Mojo: SW Canon

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

Discussion is to remain cordial at all times.
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2046
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Mojo: SW Canon

Post by 2046 » Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:24 am

mojo wrote:I don't claim to stay up-to-date with the debate, but I do think leaving the EU out is a ridiculous idea. Lucas himself has called it canon.
Since when?

I'm unaware of any such statements, and while I've been otherwise occupied for the past few weeks I rather doubt that such a 180 has occurred.

For a review of what Lucas has said to date, along with the statements of others, look at these two links:

Lucas's Own Words

The Short-Short Overview of SW Canon Policy Statements

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Post by mojo » Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:31 am

I was reading a faq of some sort on a ST vs. SW site last week, and there was a quote in which Lucas said something along the lines of the EU being another part of the same universe, and after that multiple quotes from official people confirming that the quote did mean that Lucas was saying the EU is canon. Again, I don't claim to be an expert, in fact I have admitted multiple times that I am extremely new to the debate. I can try to find that faq, it shouldn't be too difficult, I think it was actually just a link directly from the SW vs. ST entry on wikipedia. But please don't take that as being combative or hostile, I was just extremely surprised because I thought that the validity of the EU in the SW vs. ST debate was not even questioned. If I seemed aggressive in my response, I apologize. My emotions can get the best of me and I admit I sometimes come across a little strong. I chose this forum because of the 4-5 ST vs. SW forums I looked at, this one seemed to be filled with the most intelligent people. I have no intention of irritating you all.

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Post by Trinoya » Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:35 am

From what I've seen of your posting, you're not irritating at all. Canon is just a touchy subject, as it could send the debate crashing, in more ways than one, to many various directions. At the end of the day, even if people do disagree on canon just remember these three 'confirmed' parts of ST canon.

There are two universes, George Lucas's vision of star wars, and the EU.

The EU is contradicted by higher canon, IE: Georges canon.

The EU is everything that is not the movies, novels, and radio dramas.

From this you can see why it is such an abstract and unique issue. The hostility at some sites, notably stardestroyer.net to other versions of canon policy is generally a sight to behold, there have even been flame wars and debates at other sites to ban any view that does not conform to other canon policy interpretations (just look at the wikipedia discussion thread on the subject, lol!).

The debate also attributes much to canon policy (as it would determine a lot for both sides), and I believe the best quote in regards to it is the following (and thanks DS for putting it up on your site ^_^):


"STARLOG: The Star Wars Universe is so large and diverse. Do you ever find yourself confused by the subsidiary material that's in the novels, comics, and other offshoots?

LUCAS: I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."

I hope that helps some, and feel free to debate the topic with us, we actually enjoy it and we make a dedicated effort to not be hostile as well.

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Post by l33telboi » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:54 pm

2046, you really need to calm down a bit. The tone of the OP is quite harsh, considering you are basically adressing someone with almost no prior knowledge to the vs. scene.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:08 pm

l33telboi wrote:2046, you really need to calm down a bit. The tone of the OP is quite harsh, considering you are basically adressing someone with almost no prior knowledge to the vs. scene.
Agreed.
Get some distance, not everyone has been arguing against you, abouts the merits of what's canon or not, for ages.

Let's keep it cool.

Besides, the recent trend, as I said somewhere else, is to properly declare what canon policy to use in your versus thread, or specify if your thread is EU related.

Generally, this site largely favour higher canon, and dismisses any inconsistency brought by the EU.
See, we believe that it's not to the movies to be modified and misinterpretated, to incorporate contradictory EU statements.

Many EU-philes, however, do think that's the way it goes. But there's a point when the films say that white is white, period, no spinned theory should be crafted to explain why the EU is right in saying that white is black, or grey, or whatever else safe white.

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Post by 2046 » Fri Aug 03, 2007 2:38 am

Uhhh, what? I was curious, not mad. Jeez.

I didn't have the slightest anger, annoyance, or whatever in my head when writing that post. I considered Mojo to be probably misinformed, but I was (as always) curious to see if there was something new or that I hadn't heard of before.

I was briefer than usual, down toward "normal" territory instead of my usual "absurdly verbose", but that's hardly cause to think me the boogeyman.

Calm yourselves, gentlemen.

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Post by mojo » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:40 am

Alright, just for clarification's sake, I went ahead and found the faq I read last week. The main page dealing with canon is found here:

http://www.sfdebris.com/faqd.html

It was this page which made no concession to even the possibility that the EU should be considered non-canon, and whoever this guy writing the page is, he was pretty convincing to me. I got into this same trouble with the 'Star Wars vs. Star Trek in 5 minutes' page, I'm going to have to learn not to simply accept the first thing I read that makes sense. What I'm slowly learning is that apparently NOTHING is taken for granted in this debate except for the fact that movies and tv series are hardcore canon. I AM learning though, albeit slowly.

On another, related topic, I would be interested to know how you all as Pro-Trek and Anti-ICS debaters respond to this:

http://www.sfdebris.com/faq16.html

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Post by Trinoya » Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:13 am

I agree with 2046, he was brief, but not hostile.

That said, in response to Mojo, the Incredible Cross Sections is blatently contradicted by the movies. Gigatons being thrown around would turn the screen white. To put it into prespective.

Hiroshima = about 16 kilotons

1,000 kilotons = 1 megaton

For our purposes it is about 62 hiroshima bombs to every megaton. (not exact, but pretty close).

1,000 megatons = 1 gigaton.

This means it is SIXTY TWO THOUSAND Hiroshima bombs.

As such, many people disregard the ICS as many people didn't see blasts powerful enough to destroy all of japan and most of china in the process being thrown around... in any movie... or most of the rest of the EU.

That said, Saxton gives thanks to Mike Wong... who runs stardestroyer.net

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:44 am

Oi, we're not all pro-Trek. :)

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:47 am

2046 wrote:Uhhh, what? I was curious, not mad. Jeez.

I didn't have the slightest anger, annoyance, or whatever in my head when writing that post. I considered Mojo to be probably misinformed, but I was (as always) curious to see if there was something new or that I hadn't heard of before.

I was briefer than usual, down toward "normal" territory instead of my usual "absurdly verbose", but that's hardly cause to think me the boogeyman.

Calm yourselves, gentlemen.
Then I guess it's the way you get used to reply to people, by default, has become natural.
It's just that anyone who begins a reply by "since when" strikes me as uncool, nevermind if it wasn't made in anger or else.

But let's forget it.

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Post by Trinoya » Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:49 pm

Seconded.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:54 pm

mojo wrote:

On another, related topic, I would be interested to know how you all as Pro-Trek and Anti-ICS debaters respond to this:

http://www.sfdebris.com/faq16.html

Simple. Look more close at that "convincing" material, and note how most of it is taken out of context, sometimes to make anyone who disagrees with his side of the debate look stupid or crazy, rather than actually address any objections raised.

Case in point, look at the Lucas Starlog interview cited earlier in this thread by Trinoya. In fact, it is a quote that certain pro-Wars types have never truely dealt with. Lucas talking about production? No. Note the direct comparison of the SW EU with the ST EU:

When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one.

Don't you think that's as straight-forward as it gets from the guy who created the SW franchise, and still retains pretty tight control over to this day?
-Mike

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Post by mojo » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:32 am

Trinoya wrote:I agree with 2046, he was brief, but not hostile.

That said, in response to Mojo, the Incredible Cross Sections is blatently contradicted by the movies. Gigatons being thrown around would turn the screen white. To put it into prespective.

Hiroshima = about 16 kilotons

1,000 kilotons = 1 megaton

For our purposes it is about 62 hiroshima bombs to every megaton. (not exact, but pretty close).

1,000 megatons = 1 gigaton.

This means it is SIXTY TWO THOUSAND Hiroshima bombs.

As such, many people disregard the ICS as many people didn't see blasts powerful enough to destroy all of japan and most of china in the process being thrown around... in any movie... or most of the rest of the EU.

That said, Saxton gives thanks to Mike Wong... who runs stardestroyer.net
What about the idea that the weapons in the movies aren't firing at full power? Over and over I read that they most likely are able to set the weapons to fire at whatever levels of power they want, and that they never in the films had any reason to use that level of power. It seems to me that could be a possibility, I mean I can't see any reason to assume that's impossible.

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Post by Praeothmin » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:29 pm

mojo wrote:
What about the idea that the weapons in the movies aren't firing at full power? Over and over I read that they most likely are able to set the weapons to fire at whatever levels of power they want, and that they never in the films had any reason to use that level of power. It seems to me that could be a possibility, I mean I can't see any reason to assume that's impossible.
Why woudln't they?
Sure, all the instances we see someone firing under orders to "let them escape", we can (and I do) believe that they do fire at less than maximum fire power.
But what about all the tims they were at war?
Like on Endor, Geonosis, etc...

Don't forget that the AOTC:ICS states that Starfighters have weapons in the kiloton range, and Slave-1 in the high kiloton.
Why then, when Jango is firing at Obi-wan, do we not see this kiloton-level firepower at work?

Why, on Geonosis, when you know you can fire a one kiloton shot that would eliminate half of the opposing infantry, do you fire multiple lower yield shots that allow the enemy to kill a lot of your men?
Why have infantry, and infantry support, if the infantry suppot vehicules could fire at such yields?
There is no logic in that, so this is why the firepower figures in the ICS are in dispute.
In addition, many of the shots fired by the kiloton-capable vehicules would need to be 1 thousand times more powerful to equal a kiloton.

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Post by mojo » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:28 pm

Praeothmin wrote:mojo wrote:
What about the idea that the weapons in the movies aren't firing at full power? Over and over I read that they most likely are able to set the weapons to fire at whatever levels of power they want, and that they never in the films had any reason to use that level of power. It seems to me that could be a possibility, I mean I can't see any reason to assume that's impossible.
Why woudln't they?
Sure, all the instances we see someone firing under orders to "let them escape", we can (and I do) believe that they do fire at less than maximum fire power.
But what about all the tims they were at war?
Like on Endor, Geonosis, etc...

Don't forget that the AOTC:ICS states that Starfighters have weapons in the kiloton range, and Slave-1 in the high kiloton.
Why then, when Jango is firing at Obi-wan, do we not see this kiloton-level firepower at work?

Why, on Geonosis, when you know you can fire a one kiloton shot that would eliminate half of the opposing infantry, do you fire multiple lower yield shots that allow the enemy to kill a lot of your men?
Why have infantry, and infantry support, if the infantry suppot vehicules could fire at such yields?
There is no logic in that, so this is why the firepower figures in the ICS are in dispute.
In addition, many of the shots fired by the kiloton-capable vehicules would need to be 1 thousand times more powerful to equal a kiloton.
Alright, against my own better judgement I'm going to enter the debate with my own opinions rather than something I read somewhere else for once.

In the case of Jango Fett, at least, I think it is possible to debate out of that hole. We already know that Jango takes on more business than he can handle, otherwise he wouldn't have sub-contracted the important contract on Padme to that crazy shapeshifter. Obviously he is a man who appreciates the value of a dollar. Isn't it at least possible that he was attempting to stop Obi-Wan without obliterating his ship completely? I'm sure a Jedi Starfighter would be worth at least a little money. Once he had the Starfighter, surely there would also be some kind of tracking device that would let him know where that crazy hyperspace donut was as well. A hyperspace drive should be worth some money, you'd think. I think it's worth pointing out that even though they were fighting, right from the start Jango seemed to be a lot more interested in escaping than killing Obi-Wan. I never got the impression that Jango was a truly evil person, just a mercenary. It's possible that he farmed out the Amidala contract because he didn't have the stomach for it himself. Maybe he simply wanted to disable Obi-Wan's ship so that he could get away.
I'm not saying I believe any of those things are true, but I don't think they are completely outside the realm of possibility, either. If there is evidence to the contrary, obviously, school me. Like I said before, I'm brand new to this, and just kicking in my two cents for fun.

On Geonosis, if you're talking about the battle that took place in AotC, wouldn't they have surely killed Jedi and Clone Troopers if they'd used massive-scale firepower? I mean, if we're talking about city-destroying Hiroshima scale explosions, that'd be insane! That's like asking why we don't stop the Iraqi insurgents with nuclear weapons. We'd just kill loads of our own people as well. I could be thinking of the wrong battle, or just missing something. Probably the latter. But right off the top of my head, that'd be why you wouldn't fire a one kiloton shot on Geonosis.

You have infantry and infantry support because massive firepower aren't always the best option and certainly aren't always the most humane option. You don't blow someone's head off with a shotgun when you can stop them by smacking them on the hand. America has nuclear weapons, but also an army, because we can't win every war with nukes. Well, I mean I guess we could, technically, but pretty soon we'd be real, real lonely.

Now while I agree that it's unlikely that a weapon would be configurable to the point of firing at only 1/1000th of it's maximum strength, I have to say again that for the sake of argument it's not completely outside the realm of possibility. If we are willing to accept the idea of FTL travel, surely we can agree that insanely configurable weapons are a possibility.

Before I finish I do want to apologize if all of those arguments are things that have been said a thousand times. I'm new, so I haven't read them yet. My apologies if I'm reinventing tired old wheels here. Right now I'm that guy who walks into a theater for the last act and sits there going 'Why's that guy mad at that guy? Why'd they kill him? Who's she?', and I'm not caught up yet. Normally I would have just sat this one out, thinking I'd better wait until I'd read more, but since you directly asked me, I replied. I find this all extremely interesting though, and I'm beginning to be very glad I chose a forum that seems to be mostly pro-trek, because it means I'll never be at a loss for opposing viewpoints..

Thanks for taking my question seriously enough to ask such interesting questions. I'll be sitting on my hands waiting for your response.

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