can produce 10e38 J of energy without breaking the laws of physics, whereas hypermatter arguments really do violate physics.
How does hypermatter break the laws of physics? How can you initiate mass-energy conversion in planetary mass that will result in 10^38J without imputing a smiliar amount of energy?
Hypermatter violates E=MC^2 whereas mass-energy conversion does not. While there is no known mechanism to easily turn matter to energy, we do know that black holes do it just by crushing the matter through gravity and high energy photons can spontaneously turn into matter. I'm not suggesting that what the DS did was anything like those two examples but that it is totally within real world physics that there exists another mechanism that can do mass energy conversion.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Sep 15, 2006 3:20 am

Nonamer wrote:
Not the same thing. Saxton literally scaled the concept art. That's a pretty bad way to find the size of an object.
Thanks for reminding me of that, Nonamer. That's another good example of the flawed methodologies that Saxton has often used in his work. In addition to taking the word of FX technicians who don't really care, or don't really know the size of the ships, and just want to make things "look cool", he takes concept art that suggests a larger Death Star 2 than artwork which is equally numerous that shows it at a smaller size.
It's picking and choosing the evidence, and going for the ones that make Star Wars look more impressive. Never mind that this backstage evidence is contradicted by the highest canon: the movies themselves.
-Mike

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Post by AnonymousRedShirtEnsign » Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:38 am

I'm actually glad Kane used the "it's canon, deal with it argument." That means that 20 Alpha/Beta quadrant ships = the Death Star in terms of firepower, and 40 AQ/BQ is enough to defeat the entirety of the Imperial Starfleet. A refit constitution class can traverse the galaxy in a few days. Dr. McCoy can jog 100+ mph (see st-v-sw.net the blog). A single TOS constitution can preform a BDZ (called general order 24), and its shields can take around 10 teratons worth of TNT before failing. Need I go on? I used these extreme examples (that are higher canon than the ICS books) to illustrate a point. It is ridiculous to use the most absurd, wanked out examples you can find. This is what Saxton and his followers do. Do most people who argue for Trek being equal, or slightly superior than Wars use these examples for serious evidence in a debate? No, and they are generally only brought up as counters to ICS and BDZ crap. There have been many well made arguments against ICS claims presented on this thread, and very few counter arguments with any merit to them.

Kane, I'm going to do you a favor here by sighting some examples of ICS being accurate. Almost all vessel sizes appear to be accurate (ISD has some controversy, but 1600m is the commonly accepted number that most people on both sides agree on. Then the DS2 thing is pretty messed up, but overall ship length is done pretty well. Atmospheric and ground velocities seem reasonable and consistent with the rest of SW. Most crew counts appear to make sense (the droid troop capacities have no film evidence to back them up, so they are at best rough estimations). There, I just provided more evidence in support of the ICS than in one paragraph than you have in your entire argument.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:48 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:And you don't need necessarily to have a 1e38 or 10e38J anything, if you can accomplish the same amount of work via a chain reaction. This isn't that hard a concept to understand. Exactly how much energy the superlaser needs to actually impart to initiate the chain reaction is another question altogether. But being as it may, there is an alternative to just DET.
There is no alternative to DET. NONE. Therefore Death Star did need 10^38J of energy.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Then I respond in kind by asking you why would a DET explosion have strange material disappearence, secondary explosions long after the beam is expended into Alderaan, and why a DET caused explosion would result in strange, planar rings? Well, can you?
What is this DET explosion? Can you point me to some physics texbooks that explain the look of a "DET explosion"?
Once again: energy requirements are dictated by the target and not the weapon. If you want to claim that this particular weapon did not have to supply the neccesary energy it's up to you to explain why and provide an alternative power source, presumably within the planet.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Maybe because picking Mars is indeed a good place to start for lower limits, and then work our way up? Mars does meet the vauge critria here as much as any other of the terrestrial planets with an atmosphere capable of holding dust suspended into it.
So in other words your grievance with ICS is that it didn't use lower limits at every turn is that it? Not using lower limits is not the same as "wanking out" SW as I have already said. He could have used a planet the size of Neptune, now that you could call wanking.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Well, it does change things, particularly if a BDZ takes more than a day to accomplish, and now you have dozens, perhaps hundreds of extra TLs to spread the total energy out over.
But these are all assumptions on your part that are no more valid than one hour assumptions. Again it comes down to you insisting that Dr. Saxton should've made more pessimistic assumptions. That is not the same as wanking out SW or writing up numbers without no support. There IS support for the numbers, you can reach them by using reasonable timeframe for the operation and reasonable planet for benchmark.
Mike DiCenso wrote:He actually had overestimated the amount of energy required.
Which means that it didn't require half dozen ISDs for a month to heat up the atmosphere. Which means that there is no contradiction with BDZ.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Mostly because we don't know what the medium limits should be! If you want true lower limit, then start there, but don't start at the upper medium or the upper possible limit, and not acknowledge it to be in the upper range for a firepower limit.
But we do know. BDZ reduces civilized world to slag. BDZ destroys or resources of a planet. BDZ is so violent that 40 years later it's easier to terraform a new planet than to rebuild the targeted world. BDZ blows off the atmosphere of a planet. BDZ atomizes the topsoil of the planet. Death Star can blow up a planet.
All those facts point to a certain firepower range.
Mike DiCenso wrote:I don't recall such a statement being the case. But the question still remains as whether or not such a maximum is even possible, hence my pointing out the use of Mars as a proper lower limits benchmark instead of the Earth.
Mars has a surface escape velocity if 5km/s and mass of it's atmosphere is 2.5*10^16kg. This means you'd need 3.125*10^23J to blow it's atmosphere off. That is 74,000 gigatons. Assuming 1 hour and 3 ships that is 6.9 gigatons/second just to blow off the atmosphere and not counting the atomization of topsoil and evenly cratering the surface. The trouble is that you can't extend this operation through a one hour interval because the atmosphere will have the time to shed it's energy as heat. In order to blow off the atmosphere you need a relatively small amount of huge blasts each of which will blow off a part of atmosphere.
Mike DiCenso wrote:No contradiction here, except what you are trying to create the illusion of. He did more than merely "consult" with Mike Wong. He was involved actively with a group of known versus debators with a clear agenda to wank out Star Wars firepower above Trek levels. That's all there is to it. That he tries to make some justification for it is only a part of the overall process strawman arguements of yours not withstanding, of course.
And your evidence that he tried to make SW firepower above the ST levels? Except for the fact that he made contact with the eeevil vs debators? You can slander people all you want it only makes you look dishonest.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Well duh! They are the only true canon instances of SW firepower we have to go on that we can at least try to come to some sort of an understanding with.
So I guess if we never saw ISD hitting an asteroid the benchmark you'd be proposing a benchmark of ZERO watts since "duh!" we never seen any other canon instances of SW firepower.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Everything else is spaceships hitting one another with energy shields and hulls armored with alloys we know nothing about. We can at least get a clearer look with the TESB asteroid destruction than we can with Dankayo, since Dankayo isn't portrayed in a visual medium, and not very well described. Not to mention the Dankayo incident conflicts with other EU examples. So given the choice, I'am going to error on the side of caution and pick the movie examples.
But the movies show that Imperial starship can blow up a planet. And it doesn't even have the firepower of the entire fleet. Way to fo erring on the side of caution by pretending that ISDs don't have gigaton level firepower.

Mike DiCenso wrote:http://theforce.net/jedicouncil/interview/saxton.shtml

He didn't have access to the completed movie by his own admission.

Then there is Ender's quote from SDN:

"I emailed him about how he achieved the values for the 900 Gigajoule
Blaster at the tail of Slave 1. He said that he went by the damage it is
shown to do to other vessels in the comics in battles and assumed that Boba
dialed down the power in the movie [...]. He chose official over canon."

Comicbook visual placed before the movie visuals, then tried to justify it by claiming Slave I's weapons were dialed down, even though the secondary canon of the novelization states that the power packs on Slave I were drained just from firing a few megajoule level shots at Obi-Wan.

I find it very interesting that Saxton would choose to do such a thing.
This is all backstage information. You still provided no evidence that Saxton "cheated". The tendency to try and reconcile various evidence is natural and I see no problem in him assuming that Boba dialed down the power while his father was on the platform.
Mike DiCenso wrote:I don't angrily insist. I merely point out that his work is flawed. The fact that the Death Star SL does not operate on DET as Saxtonites and Warsies insist is not my problem. When Lucas had the DS SL explosion of Alderaan changed for the SE, it forever altered the how of what it was doing.
The matter of planet was scattered at 10,000km/s in both versions. To do that you need 10^38J. It cannot possibly come from the planet therefore it came from the Death Star. You can pretend that basic laws of physics are the invention of "Warsies" and "Saxtonites" all you want.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Ah, while that may be true, he does engage in the Return to Grace thread:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/text/freaks/returngrace.txt

That specifically is a Star Wars versus Star Trek discussion, which he did engage in. Saxton also chose to be part of a group or consult with one that was specifically discussing things a versus debate context. There is simply no way to get around this.
But he commented ONLY on SW weaponry didn't he? And only provided advice and discussion on heat conduction of asteroids didn't he? Obviously he was on the mailing list and only decided to engage in the discussion if sw material. Never did he show any inclination to discuss Star Trek and even if he did so what? Are you saying that any person involved in vs debate is suddenly untrustworthy?
Mike DiCenso wrote:Also, while I was a bit suprised at some slight honesty, let's look at Brian Young's comment again:

Not really necessary. Fragments a centimeter in diameter are still
fragments. Thus, the asteroid was expected to be fragmented, as it was,
just more so.We're looking at a lower limit of about 9 1/4 kilotons, assuming the
asteroid was that size. 210 meters seems like a lot, but it is about
Voyager's size - 100 meters shorter than Voyager's length.

It would take a lower limit of about 290,000 terajoules to vaporize an
asteroid that size, if I calculated correctly, which is about 70 megatons.
That isn't particularly impressive compared to turbolasers. Consider that
this is like hits from all of an Acclamator's point defense guns
simultaneously. It would take over 2850 of these to equal one shot from an
Acclamator's heavy guns.

Note where I emphasized. He gives in a bit, but then turns around and points out that the asteroid is smaller than Darkstar's scaling, that the asteroid was expected to be fragmented, not vaporized (false considering Chakotay's statement about vaporization), and that even with a 70 megaton yeild, the torpedo will not compare at all to an Acclamator heavy gun.
And your point is? He said nothing dishonest merley that one guy said vaporization and other fragmentation so they didn't really know how much of the asteroid would be vaporized.
Nonamer wrote:Like I said previously, a VFX error can be considered if an event doesn't make sense. Given the larger body of evidence of a smaller DSII, between 160-270km, than the bigger ones as well as consistency with previous movies, the smaller DS is much more reasonable. And it is the MF alone, but just about every combat scene in SW that suggests a much lower acceleration speed, including the opening battle scene of ROTS, the slow escape of all the other SW ships in the ending battle scene of AOTC, etc.
In addition to Endor and Geonosis incidents here is an excerpt from TPM novelization:
page 90 wrote:The Nubian shot through the hangar doors, ripping past battle droids and laser fire, lifting away from the city of Theed into the blue, sunlit sky. The planet of Naboo was left behind in secondy, the ship rising into the darkness of space, arcing toward a suddenly visible cluster of Trade Federation battleships blocking it's way.
The planet was left behind in seconds. If we assume it to mean just leaving the atmosphere that's say 10 km in 10 seconds or 1km/s2.
Whooops. But hey I'm sure you'll explain how this is also an error.
Nonamer wrote:Prove that there isn't a unicorn in my closet first. This old tactic is getting increasingly ridiculous and unteniable.
You've got it backwards. You are the one makign the claim, the burden of proof is on you.
Nonamer wrote:It flat out stated the size of the DS II. If it said 2000km you would just all over it as it's just as credible as anything else. Note that the problem here is not the validity of this particular source, but the decisions of Saxton to choose bigger over smaller.
So? One of the early scripts for SW had the Star Destroyers as one man fighters. And for the record I always use 160km DS2 because I don't have the will to fight over every detail with fanatic Trekkies but that doesn't mean Dr. Saxton is lying when he uses 900km figure.
Nonamer wrote:It's been said many times that Dankayo may not be Earth sized, nor does the final destruction suggest something that would blow off an Earth-like atmosphere. And the second is as open to interpretation as you wish. You could say it means slagging merely the civilized parts, or slagging everything down to the upper mantle. It is not very clear and not useful either.
It specifically stated blowing off atmosphere so really now you are again throwing out evidence you don't like.
Nonamer wrote:Not the same thing. Saxton literally scaled the concept art. That's a pretty bad way to find the size of an object.
It's better. Since special effects crew and the director rarely think in terms of numbers but in visual terms of something being huge or small. Which means that the actual scetch will be a lot closer to home than some number.
Nonamer wrote:And what exactly does this jamming do to one's acceleration ability or one's ability to aim at "up"?
I love how you ignored the part about craft surrounding you in the heat of battle. Here is a quote from ANH novelization where Dodonna is briefing his men:
page 181 wrote:"Also, their field generators will probably create a lot of distortion, especially in and around the trench. I figure that maneuverability in that sector will be less than point three." This produced more murmurs and a few groans from the assembly.
See that? Distortions that affect manuverability. And jamming affects your ability to determine the distance to the nearest object so how will you know how long can you accelerate?
Nonamer wrote:To bad you are posting at SFJ.net and you should follow the rules and guidelines of this site.
If you are interested in discussing the SW universe then you should follow the rules of it's creators. Otherwise you are arbitrary picking and choosing what to use.
Nonamer wrote:You should quit it with the Naboo ship bomb. It doesn't help your case. And the ship that was hit by the SPHA-T later crashed back down to the planet. If it was massive enough to absorb the 10^23 some joules of energy, it would flatten the whole region when it crashed.
And you should really start producing some evidence. And the core ship did flatten the region. Didn't you notice the shockwave?
Nonamer wrote:Hypermatter violates E=MC^2 whereas mass-energy conversion does not.
How does hypermatter violate that formula? And how can you convert planetary mass to energy without supplying a comparable amount of energy?
Nonamer wrote:While there is no known mechanism to easily turn matter to energy, we do know that black holes do it just by crushing the matter through gravity and high energy photons can spontaneously turn into matter. I'm not suggesting that what the DS did was anything like those two examples but that it is totally within real world physics that there exists another mechanism that can do mass energy conversion.
No it isn't within the real world for Death Star to convert large amount of planetary mass to energy without supplying a comparable amount of energy itself.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Thanks for reminding me of that, Nonamer. That's another good example of the flawed methodologies that Saxton has often used in his work. In addition to taking the word of FX technicians who don't really care, or don't really know the size of the ships, and just want to make things "look cool", he takes concept art that suggests a larger Death Star 2 than artwork which is equally numerous that shows it at a smaller size.
It's picking and choosing the evidence, and going for the ones that make Star Wars look more impressive. Never mind that this backstage evidence is contradicted by the highest canon: the movies themselves.
Except that the concept scaling is only one of the numbers he used. Except the movies themselves are inconsistent and sometimes show 900km Death Star.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:I'm actually glad Kane used the "it's canon, deal with it argument." That means that 20 Alpha/Beta quadrant ships = the Death Star in terms of firepower, and 40 AQ/BQ is enough to defeat the entirety of the Imperial Starfleet.
By all means show your calculations.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:A refit constitution class can traverse the galaxy in a few days.
And yet Voyager needs 70 year. Not that you have any proof they actually went to the center of the galaxy since that place looked nothing like it.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Dr. McCoy can jog 100+ mph (see st-v-sw.net the blog).
How much time passed between Spock catching Kirk and McCoy arriving? Did he have any means of transportation nearby that we haven't seen? A transportation unit?
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:A single TOS constitution can preform a BDZ (called general order 24),
Uhuh a bulff that Kirk made to some guy keeping him hostage is reliable information. Sure. And I didn't say "It's canon, deal with it" I said "IT HAPPEND. It's canon. Deal with it." General order 24 never HAPPEND.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:and its shields can take around 10 teratons worth of TNT before failing.
This is from an actual event or character dialouge stating the number?
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Need I go on?
No I think you made quite enough of invalid examples.

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Post by Cock_Knocker » Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:09 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:

Mike DiCenso wrote:He did more than merely "consult" with Mike Wong. He was involved actively with a group of known versus debators with a clear agenda to wank out Star Wars firepower above Trek levels.
As usual, Dicenso is bereft of the facts. Curtis Saxton is on a mailing list with others including myself, Mike Wong, Brian Young, an EU author, a military history author, a screenwriter, and a few others. He's never been a "verses debater", and Dicenso's regurgitation of Darkstar's wackaloon conspiracy theories will never prove that.

Curtis "consulted" with no one during the writings of the books he was involved in. He couldn't, as he was under a NDA. And anyone who knows actually knows Dr. Saxton knows that he takes such things quite seriously.

Mike DiCenso wrote:Ah, while that may be true, he does engage in the Return to Grace thread:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/text/freaks/returngrace.txt

That specifically is a Star Wars versus Star Trek discussion, which he did engage in.
And again, Darkstar's lapdog is wrong. That was no "Return to Grace" thread. Those were notes for upcoming webpages lifted from my website, by Darkstar, from email exchanges with the mailing list where I asked for advice and such. That Curtis participated shouldn't be much of a surprise, since I asked him and the group as a whole, to look at updates I was preparing for my website.

You can read all about Darkstar skulking around my webpage like a rabid Brad Pitt fan going through garbage HERE

Other than that, I'd ignore Dicenso if I were you. I did, years ago. That he found a new Messiah in Darkstar after having his ass handed to him for years on Usenet over the versus debates just shows how incredibly desperate he is to pull that oh so fleeting victory out of the gullet of unimportance.

BTW, Dr. Saxton knows next to nothing about Trek. He's more of a Dr. Who fan.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:33 pm

CK, by this point you probably have reviewed the rules. You may recall they include stern admonitions to remain polite to fellow posters, even if you disagree with them.

While you are quite welcome to defend Saxton, you may consider yourself warned to conduct yourself appropriately. (I also advise politeness for the sake of offering effective arguments, as others are more likely to listen to you if you don't insult them.)

You should probably, in the future, entirely avoid the following phrases and words:
Cock_Knocker wrote:regurgitation

wackaloon conspiracy theories

skulking

rabid Brad Pitt fan going through garbage

ignore

new Messiah

ass handed to him for years
You may have a colorful past history with Mike DiCenso, but that doesn't mean you get to insult him, and ranting about someone else is at best off-topic.

At best, that was inflammatory. At worst, an actual flame.

I will not let a post this impolitely worded pass without a warning. I would rather not have to start throwing people in the penalty box.

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Post by Socar » Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:39 pm

Cock_Knocker wrote:Curtis "consulted" with no one during the writings of the books he was involved in. He couldn't, as he was under a NDA. And anyone who knows actually knows Dr. Saxton knows that he takes such things quite seriously.
That's what I always assumed, as it never made much sense to me why he would do so. But just out of curiosity (and excuse my ignorance as I haven't been around even -close- to long enough to know what all is going on), what exactly did this mean:

"It is possible that we undercalculated this for the ICS"

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:07 pm

Wayne Poe wrote:
Other than that, I'd ignore Dicenso if I were you. I did, years ago. That he found a new Messiah in Darkstar after having his ass handed to him for years on Usenet over the versus debates just shows how incredibly desperate he is to pull that oh so fleeting victory out of the gullet of unimportance.
Hi Wayne, I was wondering when you'd stick your neck out here. As usual, you try your lame "shock jock" nonsense without really relying on any facts, and hope no one notices a thing (hint: this isn't SDN you don't have your master/messiah Wong here to back you up). Nor have you, or any of your cronies have ever bested me in any substantial way in the debates since we both got started in 1995-1996. That's just your own lie and delusion, and you're welcome to it, if it makes you feel better.

The fact is, you and the others got caught with your dirty little hands in the proverbial cookie jar (how careless you were with your website directory!), and now you're a spin-doctoring away with Kane here, hoping to distract everyone. It won't work. As Socar brought up:

"It is possible that we undercalculated this for the ICS?"

Explain that one to us all, if you please. I'am curious as to what nonsense you'll spew out now.

Not too mention, I find it highly hypocritical of you to claim Darkstar (Robert Anderson) is stalking anyone, when you have engaged in making vicious videos and stories about people (Robert Anderson, Karen Traviss, ect)., and lifting quotes and using them out of context.

Now, either put your money where your mouth is, or go crawl back under your SDN rock.
-Mike

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:59 pm

Mike DiCenso, you too. I'm serious when I say that the rules
Jedi Master Spock wrote:...include stern admonitions to remain polite to fellow posters, even if you disagree with them.
Referring to his hands as "dirty," telling him to go crawl under a rock, etc., is not going to fly. Keep it as civil as possible.

I understand there is a history here, but I still intend to maintain a board environment conducive to constructive dialogue. So let us hear more about "It is possible we undercalculated this for the ICS," and not so much about what you and Cock Knocker think about each other as people.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:17 pm

Sorry, JMS, I shouldn't let Poe get to me like this, especially when it's clear he's trying to bait everyone away from the real issues at hand here.
-Mike

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Post by Socar » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:50 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:As Socar brought up:

"It is possible that we undercalculated this for the ICS?"
Just a minor nitpick, but after looking at the text file, I don't that statement was a question (as there was no question mark anywhere in the sentence).

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:24 pm

Socar wrote:
Mike DiCenso wrote:As Socar brought up:

"It is possible that we undercalculated this for the ICS?"
Just a minor nitpick, but after looking at the text file, I don't that statement was a question (as there was no question mark anywhere in the sentence).
I accidently put the question mark on the inside of the quote. Here's the full paragraph it's from for context's sake:

I'm not the sole focus, of course. They lament about things as any researchers would. For instance, who can avoid hearing the pain of disclosure when they say that "It is possible that we undercalculated this for the ICS"? Especially when the message reminds them of their obvious efforts to try to make sure that "things make it a better comparison to Trek"!

I bold high-lighted the statement of contention here. But the sentence is being asked in the form of a question, Socar. That last sentence in quotes there is another curiosity, too, that I'd like a good explanation for.
-Mike

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Post by Socar » Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:40 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:I bold high-lighted the statement of contention here. But the sentence is being asked in the form of a question, Socar.
Here is the whole thing:

"It is possible that we undercalculated this for the ICS, or some of the larger ones may have been hit twice. Things happen so fast, it's hard to tell even frame by frame. But the scaling here is more reliable than most of the ones in TESB, they all either fragmented or vaporized (most of them), and this is fighter-scale weaponry. These things make it a better comparison to Trek."

It seems to me that it's just Brian Young just giving some alternative explanations. I don't really see him asking anything.
Mike DiCenso wrote:That last sentence in quotes there is another curiosity, too, that I'd like a good explanation for.
Well, since Wayne Poe already stated that he was asking the group as a whole to look at updates that he was going to put on his website (presumably the Trek vs Wars part of his website, obviously), I'm not really sure what kind of explanation you're looking for. Perhaps they were just trying to find good examples of Wars' asteroid destroying capability compared to Trek's for Wayne's page.

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