Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing.StarWarsStarTrek wrote:Are you this uncompromising?
I challenge darkstar to a debate
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
Ok, my opening arguments.
Canon Policy
We've already had a semi agreement on this for this debate, but a few words on the validity of reference guides.
Let's look at the main quotes that you use to justify your assertion of the EU and non canon.
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."
The way you interpret that quote is that the EU is a separate universe. For this debate, that's agreed upon. However, a reference guide; yes, that would include the ICS's, that's about the movies, obviously isn't another universe, because it's about the freaking movies. This is quite simple stuff. If there was an essential guide to the Attack of the Clones, that's obviously referring to the movie, not to some alternate world.
"could make their own Star Wars stories" - there. George Lucas is referring to storylines. He isn't the technical geeks and nerds that we are, and has no problem with the reference guides to the movies...because they're, well, about the movies. They're not trying to make their own Star Wars stories, they're making a freaking reference guide to a movie. It's about the movie, and it not any new universe.
Interviewer: "Do you think you'd have other people continue the Star Wars saga past Episode VI or turn some of the other material into films?"
Lucas: "But there's no story past Episode VI, there's just no story. It's a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that's kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books. But there's three worlds: There's my world that I made up, there's the licensing world that's the books, the comics, all that kind of stuff, the games, which is their world, and then there's the fans' world, which is also very rich in imagination, but they don't always mesh. All I'm in charge of is my world. I can't be in charge of those other people's world, because I can't keep up with it."
"there's no story past Episode VI" - again, he's referring to the story. He has no problem with reference guides that are specifically part of his movie, and probably has no problem with stories within the timeline of his movie. There.
Quite frankly, a reference guide to a movie is obviously part of said movie's universe, especially if the owner; in this case George Lucas, officially approves it and licenses it.
Size, Industry and Numbers
Star Wars has millions of planets. The Federation at its peak has; what; 1000 at most? This is staggering number difference, one that is very rare to be found in a conventional war. It's like the industrial disadvantage that the Axis had, but times several hundred. And that's not taking into account other things.
Star Wars hyperdrive speeds and their capability to travel across large portions of the galaxy within a day imply speeds tens of millions of times C, one of the highest FTL speeds in mainstream sci fi. We're talking about speeds that exceed Culture cruising speeds. You may object with your idea of the Star Wars galaxy being smaller. That still puts it at speeds far higher than Star Trek warp speeds. It took the Voyager 7 years to get across a portion of a quadrant, even with help from god like beings.
You might point out that hyperdrives need hyperlanes to travel. However, G canon points out that hyperlanes are not necessary for hyperdrive travel. Obi Wan traveled to Kamino, which was a virtually unknown world and therefore almost certainly had no hyperlanes to it. And he still did it likely within a day.
What does this mean? In addition to extreme logistical and strategic advantages that I shall go into later, it means that Star Wars planets can trade with each other far more easily and in a larger scale than Star Trek can. This is shown with the existence of inter stellar trading companies such as the Trade Federation, some of which can mine billions of planets according to the AOTC ICS. In a war, if a Star Wars planet needs resources, manpower, etc, they can receive help from another planet with the means to supply them. In Star Trek, if said planet were far away, transport could take months or years, but in Star Wars it could be done in under a day.
The construction of the Death Star 2 in only 60 months to 60% completion shows a staggering level of industrial might. Based on the 900 km diameter estimates, this would translate to about 900 trillion star destroyers, or several million per second. Going by the lower diameter estimates, the number is still extremely large. The Construction of the Death Star 2 is one of the most impressive industrial feats in Star Wars, and one that has not been replicated by the Federation or any other known Star Trek race, perhaps the only exception being the dyson sphere.
But it continues. You know Coruscant? The EU suggests a number of about 3 trillion, but going just by the movies the numbers are likely far, far higher. Scenes in Coruscant show crowd levels at least on the level of New York City. However, unlike New York City, Coruscant’s Galactic City spans the entire planet’s surface. Also unlike New York City, Coruscant’s population spans vertically up several km’s with skyscrapers that dwarf mountains.
Let’s do some quick calculations. The density of New York City’s population is about 10,000 people per km^2. The surface area of Earth is about 150 million km^2. That’s about 1.5 trillion people. However, that’s not taking into account the vertical population of Coruscant, as shown with its massive skyscrapers going several kms up. Quite frankly, New York City isn’t doing justice to the density of Coruscant. Movies show that entire kms of air space are completely filled with airspeeders. The densest city in the world is Manila, with about 43,000 people per km^2. Using this, that’s about 6.45 trillion people. Woah. Then, let’s account for vertical scale. If skyscrapers in Coruscant stretched as high as 5 kms; that’s about 30 trillion people. However, that would be assuming that the original density figure was per km, which it isn’t. Neither New York City nor Manila have skyscrapers or inhabitants even approaching a km tall. Let’s assume a median living height of 200 meters; this is actually very high, given that most people don’t live on the very top of skyscrapers, which bumps up our number to over 150 trillion people. That outnumbers the entire Federation. On one planet. Then Star Wars has millions of other planets, and although they aren’t as inhabited as Coruscant, you get the idea.
Seizing and maintain control of such a populous planet would require hundred of billions to trillions of troops, ground troops in the level that the Federation doesn’t have. They’d need to recruit the vast majority of their civilian population just to have the ability to occupy Coruscant.
If Star Wars does only a 1% draft, that’s 1.5 trillion people it gets from Coruscant alone, and what about the other planets? They’re likely to have more soldiers than the Federation has citizens, and if the other side has more soldiers than you have citizens, you’re almost always screwed.
As for ship counts, the Battle of Coruscant. It shows huge fleets rivaling the dominion wars in size. Even more impressive, these two fleets would have been gathered almost on a whim, because it was a surprise attack. Had the Republic had time to prepare, they likely could have brought a larger fleet.
Therefore, even if technological advancement were equal, Star Wars could win due to having a several million to one industrial advantage and several thousand to one numerical advantage. These advantages are staggering; do you notice the several digit numbers? This is a disparity in excess of basically any conventional war ever fought. History shows that, in a long scale conventional war with technological and leadership parity, the side with better logistics and numbers tends to win. That’s a large reason as to why the Allies win. In this war, Star Wars could produce more in a year than Star Trek could produce in decades. It would be a curbstomp of massive proportions. The only way for the Federation to win is if they can force a victory very, very early, but their warp drive is too slow for early to be any earlier than several decades.
Firepower, durability, shields, power generation, etc
Mike Wong did an interesting calculation on the Death Star. http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... ower2.html He explains how the Death Star would have to have gone at 670 km/s in order to have reached Yavin 4 as quickly as it did, which makes sense. That's about e29 joules, assuming as Mike Wong did density on par with a GCS. The 3 main factors that would be problems in making a 200 gigaton turbolaser would be:
1. Energy
2. Heat
3. Recoil
Energy. The Death Star's hypermatter reactor is about 16 km in diameter. You can deny it being hypermatter, so call it whatever you want, the name doesn't matter. A star destroyer's reactor is about 140 meters; that's a volume difference of about a million. Scaling it down; gasp! It's about e23 joules, very close to the AOTC and ROTS ICS claims! So we have energy.
Heat. Shields. AOTC and ROTS ICS's mention shield heat dissipation, and how they can dissipate heat. Logically this could be used to prevent overheating. These shields would have to be powered, but as shown above this is already possible, so heat is solved.
Recoil. If the EU was allowed, I could mention the quote from Star Wars Slave Ship. Since shields seem to be able to stop kinetic energy and force, they could help. Durasteel, which is strong enough to allow for 5 km tall skyscrapers that don't collapse upon themselves and withstand earthquakes, could help too. Also, the turbolasers could get lots of their destructive ability from a reaction once they hit something, like exploding, rather than kinetic energy powered by the ship. Either, the fact that the Death Star didn't destroy itself when it fired its superlaser shows that Star Wars has dealt with this.
So there we have it. The problems of the 200 gigaton turbolasers solved. An e23 joule per second reactor could produce tremendously powerful weapons. In fact, if all of it could be channeled to weaponry; we know from the "intensity forward batteries" that they can adjust power settings; that's 10 teratons of tnt per broadside. Even if they can only divert 10% of their power to weapons, that's still a teraton of tnt per broadside. Heck, even if they can only divert 1% of their power to weapons, that still 100 gigatons of tnt per broadside. This is enough to one shot Federation ships. If the Star Wars ship wants to play defensive, it can channel most of its energy to its shields; e23 watts of shielding is enough to render it almost invulnerable to Star Trek photon torpedos, even your 100 megaton ones.
I also have problems with your claim of 100 megatons for photon torpedos based on the Rise asteroid scene. What confuses me is why you use vaporization, even though one of the crew members expected fragmentation. One of the other crew members said that it should have been vaporized, but then another expected fragmentation of less than 1 cm. Given that Harry Kim spoke in rather specific terms, Chakotay seems to have been speaking figuratively.
You also stand by the opinion that 100 megatons can start a nuclear winter. However, explain why your 100 megaton photon torpedos don't do this. In the Breen attack on Earth, more than one photon torpedo was obviously used, yet the devastation was to the San Fransico Bay area, and did not cause a nuclear winter. Heck, even quantum torpedos don't do that kind of damage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTtOMWRysg
No nuclear winter, eh?
Logistics
With hyperdrive, Star Wars gets an almost instant win advantage. Starfleet would have to spread itself out dangerously thin. Why? Because if an attack on the other side of the Federation is reported, a Federation fleet on the other side of the Federation or even near the middle would take months or years to get there. On the other hand, Star Wars fleets can basically attack anywhere at anytime with no warning, and then retreat with no way for the Federation fleets to track them. It's like the ultimate guerrilla capability being used in a conventional war. Any Federation invasion attempt would take decades to get anywhere; it's highly likely that much of the crew would be old men by the time they got to their destination, and then they'd get figuratively dogpiled by Star Wars reinforcements from numerous surrounding star systems.
With the huge disparity between hyperdrive and warp drive, Star Wars has a huge strategic and logistical advantage. Star Trek has almost no force projection capabilities to invade the Star Wars galaxy, which would be suicidal to try.
Ground combat
I've been rewatching many Star Trek episodes, and their ground combat is laughably pathetic. We're talking about phasers that look like toothbrushes, who can't make holes in rocks or even redshirt pajamas, the lack of grenades, vehicles, heavy weaponry, automatic weapons or basic combat tactics.
For example, when traveling into a dark cave, the Voyager chooses a freaking engineer to go in with them. Then, they equip them, with flashlights. Really? Do they not have night vision?
You might point to the weak performance of stormtroopers in ROTJ. However, although this showing is canon, it's supposed to symbolize the prevalence of tactics over technology and was a one time occurrence. In Star Trek, this happens regularly. The Ewoks were armed, had the element of surprise, had Rebel soldiers that were well armed helping them, and possibly had superior numbers on their sides. In Voyager Resistance, a group of soldiers in what appears to be body armor armed with phasers gets the drop on the protagonists. The protagonists, outnumbered, proceeded to beat up the baddies by using hand to hand combat. Wow. The klingons use knives to fight their opponents and actually win.
You might point out the presence of some powerful Star Trek capabilities, such as phasers vaporizing rock, wide beam settings, etc. However, these are rarely shown or used. Why wouldn't they be used more often? Possibilities:
1. There is some unexplained technical limitation that prevents them from using them.
2. They're morons.
Take your pick.
Canon Policy
We've already had a semi agreement on this for this debate, but a few words on the validity of reference guides.
Let's look at the main quotes that you use to justify your assertion of the EU and non canon.
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."
The way you interpret that quote is that the EU is a separate universe. For this debate, that's agreed upon. However, a reference guide; yes, that would include the ICS's, that's about the movies, obviously isn't another universe, because it's about the freaking movies. This is quite simple stuff. If there was an essential guide to the Attack of the Clones, that's obviously referring to the movie, not to some alternate world.
"could make their own Star Wars stories" - there. George Lucas is referring to storylines. He isn't the technical geeks and nerds that we are, and has no problem with the reference guides to the movies...because they're, well, about the movies. They're not trying to make their own Star Wars stories, they're making a freaking reference guide to a movie. It's about the movie, and it not any new universe.
Interviewer: "Do you think you'd have other people continue the Star Wars saga past Episode VI or turn some of the other material into films?"
Lucas: "But there's no story past Episode VI, there's just no story. It's a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that's kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books. But there's three worlds: There's my world that I made up, there's the licensing world that's the books, the comics, all that kind of stuff, the games, which is their world, and then there's the fans' world, which is also very rich in imagination, but they don't always mesh. All I'm in charge of is my world. I can't be in charge of those other people's world, because I can't keep up with it."
"there's no story past Episode VI" - again, he's referring to the story. He has no problem with reference guides that are specifically part of his movie, and probably has no problem with stories within the timeline of his movie. There.
Quite frankly, a reference guide to a movie is obviously part of said movie's universe, especially if the owner; in this case George Lucas, officially approves it and licenses it.
Size, Industry and Numbers
Star Wars has millions of planets. The Federation at its peak has; what; 1000 at most? This is staggering number difference, one that is very rare to be found in a conventional war. It's like the industrial disadvantage that the Axis had, but times several hundred. And that's not taking into account other things.
Star Wars hyperdrive speeds and their capability to travel across large portions of the galaxy within a day imply speeds tens of millions of times C, one of the highest FTL speeds in mainstream sci fi. We're talking about speeds that exceed Culture cruising speeds. You may object with your idea of the Star Wars galaxy being smaller. That still puts it at speeds far higher than Star Trek warp speeds. It took the Voyager 7 years to get across a portion of a quadrant, even with help from god like beings.
You might point out that hyperdrives need hyperlanes to travel. However, G canon points out that hyperlanes are not necessary for hyperdrive travel. Obi Wan traveled to Kamino, which was a virtually unknown world and therefore almost certainly had no hyperlanes to it. And he still did it likely within a day.
What does this mean? In addition to extreme logistical and strategic advantages that I shall go into later, it means that Star Wars planets can trade with each other far more easily and in a larger scale than Star Trek can. This is shown with the existence of inter stellar trading companies such as the Trade Federation, some of which can mine billions of planets according to the AOTC ICS. In a war, if a Star Wars planet needs resources, manpower, etc, they can receive help from another planet with the means to supply them. In Star Trek, if said planet were far away, transport could take months or years, but in Star Wars it could be done in under a day.
The construction of the Death Star 2 in only 60 months to 60% completion shows a staggering level of industrial might. Based on the 900 km diameter estimates, this would translate to about 900 trillion star destroyers, or several million per second. Going by the lower diameter estimates, the number is still extremely large. The Construction of the Death Star 2 is one of the most impressive industrial feats in Star Wars, and one that has not been replicated by the Federation or any other known Star Trek race, perhaps the only exception being the dyson sphere.
But it continues. You know Coruscant? The EU suggests a number of about 3 trillion, but going just by the movies the numbers are likely far, far higher. Scenes in Coruscant show crowd levels at least on the level of New York City. However, unlike New York City, Coruscant’s Galactic City spans the entire planet’s surface. Also unlike New York City, Coruscant’s population spans vertically up several km’s with skyscrapers that dwarf mountains.
Let’s do some quick calculations. The density of New York City’s population is about 10,000 people per km^2. The surface area of Earth is about 150 million km^2. That’s about 1.5 trillion people. However, that’s not taking into account the vertical population of Coruscant, as shown with its massive skyscrapers going several kms up. Quite frankly, New York City isn’t doing justice to the density of Coruscant. Movies show that entire kms of air space are completely filled with airspeeders. The densest city in the world is Manila, with about 43,000 people per km^2. Using this, that’s about 6.45 trillion people. Woah. Then, let’s account for vertical scale. If skyscrapers in Coruscant stretched as high as 5 kms; that’s about 30 trillion people. However, that would be assuming that the original density figure was per km, which it isn’t. Neither New York City nor Manila have skyscrapers or inhabitants even approaching a km tall. Let’s assume a median living height of 200 meters; this is actually very high, given that most people don’t live on the very top of skyscrapers, which bumps up our number to over 150 trillion people. That outnumbers the entire Federation. On one planet. Then Star Wars has millions of other planets, and although they aren’t as inhabited as Coruscant, you get the idea.
Seizing and maintain control of such a populous planet would require hundred of billions to trillions of troops, ground troops in the level that the Federation doesn’t have. They’d need to recruit the vast majority of their civilian population just to have the ability to occupy Coruscant.
If Star Wars does only a 1% draft, that’s 1.5 trillion people it gets from Coruscant alone, and what about the other planets? They’re likely to have more soldiers than the Federation has citizens, and if the other side has more soldiers than you have citizens, you’re almost always screwed.
As for ship counts, the Battle of Coruscant. It shows huge fleets rivaling the dominion wars in size. Even more impressive, these two fleets would have been gathered almost on a whim, because it was a surprise attack. Had the Republic had time to prepare, they likely could have brought a larger fleet.
Therefore, even if technological advancement were equal, Star Wars could win due to having a several million to one industrial advantage and several thousand to one numerical advantage. These advantages are staggering; do you notice the several digit numbers? This is a disparity in excess of basically any conventional war ever fought. History shows that, in a long scale conventional war with technological and leadership parity, the side with better logistics and numbers tends to win. That’s a large reason as to why the Allies win. In this war, Star Wars could produce more in a year than Star Trek could produce in decades. It would be a curbstomp of massive proportions. The only way for the Federation to win is if they can force a victory very, very early, but their warp drive is too slow for early to be any earlier than several decades.
Firepower, durability, shields, power generation, etc
Mike Wong did an interesting calculation on the Death Star. http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... ower2.html He explains how the Death Star would have to have gone at 670 km/s in order to have reached Yavin 4 as quickly as it did, which makes sense. That's about e29 joules, assuming as Mike Wong did density on par with a GCS. The 3 main factors that would be problems in making a 200 gigaton turbolaser would be:
1. Energy
2. Heat
3. Recoil
Energy. The Death Star's hypermatter reactor is about 16 km in diameter. You can deny it being hypermatter, so call it whatever you want, the name doesn't matter. A star destroyer's reactor is about 140 meters; that's a volume difference of about a million. Scaling it down; gasp! It's about e23 joules, very close to the AOTC and ROTS ICS claims! So we have energy.
Heat. Shields. AOTC and ROTS ICS's mention shield heat dissipation, and how they can dissipate heat. Logically this could be used to prevent overheating. These shields would have to be powered, but as shown above this is already possible, so heat is solved.
Recoil. If the EU was allowed, I could mention the quote from Star Wars Slave Ship. Since shields seem to be able to stop kinetic energy and force, they could help. Durasteel, which is strong enough to allow for 5 km tall skyscrapers that don't collapse upon themselves and withstand earthquakes, could help too. Also, the turbolasers could get lots of their destructive ability from a reaction once they hit something, like exploding, rather than kinetic energy powered by the ship. Either, the fact that the Death Star didn't destroy itself when it fired its superlaser shows that Star Wars has dealt with this.
So there we have it. The problems of the 200 gigaton turbolasers solved. An e23 joule per second reactor could produce tremendously powerful weapons. In fact, if all of it could be channeled to weaponry; we know from the "intensity forward batteries" that they can adjust power settings; that's 10 teratons of tnt per broadside. Even if they can only divert 10% of their power to weapons, that's still a teraton of tnt per broadside. Heck, even if they can only divert 1% of their power to weapons, that still 100 gigatons of tnt per broadside. This is enough to one shot Federation ships. If the Star Wars ship wants to play defensive, it can channel most of its energy to its shields; e23 watts of shielding is enough to render it almost invulnerable to Star Trek photon torpedos, even your 100 megaton ones.
I also have problems with your claim of 100 megatons for photon torpedos based on the Rise asteroid scene. What confuses me is why you use vaporization, even though one of the crew members expected fragmentation. One of the other crew members said that it should have been vaporized, but then another expected fragmentation of less than 1 cm. Given that Harry Kim spoke in rather specific terms, Chakotay seems to have been speaking figuratively.
You also stand by the opinion that 100 megatons can start a nuclear winter. However, explain why your 100 megaton photon torpedos don't do this. In the Breen attack on Earth, more than one photon torpedo was obviously used, yet the devastation was to the San Fransico Bay area, and did not cause a nuclear winter. Heck, even quantum torpedos don't do that kind of damage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTtOMWRysg
No nuclear winter, eh?
Logistics
With hyperdrive, Star Wars gets an almost instant win advantage. Starfleet would have to spread itself out dangerously thin. Why? Because if an attack on the other side of the Federation is reported, a Federation fleet on the other side of the Federation or even near the middle would take months or years to get there. On the other hand, Star Wars fleets can basically attack anywhere at anytime with no warning, and then retreat with no way for the Federation fleets to track them. It's like the ultimate guerrilla capability being used in a conventional war. Any Federation invasion attempt would take decades to get anywhere; it's highly likely that much of the crew would be old men by the time they got to their destination, and then they'd get figuratively dogpiled by Star Wars reinforcements from numerous surrounding star systems.
With the huge disparity between hyperdrive and warp drive, Star Wars has a huge strategic and logistical advantage. Star Trek has almost no force projection capabilities to invade the Star Wars galaxy, which would be suicidal to try.
Ground combat
I've been rewatching many Star Trek episodes, and their ground combat is laughably pathetic. We're talking about phasers that look like toothbrushes, who can't make holes in rocks or even redshirt pajamas, the lack of grenades, vehicles, heavy weaponry, automatic weapons or basic combat tactics.
For example, when traveling into a dark cave, the Voyager chooses a freaking engineer to go in with them. Then, they equip them, with flashlights. Really? Do they not have night vision?
You might point to the weak performance of stormtroopers in ROTJ. However, although this showing is canon, it's supposed to symbolize the prevalence of tactics over technology and was a one time occurrence. In Star Trek, this happens regularly. The Ewoks were armed, had the element of surprise, had Rebel soldiers that were well armed helping them, and possibly had superior numbers on their sides. In Voyager Resistance, a group of soldiers in what appears to be body armor armed with phasers gets the drop on the protagonists. The protagonists, outnumbered, proceeded to beat up the baddies by using hand to hand combat. Wow. The klingons use knives to fight their opponents and actually win.
You might point out the presence of some powerful Star Trek capabilities, such as phasers vaporizing rock, wide beam settings, etc. However, these are rarely shown or used. Why wouldn't they be used more often? Possibilities:
1. There is some unexplained technical limitation that prevents them from using them.
2. They're morons.
Take your pick.
- 2046
- Starship Captain
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
Y'know, I asked you to select a narrow topic. And what ticks me off more is that I hit reply and started working on this, and only after a long while and wasted effort did I realize just how much you had ignored that statement.
Start over.
Start over.
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
I did not read the rest but this bit is AWESOME, here is a quicker rundown:-StarWarsStarTrek wrote:
Ground combat
I've been rewatching many Star Trek episodes, and their ground combat is laughably pathetic. We're talking about phasers that look like toothbrushes, who can't make holes in rocks or even redshirt pajamas, the lack of grenades, vehicles, heavy weaponry, automatic weapons or basic combat tactics.
For example, when traveling into a dark cave, the Voyager chooses a freaking engineer to go in with them. Then, they equip them, with flashlights. Really? Do they not have night vision?
You might point to the weak performance of stormtroopers in ROTJ. However, although this showing is canon, it's supposed to symbolize the prevalence of tactics over technology and was a one time occurrence. In Star Trek, this happens regularly. The Ewoks were armed, had the element of surprise, had Rebel soldiers that were well armed helping them, and possibly had superior numbers on their sides. In Voyager Resistance, a group of soldiers in what appears to be body armor armed with phasers gets the drop on the protagonists. The protagonists, outnumbered, proceeded to beat up the baddies by using hand to hand combat. Wow. The klingons use knives to fight their opponents and actually win.
You might point out the presence of some powerful Star Trek capabilities, such as phasers vaporizing rock, wide beam settings, etc. However, these are rarely shown or used. Why wouldn't they be used more often? Possibilities:
1. There is some unexplained technical limitation that prevents them from using them.
2. They're morons.
Take your pick.
You know when we were shite and got raped by stone age 3ft teddys, and those other times a kid, old man and a couple of buddies on our most secure military station?, IGNORE THEM.
You know when trek phasers vaporise huge quantities of rock or even people?, IGNORE THAT.
So essentially ignore all the times stormtrooper and empire stuff sucked, ignore all the times trek stuff was good, and il finish up with a false dilemma regarding tech limitations or moronic behavior for you too choose from....
Thank you for entertaining my evening...:).
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
I'm not asking StarWarsStarTrek this, but when do we see Star Trek ground battles fought by fresh troops?StarWarsStarTrek wrote:
Ground combat
I've been rewatching many Star Trek episodes, and their ground combat is laughably pathetic. We're talking about phasers that look like toothbrushes, who can't make holes in rocks or even redshirt pajamas, the lack of grenades, vehicles, heavy weaponry, automatic weapons or basic combat tactics.
For example, when traveling into a dark cave, the Voyager chooses a freaking engineer to go in with them. Then, they equip them, with flashlights. Really? Do they not have night vision?
You might point to the weak performance of stormtroopers in ROTJ. However, although this showing is canon, it's supposed to symbolize the prevalence of tactics over technology and was a one time occurrence. In Star Trek, this happens regularly. The Ewoks were armed, had the element of surprise, had Rebel soldiers that were well armed helping them, and possibly had superior numbers on their sides. In Voyager Resistance, a group of soldiers in what appears to be body armor armed with phasers gets the drop on the protagonists. The protagonists, outnumbered, proceeded to beat up the baddies by using hand to hand combat. Wow. The klingons use knives to fight their opponents and actually win.
You might point out the presence of some powerful Star Trek capabilities, such as phasers vaporizing rock, wide beam settings, etc. However, these are rarely shown or used. Why wouldn't they be used more often? Possibilities:
1. There is some unexplained technical limitation that prevents them from using them.
2. They're morons.
Take your pick.
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
You should really be making your commentary in the seperate commentary thread, Lucky. Not here, where this is supposed to be between 2046 and SWST.
-Mike
-Mike
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
Your refusal to discuss more than one subject is confusing, but fine then. Please counter my section on firepower and such. Also, add:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge-8A6- ... r_embedded
The Death Star goes from being a tiny speck to a giant battle station from the point of view of the protagonists in a matter of seconds. So if you can't believe the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, here's your proof; the Millennium Falcon is also absurdly fast.
Then there's the example of the imperial fleet circumnavigating Yavin 4 in seconds or minutes, or the Rebel starfighters reaching the Death Star in seconds or minutes, or Count Dooku's sail ship reaching orbit in a matter of seconds, or the numerous footages of ships going from ground to orbit in a matter of seconds.
Do you still not believe me? What about when the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive broke down, and they had to get to Bespin via sublight drives? It was specifically stated to be in a separate system.
So what does this mean? In addition to showing that Star Wars ships can go pretty darn fast, it supports the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, which supports the Death Star's high power generation, which supports star destroyer power generation, which supports high firepower and shielding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge-8A6- ... r_embedded
The Death Star goes from being a tiny speck to a giant battle station from the point of view of the protagonists in a matter of seconds. So if you can't believe the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, here's your proof; the Millennium Falcon is also absurdly fast.
Then there's the example of the imperial fleet circumnavigating Yavin 4 in seconds or minutes, or the Rebel starfighters reaching the Death Star in seconds or minutes, or Count Dooku's sail ship reaching orbit in a matter of seconds, or the numerous footages of ships going from ground to orbit in a matter of seconds.
Do you still not believe me? What about when the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive broke down, and they had to get to Bespin via sublight drives? It was specifically stated to be in a separate system.
So what does this mean? In addition to showing that Star Wars ships can go pretty darn fast, it supports the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, which supports the Death Star's high power generation, which supports star destroyer power generation, which supports high firepower and shielding.
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
1. What makes you think we can see the DS from our perspective and it is a spec, it is more likely given that the view we get at that point shows the space outside scrolling up that it is not visable to us yet.StarWarsStarTrek wrote:Your refusal to discuss more than one subject is confusing, but fine then. Please counter my section on firepower and such. Also, add:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge-8A6- ... r_embedded
The Death Star goes from being a tiny speck to a giant battle station from the point of view of the protagonists in a matter of seconds. So if you can't believe the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, here's your proof; the Millennium Falcon is also absurdly fast.
2. What mokes you think it was moving and the velocity was not all the falcons.
3. What makes you think the speed they approach it is particularly impressive?.
So what?, those are all out of combat speeds where the cut scene could imply a longer passage of time. Even if not we never see such speeds in combat and in most cases such ability in combat would be a fight winner so it is obviously a short out of combat boost or the cut scenes imply a longer passage of time.Then there's the example of the imperial fleet circumnavigating Yavin 4 in seconds or minutes, or the Rebel starfighters reaching the Death Star in seconds or minutes, or Count Dooku's sail ship reaching orbit in a matter of seconds, or the numerous footages of ships going from ground to orbit in a matter of seconds.
Sill preaching the same flawed rubbish over and over i see, do you honestly think moving threads and preaching the same debunked crap will change anything?.So what does this mean? In addition to showing that Star Wars ships can go pretty darn fast, it supports the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, which supports the Death Star's high power generation, which supports star destroyer power generation, which supports high firepower and shielding.
- Praeothmin
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
Kor, this is Darkstar vs SWST, not SWST versus everybody.
If you don't agree with his conclusions, take it to another thread...
If you don't agree with his conclusions, take it to another thread...
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
Sorry i saw 3 other posters in the thread and did not notice the warnings and thought it was open for a reply by anybody.Praeothmin wrote:Kor, this is Darkstar vs SWST, not SWST versus everybody.
If you don't agree with his conclusions, take it to another thread...
- Praeothmin
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
No problem, just don't do it again... ;-)
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
A thought just occured to me... is it possible to lock the thread to all others, except the participants, and staff? I can't recall if that's ever been done on a forum, or if it's even possible.
-Mike
-Mike
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
Although this debate is with darkstar, I'll still counter this:
Do you not realize how skewed that is? I might as well dismiss warp drive because it's impossible.
Uh, no, the video clearly shows that the Death Star was within the viewscreen of the Falcon, but started off small and got larger. It wasn't scrolling up.Kor_Dahar_Master wrote: 1. What makes you think we can see the DS from our perspective and it is a spec, it is more likely given that the view we get at that point shows the space outside scrolling up that it is not visable to us yet.
I didn't claim that the velocity was the Death Star's. The Falcon likely did the moving, but that still shows that Star Wars ship speeds are pretty darn high.2. What mokes you think it was moving and the velocity was not all the falcons.
Because it makes a 160 km battlestation go from being a speck to being a huge battlestation in a matter of seconds?3. What makes you think the speed they approach it is particularly impressive?.
Nah, many of those feats have specifically stated times. As for combat speeds, I did not claim that starfighters could dogfight at such high speeds, but only that they could move at such high speeds.So what?, those are all out of combat speeds where the cut scene could imply a longer passage of time. Even if not we never see such speeds in combat and in most cases such ability in combat would be a fight winner so it is obviously a short out of combat boost or the cut scenes imply a longer passage of time.
What same debunked crap? You mean the rebuttal attempt of disproving the indisputable; that is, the Death Star obviously moved towards Yavin 4, and that's a fact; by claiming it to be impossible? Basically, trying to debunk soft sci fi on the concept of it not even being scientifically impossible, but practically impossible?
Sill preaching the same flawed rubbish over and over i see, do you honestly think moving threads and preaching the same debunked crap will change anything?.
Do you not realize how skewed that is? I might as well dismiss warp drive because it's impossible.
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
As this thread is for just you two i replied here:-StarWarsStarTrek wrote:Although this debate is with darkstar, I'll still counter this:
Uh, no, the video clearly shows that the Death Star was within the viewscreen of the Falcon, but started off small and got larger. It wasn't scrolling up.Kor_Dahar_Master wrote: 1. What makes you think we can see the DS from our perspective and it is a spec, it is more likely given that the view we get at that point shows the space outside scrolling up that it is not visable to us yet.
I didn't claim that the velocity was the Death Star's. The Falcon likely did the moving, but that still shows that Star Wars ship speeds are pretty darn high.2. What mokes you think it was moving and the velocity was not all the falcons.
Because it makes a 160 km battlestation go from being a speck to being a huge battlestation in a matter of seconds?3. What makes you think the speed they approach it is particularly impressive?.
Nah, many of those feats have specifically stated times. As for combat speeds, I did not claim that starfighters could dogfight at such high speeds, but only that they could move at such high speeds.So what?, those are all out of combat speeds where the cut scene could imply a longer passage of time. Even if not we never see such speeds in combat and in most cases such ability in combat would be a fight winner so it is obviously a short out of combat boost or the cut scenes imply a longer passage of time.
What same debunked crap? You mean the rebuttal attempt of disproving the indisputable; that is, the Death Star obviously moved towards Yavin 4, and that's a fact; by claiming it to be impossible? Basically, trying to debunk soft sci fi on the concept of it not even being scientifically impossible, but practically impossible?
Sill preaching the same flawed rubbish over and over i see, do you honestly think moving threads and preaching the same debunked crap will change anything?.
Do you not realize how skewed that is? I might as well dismiss warp drive because it's impossible.
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... f=8&t=1815
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Re: I challenge darkstar to a debate
No it isn't. People have been talking about this stuff online for over 13 years (just going by ASVS, which was by no means the first or the only public forum for such things).StarWarsStarTrek wrote:Your refusal to discuss more than one subject is confusing,
Judging by some rough search and calculation efforts, I'd ballpark about 400,000 posts at ASVS. Assuming an average of just 500 new bytes . . . 500 new letters . . . per post, that's 200 megabytes, and 200 million letters, or an average of something like 40-50 million words. That's about 100 copies of War and Peace. And I'd imagine that's a low-end figure.
Hell, just the root HTML documents on my website (as tallied by checking my local directory) total 5.1 megabytes. Even if half of that is HTML script and other such mess, you're still looking at 2.5 million letters, or something like 4-500,000 words . . . or, again, War and Peace.
That's why I don't expect you to just rush in and know all about all of this stuff in one go. But at the same time, you need to listen to your elders . . . I've forgotten more about this debate than you've ever known.
Oh really? And how does the Falcon going some unspecified value of what you consider "fast" prove jack about the Death Star?Please counter my section on firepower and such. Also, add:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge-8A6- ... r_embedded
The Death Star goes from being a tiny speck to a giant battle station from the point of view of the protagonists in a matter of seconds. So if you can't believe the 670 km/s figure for the Death Star, here's your proof; the Millennium Falcon is also absurdly fast.
What the hell are you talking about? The Imperial fleet was never at Yavin in the films.Then there's the example of the imperial fleet circumnavigating Yavin 4 in seconds or minutes,
I presume you're talking about Endor, except that the Imperial fleet was never seen to circumnavigate the planet.
Even your side has suggested that a short hyperjump was used to get to the Death Star.or the Rebel starfighters reaching the Death Star in seconds or minutes,
That's a rather obvious editing error. You'd do better to argue a hyperjump there, since the thing goes from aircraft-speed near the surface to high orbit leisurely passing a Separatist ship, seemingly still at aircraft speed relative to the planet.or Count Dooku's sail ship reaching orbit in a matter of seconds,
I have no doubt that Star Wars vessels can achieve orbit fairly quickly, but that's a literal jump-cut to space . . . it doesn't make sense.
1. "System" is not generally used the same way in the Star Wars films as we might use it. "On the system", for instance, is not a phrasing we would employ.Do you still not believe me? What about when the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive broke down, and they had to get to Bespin via sublight drives? It was specifically stated to be in a separate system.
2. The script and film do not require us to believe that Bespin was anywhere but the Anoat system, which was the location given at the time. The novelization does make reference to "Bespin system", but as per #1 we have no real need to assume a separate star system.
3. I realize you're stuck with a bad lot, trying to defend your indefensible opinions, but it's really silly to argue exclusively at the margins. That is, you can't expect to make your opinion stick if you base your ideas off of obvious editing errors and silly stuff like the Hoth Anoat Bespin thing that fans have discussed for years simply because it's so confusing. A wide variety of theories have been presented on the topic, and yet you would claim one (with not even acknowledgement of the others) and that it proves your other claims.
I mean, arguing that "Anoat-Bespin = w00t sublight!" is absurd. You just shouldn't attempt to claim that a journey of light-years (as I presume you're arguing) being done with sublight engines is even plausible, much less claiming it as proof of sublight engine awesomeness.
Anyway, here's your section on firepower and such that you requested as the topic:
Dude, 2002* called. They want their argument back.StarWarsStarTrek wrote:Firepower, durability, shields, power generation, etc
Mike Wong did an interesting calculation on the Death Star. http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... ower2.html He explains how the Death Star would have to have gone at 670 km/s in order to have reached Yavin 4 as quickly as it did, which makes sense.
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdsaccel.html
(* that's the oldest Wayback Machine version of the page available, but I think it's probably a 2001 thing.)
So you have a totally-wrong acceleration and an unknown-but-assumed mass, and from such august reasonings comes a figure which you quote. What could possibly go wrong?That's about e29 joules, assuming as Mike Wong did density on par with a GCS.
A debate is not a time to engage in theoretical ponderings. We're not interested in whether it is conceivable . . . only if there is canon evidence. I have yet to see any indication whatsoever of such evidence.The 3 main factors that would be problems in making a 200 gigaton turbolaser would be:
1. Energy
2. Heat
3. Recoil
Bzzt. It's a fusion reactor, my boy. Hypermatter does not exist in the Star Wars canon of Lucas.Energy. The Death Star's hypermatter reactor
You've oversimplified by about a million.The Death Star's hypermatter reactor is about 16 km in diameter. You can deny it being hypermatter, so call it whatever you want, the name doesn't matter. A star destroyer's reactor is about 140 meters; that's a volume difference of about a million. Scaling it down
1. You can't simply scale power and weapons systems up and down and expect the scaled output to be correct. The differences between a .357 Magnum and an Iowa Class 16-incher are extreme, but the energy difference is not a direct correlation of barrel width. But, do feel free to prove me wrong.
2. You pluck "e23" out of thin air. I presume you are assuming that the Death Star reactor generates 1E38W, but I'm afraid you'll have to prove that.
Bzzt!Heat. Shields. AOTC and ROTS ICS's mention shield heat dissipation, and how they can dissipate heat. Logically this could be used to prevent overheating. These shields would have to be powered, but as shown above this is already possible, so heat is solved.
1. You're using the ICS as a source.
2. You just glossed over your own requirement anyway.
#2 is why your theoretical ponderings are irrelevant and useless and just make for extreme boredom. Especially since even if you "prove" to yourself, me, and everyone else that your 200GT turbolasers are plausible in Star Wars, that still doesn't put them there in the canon.
But just for kicks, please explain heat dissipation of a 200GT directed energy weapon operating at, oh, 99.99% thermal efficiency. Mind you, that's extremely good efficiency . . . except for the part where it offloads 20 megatons of energy into its surroundings.
I hope the kitchen is nearby . . . I hear the Empire's all about green energy, and utilizing the waste heat of turbolasers sounds green to me!
Isn't that cute! Were you proud of yourself for being so clever as to mention not mentioning an EU quote?Recoil. If the EU was allowed, I could mention the quote from Star Wars Slave Ship.
So you're using handwavium shields with no further explanation? You defined the problem . . . provide some real solutions! Or, better yet, drop the theoretical junk anyway . . . a debate is no place for that sort of exploration without context.Since shields seem to be able to stop kinetic energy and force, they could help.
What? Are you suggesting that they are not simple directed energy weapons? Very good! We know from the canon, after all, that blaster bolts are galvened particle beams, and when the galvening fades over time they disperse into a radioactive fog, so you've done well with that section. (RotS novelization, various quotes)Also, the turbolasers could get lots of their destructive ability from a reaction once they hit something, like exploding, rather than kinetic energy powered by the ship.
But of course, at that point, your whole concept breaks down. After all, there's no direct relation between an Iowa Class engine's output and its firepower, because the ship doesn't shoot energy . . . it shoots explosive matter. Similarly, Star Wars guns seem to shoot some sort of explosive whatever particle beam thing. We've even seen spent shells in RotS and TCW.
So why the hell do you guys try to claim engine power from firepower?
Even if it were true, it would be irrelevant. You still have to prove they exist in order to claim them.So there we have it. The problems of the 200 gigaton turbolasers solved.
Besides which, what delightful oversimplification. In a mere three paragraphs without a lick of technical explanation you've solved the problem! Next up, would you mind completing nuclear fusion, cures for cancer, and so on in your next post?
False dichotomy. Surely you don't think that a single explosive charge can, with utter and complete cleanliness, perfectly vaporize a 400 meter asteroid without a single piece of remnant debris blasted away, do you?I also have problems with your claim of 100 megatons for photon torpedos based on the Rise asteroid scene. What confuses me is why you use vaporization, even though one of the crew members expected fragmentation. One of the other crew members said that it should have been vaporized, but then another expected fragmentation of less than 1 cm. Given that Harry Kim spoke in rather specific terms, Chakotay seems to have been speaking figuratively.
I stand by what?You also stand by the opinion that 100 megatons can start a nuclear winter. However, explain why your 100 megaton photon torpedos don't do this.
I quoted someone else on my site who references Sagan et al. and refers to a large spread of nuclear weapons distributed around, totalling 100 megatons. That's not the same as a single 100MT bomb. In fact, on that very page I make fun of idiots who attempted to misread it that way:
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWbd0.html
That said, although that page is correct in noting the position of many scientists in regards to modeling the effects of a limited nuclear exchange, I am not so certain now of the correctness of their view. But that's neither here nor there, except to provide the second part of the fact that (1) that's not my opinion and (2) I don't necessarily stand by it anyway.
In any case, such speculations aren't required for the page's arguments anyway.
Please provide evidence of even a single ship-mounted weapon being used against San Francisco.In the Breen attack on Earth, more than one photon torpedo was obviously used,
1. You don't get nuclear winter in one second! Good grief.yet the devastation was to the San Fransico Bay area, and did not cause a nuclear winter. Heck, even quantum torpedos don't do that kind of damage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHTtOMWRysg
No nuclear winter, eh?
2. The torpedoes fired against the planet in that scene (from "For the Uniform"[DSN5]) were quantum torpedoes detonated fifty kilometers above the planet's surface in order to disperse poisonous trilithium resin from attached cargo pods.
Needless to say, that's not the same thing as a surface strike, and we don't even know what special maneuvers are involved in that whole sequence. Certainly dispersing poison by attaching a cargo pod to a nuke is not going to be terribly efficient (except at destroying the poison), and yet as we see the torpedoes appear to produce continent-size shockfronts. The entire planet had to be evacuated of human life.
Or, put more simply, that's not exactly the best example of weak torpedoes that you've ever come up with.