The Lightspeed Turbolaser Argument (aka LOL)

For polite and reasoned discussion of Star Wars and/or Star Trek.
Kane Starkiller
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Post by Kane Starkiller » Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:23 pm

Nonamer wrote:Says who? There is no canon policy on this board. You are free to believe what you will regarding canon. I do not need to justify my position.
I already said it: If you simply say "let's not use ICS for debate" that is perfectly fine by me.
But if you say "ICS is wrong" then I expect you to back up that claim and provide evidence.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Case in point: Kane Starkiller.

"Prove that lightspeed TLs don't exist!" he cries!

Ah, that's is one of the oldest fallacies in the book. It's up to the Saxtonites/ICSers to prove that light speed TLs exist, which it doesn't as anyone looking at the asteroid destruction scene in TESB could tell you, even with the FX gaffee of an asteroid starting to be destroyed a few frames in advance of the TL bolt that is supposed to be destroying it.
"Saxtonites!" Man this would be funny if it weren't so sad. ICS is an official book approved by George Lucas. It doesn't have to "prove" anything. It statements are considered true unless proved otherwise. Do you have any proof that turbolaser bolts are not tracers and that invisible beam is fired just as the turbolaser bolt hits the target? No? Didn't think so.
Of course as I already said if you wish to disregard the ICS that is fine by me but if you wish to claim that ICS is wrong then I expect you to provide evidence.

Nonamer
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Post by Nonamer » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:16 pm

Kane, your arguments are turning into an absolute strawman. No one cares to disprove the ICS, but rather we are totally disregarding it as canon. And according to board policies that is something that is totally within our right to do. In which case it is up to you to prove the existence of lightspeed TLs, not the other way around.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:19 pm

Nonamer, Mike DiCenso, Kane Starkiller. Civil, cordial, constructive dialogue please.

I can see this starting to spiral into a less-than-polite shouting match, and I'll state clearly for the record that nobody here starts off having the burden of proof automatically in their favor.

Nonamer and Mike DiCenso, it is up to you to provide solid reasons why the ICS saying lightspeed turbolasers are wrong is wrong. Evidently mentioning that they are seen to move more slowly in the movies isn't quite enough - so rather than repeating yourself, move on to more detail if you wish to convince Kane that the ICS is wrong in this case, or that the ICS is in general incorrect.

Kane Starkiller, it is up to you to show how the ICS is correct. "Prove it wrong" is not an argument that will work here. You've already stated that the ICS says so - but then, so have those saying the ICS is clearly wrong. If you want to try and convince Mike and Nonamer, you clearly need to provide more detailed support for your claim. Show how it is that the ICS is correct, or consistent with the movies.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:21 pm

(For the record, I am for the time being treating this as a thread about the ICS and evidentiary standards.)

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:27 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
"Saxtonites!" Man this would be funny if it weren't so sad. ICS is an official book approved by George Lucas. It doesn't have to "prove" anything. It statements are considered true unless proved otherwise. Do you have any proof that turbolaser bolts are not tracers and that invisible beam is fired just as the turbolaser bolt hits the target? No? Didn't think so.
ICS, in particular the AoTC and RoTS ICS are not in any way personally approved by George Lucas. At best they are approved by people who work for Mr. Lucas, but really have little power in deciding what is a part of the true story of Star Wars.

You are, as has been pointed out, degenerating into Straw Man arguements in a blind-faith attempt to defend Saxton's dubious work. I find that very sad indeed.

The proof against light speed TLs is right what I've been citing all along. How long does it take from the time the bolt is fired to when the asteroid starts to be destroyed by the invisible portion? It's only about a few frames, but that is still considerably sublight speed. A lightspeed TL would traverse the approximately 2 km distance between ISD and asteroid in 1/148,800th of a second! Instead it takes 4/24ths of a second.

You and the other Saxtonites are claiming lightspeed for TLs, now it is up to you to pony up and prove it.
-Mike

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:30 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:

Nonamer and Mike DiCenso, it is up to you to provide solid reasons why the ICS saying lightspeed turbolasers are wrong is wrong. Evidently mentioning that they are seen to move more slowly in the movies isn't quite enough - so rather than repeating yourself, move on to more detail if you wish to convince Kane that the ICS is wrong in this case, or that the ICS is in general incorrect.
Well, if frame counts of when the bolt is fired, and when the invisible portion of the TL starts destroying the asteroid are not enough proof, then what the hell are we supposed to do? It doesn't get any clearer than that, JMS.
-Mike

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Post by Nonamer » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:42 pm

A couple of things:

I believe according to board policy, we can straight up ignore certain sections of "canon" given the lack of a canon policy. It is my intention in the OP that the ICS shall be ignored. In such case, there is no need to prove nor disprove the claims in the ICS.

It has also been my experience that in every time that I have to "disprove" a certain claim found in the ICS, I can never convince the other side of that fact. Even if I successfully prove that a certain claim is physically impossible, I still find myself demanded to prove why impossible events are actually, in fact, impossible. In other words, the task of proving the ICS wrong becomes impossible, because it is apparently the "truth" by definition and all other claims are never accepted. If you actually want to hold us by this standards, or let Warsies hold us to this standard, then there will not be any meaningful discussion.

In order for this to even work, you must give us a reasonable level of acceptable evidence, and once this level has been reached, you must force the other side to accept the evidence. If the other side fails to give appropiate counterevidence in such an occurrence, you must force them to capitulate, possibly with disciplinary action if necessary. Likewise we must be held to the same standard.

The other thing is that I've already given my evidence in the OP, and in here: http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... ?p=218#218

Unless I am informed otherwise, I do not believe I need to give any more evidence.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:46 am

Hear, Hear, Nonamer. Without a coherent and enforced standard of what is and is not admissable evidence, then we are doomed to forever pick and choose what we will.

Why should I take the time to mention frame counts or anything else when it can and will be ignored because the opposition does not like what it says about the nature of turbolasers?

Anything and everything goes, and yet nothing goes seems to be the order of the day. There's no way now to hold a rational discussion, except unless everyone happens to hold to the same personal standards.
-Mike

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Sep 08, 2006 3:04 am

I should clarify something - and if Nonamer would like me to move this to the "Trek/Wars" forum after I say this, he is welcome to request it. Personally, I think he has presented his case for slower-than-light turbolasers quite well, and am reconsidering my own position on the matter accordingly.

In the Trek/Wars section, it is up to the original poster to define, in his or her original post, what should be the standard of evidence. Were this thread in the Trek/Wars section, I would enforce a "ICS evidence not acceptable" standard set forth in the OP.

Within the Rules of Evidence section, you are obligated to offer arguments so far as you wish to convince someone. This may require detailed argument; it may not. What you offer is up to you - and, barring change of the rules, I will not enforce any particular standards of discussion past coherency, non-trolling, non-flaming, and digression.

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Post by Nonamer » Tue Sep 19, 2006 4:46 pm

Is this thread dead? Perhaps the debate has been resolved. Maybe we should move it Trek/Wars since there's another one with a similar topic.

Mike DiCenso
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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:17 pm

I think this thread, if it is to be continued, should be taken to the Trek/Wars forum. As for there being another thread like it, I don't think that there is, with the possible exception of JMS and Kane Starkiller's little tete-a-tete over the nature of phasers and superlasers.
-Mike

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:10 pm

Sure thing.

And give me at least a week from now to come up with another good reason to take lightspeed TLs before you declare the thread dead.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Wed Sep 20, 2006 7:13 pm

I finally had some time last night to pull out TESB and look over the scene where the one asteroid is destroyed a frame or two ahead of the bolt being fired at it; tracing back I found that the bolt became visible up to 6 frames before the asteroid starts to disintegrate. There are some interesting thoughts that come of this:

1.) If the TL has a light-speed invisible component, it means that the dwell time the gunner has to maintain on a particular target must be greater than with a self-contained in a bolt, as we do not see any sign (glow, melting, ect) of the asteroid until about 5 frames later, which in turn means that for that particular bolt, the energy needed to vaporize it is now spread out over a larger timeframe, and the wattage will go down accordingly.

2.) On the other hand, the fact that the asteroid shows no sign of glowing or other rapid heating effects until 5-6 frames later indicates that the TL is definitely not light-speed since as was pointed out earlier, as soon as the bolt appeared, or even before it appeared, the asteroid would have just vanished (remember a light-speed bolt needs to travel across 2 km in about 149,000th of a second!), the tracer portion nearly useless for this sort of thing. The invisible portion apparently is not moving more than 1/24th of a second or so ahead of the visible portion, which would make a tracer more useful, both for this kind of situation, and in combat.

So in conclusion, I think we can safely lay the light-speed TL to rest, invisible component or not.
-Mike

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Post by Kazeite » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:57 pm

Perhaps those "complicated diagrams" will finally convince Kane that lightspeed invisible component theory is false.

Image

Red beam is famed invisible component (and blood) and blue bolt is a visible tracer component.

On this image, we see:
a) brave Jedi against BFT (Big Frickin' Turbolaser :))
b) BFG fires, killing Jedi.
c) Jedi swings his trusty lightsabre, deflecting tracer, then realizes that there's a big gaping hole in this chest, keels over and promptly dies.

Obviously, this is not what we see in the movies, so, sorry, lightspeed invisible component theory is false.

"But wait", I can see Kane saying, "you forgot about Jedi precognition!"
Fear not, Kane, I've prepared another "complicated diagram" just for you.

Image

On this image, we see:
a) another brave Jedi against BFT
b) BFG fires, but our brave Jedi, led by Jedi precognition powers, swings his lightsabre, deflecting invisible component.
c) Tracer hits Jedi, doing no damage whatsoever.

Obviously, this is not what we see in the movies, so, again, sorry, lightspeed invisible component theory is false.

Nonamer
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Post by Nonamer » Thu Oct 05, 2006 3:46 pm

Nice! Though I don't think Kane is paying much attention anymore. Frankly, it would nice if a few Warsies hanged around to make discussion.

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