Mr. Oragahn wrote:Admiral Breetai wrote:so let me get this straight you are officially ordering me to disregard canon and canon feats and get side tracked into debating math that not only has zero basis in canon? but also with some one who has never posted any work thats not some one elses and isn't even capable of objective calculations? which is patently obvious when the man tossed out a hundred trillion number for a single planet..and as was pointed out by me in that very thread was basing some of his calcs on stuff that never happened on screen? after you've made a big deal about this place is a bastion of civility and fairness and not adhering to the Draconian standards of SDN- you are officially sanctioning me despite the fact that I'm sticking strictly to debating what your supposed to debate the actual evidence from the movies and accusing me of dodging arguments when I've done nothing of the sort and refusing to deal with a poster who bait threaded multiple posters and has insulted my intelligence?
am I understanding this clearly?
Nothing has any basis in canon. When you see someone shoot bullets at some tank, and see bullets ricochet while making sparks with a loud metallic noise, you make an interpretation that since the bullets are made of metal, and the plate they were shot at is also made of metal, and the bullets failed to get through said plate, then the rifle couldn't dent the tank's metal plate. Then, based on the looks of the gun and the looks of the tank, you make all sorts of extrapolations on the technological abilities of both sides.
You don't need a calc because it's straight forward enough, although you could make one if you really wanted to talk about RHA and caliber and so on, but it's still an interpretation in the end, although one that's simple enough so the vast majority of people will agree with you.
Secondly, you're confusing elements which obviously can't be gauged with those which can, even if it means only getting at equivalencies. Gauging midichlorians is not a thing you can do. But gauging the amount of damage done to something by TK is something you can, because you know that it looks like it was made with something akin to a given pressure per cm², or things of that vein.
Even more directly, judding the amount of damage caused by a chemical missile, even in Star Wars, is relatively damn easy, and can be calced, and there shouldn't be any reason why the calc wouldn't be valid, fireballs and sounds in space nonwithstanding (since they're often ignored by fans anyway, as they concentrate on the armour's and shields' more "conceptual" behaviour).
That, regardless of going with visuals or dialogue first.
mojo wrote:at what point is swst going to realize that ADMIRAL BREETAI NEVER EVEN ACCEPTED THE DEBATE CHALLENGE. he said from post one that he thought it was ridiculous and he had no interest in debating swst. he OF COURSE has a valid point in saying that real world mathematics can't be used to calculate correct figures for anything in a FANTASY UNIVERSE in which EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS ONSCREEN IS SPECIFICALLY INTENDED TO LOOK AWESOME, NOT BE REALISTIC.
Huh, you have the soft debating, which seems to be your cup of tea, and the hardcore one, which you may find ludicrous.
Both are valid here, but there's clearly a bias in favour of the hardcore way, and it's asked from SFJN members to acknowledge and accept this.
So for Breetai, if he wants to reject debating because he thinks the principle of how those numbers are obtained is silly, and he's going to ignore them on such grounds, then fine, but then he doesn't need to spend like four pages arguing that way.
But if Breetai starts playing the game by saying the calcs are invalid, based on the very rules which are accepted as to how make proper calculations (premises, observations, interpretations as math, etc.), then he cannot dismiss calcs and claim them silly or some such without actually proving why they're inaccurate, with the same rules the oponent actually used to make said calcs.
If you want to play a game, you play with the same rules, and it seems that Breetai is jumping from one set of rules to another, at times accepting the debate with SWST on the same grounds, and the next post denying this very debate.
So it depends on what Breetai is really doing, and from the looks of
this post, he has been accepting the rules SWST used to make the calcs at some point. He wasn't stuck at saying it didn't make sense doing such calcs, he was saying they were biased (as in based on faulty observations, perhaps even dishonest), and this is what SWST attacked him on: in what way were they supposedly biased?
Post such as
this one only add to the confusion, because there he is saying that he rejects calculations because they're a level of interpretation, i.e. fan made, which is silly.
He's expecting the movie to have a character say "sir, we fired a 20 kilotons torpedo" or something of that vein, and will not accept a calculation based on what said torpedo has generated in terms of fireballs or craterization.
So from the looks of it, Breetai needs to stop switching debating standards, and either step out of this thread, or actually engage in proper debating by using the same standards SWST used.
I can tell that this kind of game would really try my patience as well.
And damn, it actually
sucks having to explain all that.
Mind you, I didn't read SWST's post, I largely skimmed this thread thus far. I can't tell what's the problem with SWST atm.
the fact that that point invalidates the entire purpose of the website, and furthermore, the entire debate itself, doesn't make the point less correct. star trek is less guilty of this, as from everything i've read on the making of the series and whatnot says that science was a major issue to the people behind the scenes - not always a 'is this possible' but at the very least a 'this will probably be possible in the future' behind virtually every decision.
star wars has magic and virgin births and laser swords and ships where the hull can be welded with a common welding torch and copper wire running everywhere. it's just supposed to be cool. nothing in it makes the slightest sense.
Star Trek is choke full of such silly things as well you know.
