Ongoing VS debate

[Darth Hoth]

Perhaps this should be in another forum; if that is the case, I trust the mods to move it and refrain from judging me too harshly; but I thought it would fit here, given the particular dispute.

Anyway, I am debating a guy in real life, a good friend and usually perfectly reasonable individual. The subject is SW vs 40k and brainstorming for a fanfic. We were first discussing Psykers vs Jedi, where we both pretty much agreed that 40k was overall stronger, except perhaps for outliers such as Palpatine at maximum potency or Valley-empowered Jerec. But when I pointed out high-end Jedi powers, such as Anakin's deceleration in AotC or Qui-Gon/Obi's acceleration in TPM, which might be a match for Inquisitors or Space Marines, he started to argue that it was not fair to include such upper-end examples, since those are not shown most of the time, and that it made SW "too powerful". This when we both agreed on what Alpha Plus Psykers can do (mindfuck armies, lay waste to cities, et cetera).

But the real argument started when we got onto the subject of weapons output. He frankly refuses to believe that turbolasers can be of gigaton-level firepower, even after I quoted the ICS, responding that it was "silly", "wanky" and would ruin any drama. When I pointed out that 40k weapons are only about an order of magnitude weaker, a crippling disadvantage in VS to be sure, but by no means enough not to be "silly" or "wanky" if the TLs are, he basically pulled a Wall of Ignorance, and when I tried pulling calcs, he dismissed them as invalid (no justification given, other than ad hominem).

In effect, his argument on power was that "it can't be" and that it is stupid and unrealistic; at the same time, however, he has absolutely no problem with travelling all over the galaxy in days, as though that would somehow be more realistic or less of an obscene advantage.

Is there a "No Big Numbers" fallacy? If so, he is using it; otherwise, it is merely a devastating combination of strawmen, Walls of Ignorance, ad hominems, appeals to ignorance, and appeals to "common sense" (by his personal definition). Does anyone have any experience on how to break through this kind of wilful ignorance? Is it a lost cause?

We really are friends, so I do not want to run roughshod over him, but the argument is irritating.

[Murazor]

The maths behind the Dodonna calcs are easy to understand for anyone with high school levels of physics. Bring this up with a clear explanation of how you can reach the conclusion.

Add, if you will, a couple images or descriptions of geocide in the GFFA (that moon turned lava and the description of N'Zoth post Vong-visiting, for example). If he accepts the evidence, no matter how grudgingly, then all's fine. If he doesn't, I suggest that you discretely drop the writing of that fanfic (or reach a compromise about the comparative power levels before writing anything).

Friendship is entirely too important to let stuff like an online debate between sci-fi franchises get in the way.

At least, those are my two cents.

P.S.: At the risk of getting severely flamed, I must say that I agree with your friend in the points regarding Jedi. There are many exceptions, of course, but quite a few of the examples that show up in the EU are just lightsaber wielding mooks. The three unidentified Knights/Padawans that Jango Fett kills in Open Season is the example I mention most often, but there are quite a few others. Some Jedi are awesome, some almost the opposite. And it is unclear what proportion each type represents.

[Darth Ruinus]

I thought SW ships were stronger pound for pound, but since WH40K are bigger it evens out?

Anyways, since you guys are just writing a fanfic, just for the hell of it make it even if he refused to listen to reason, like Murazor just said, this would be a silly reason to get into a fight over.

[Darth Hoth]

Thanks for the advice.

P.S.: At the risk of getting severely flamed, I must say that I agree with your friend in the points regarding Jedi. There are many exceptions, of course, but quite a few of the examples that show up in the EU are just lightsaber wielding mooks. The three unidentified Knights/Padawans that Jango Fett kills in Open Season is the example I mention most often, but there are quite a few others. Some Jedi are awesome, some almost the opposite. And it is unclear what proportion each type represents.

Well, I did not include it as I summarised, but I did not mean all Jedi to be that strong. But one should reasonably be able to assume that, say, Luke, Vader, Jerec or Palpatine could perform such feats, given that Qui-Gon, while an accomplished Master, was not a superhero among the Jedi.

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Not quite, as I understood it; an average ships vs is fairly close, but SW still has an edge.

[Covenant]

I'm not sure if it's a fallacy, since it's really not part of any kind of argument, it's just someone refusing to believe the numbers in front of them. It's entirely reasonable for people to look at this stuff, say "Gigajoules of power!? No way!" and disbelieve it, since it seems to be so amazingly out of whack with what they see in the movies. But that's partially because nobody really does the calcs when they're watching the movie, they're just watching it.

You never get a chance to see a Heavy Turbolaser hit a planet, and you never get a chance to see the Imperials blow up a city with a bomb, or see things like gigantic hand-grenade explosions, handguns that blow holes in mountains, and so forth.

Plus, defenses in Star Wars are supposed to be immensely strong as well. If, for example, you saw an Imperial vessel fight a substantially weaker species (one which we had seen demonstrate Star Trek quality destructive capabilities on a planet, for example, a big fleet of them cratering the surface of a world over an hour or two) and we saw their big ships get blown into hot gas in a single shot from a HTL, then we'd have a basis of comparison. But Star Wars is really, really awful about giving good, gut-check basis of comparison examples.

Blowing up an asteroid, for example, gives us a good idea of the firepower of a Star Destroyer's guns. But most people would just think "Well, it's a big rock, right? What's the big deal?" You require a certain amount of information before these things really make any sense. Regardless of what the manuals or calculations say, if it doesn't look right then it will be hard for people to accept. It's also important to note that the Empire controls nearly the entire Galaxy, whereas other big players in other themes control mere fragments of a galaxy. Size matters in terms of economy, reseach, funding, industry, etc.

It's also important to make sure he understands that you're not trying to argue what the movie-makers intended to show, just what you see in the stuff as it is. This is the same setting that includes a weapon capable of basically vaporizing the majority of a planet in a single blast. Star Wars, even outside of the niggling little details like Turbolaser blasts, is throwing around some immense numbers. And that's the most useful thing in a versus debate. It's just unavoidable. As a concession, discuss with him the relative fighting power of their ground forces, that'll make him feel better, since the Empire's ground forces are a lot less impressive than the Imperium's, outside of volume. Star Wars is a Universe defined by naval power first, ground power second. Warhammer 40k is the reverse.

[TithonusSyndrome]

You never get a chance to see a Heavy Turbolaser hit a planet,

In one panel of the comics you do, but it looks goofy as hell and nothing like what it ought to.

[Covenant]

You never get a chance to see a Heavy Turbolaser hit a planet,

In one panel of the comics you do, but it looks goofy as hell and nothing like what it ought to.

Ah, well, I meant in a movie--but yeah. The comics and stuff do such bizzare things... like the galaxy-smashing gun that worked by banging all the planets off of each-other like billiards--that would totally validate all the criticisms of someone who has trouble accepting the power of the movie-version SW, in their own mind at least.

Then the debate swings to canon, and a particularly adept debater would snarl you up in bad examples, embarassing minimialism, and things like the Ewoks smashing AT-STs with logs or the big set-piece battle over Coruscant where the Seperatists and Republic vessels were Age of Sail broadsiding each other from about 100 feet away.

A single demonstration would be nice--one little turbolaser blast, c'mon. And no variable power stuff--have it be a good full-power shot that levels a mountain. Please? ;p

[TithonusSyndrome]

Before I forget to mention it, there is a name for this fallacy; Appeal to Personal Incredulity. The same sort of fallacy that makes a theist say, "No, I just CAN'T envision a world without a God!"

You never get a chance to see a Heavy Turbolaser hit a planet,

In one panel of the comics you do, but it looks goofy as hell and nothing like what it ought to.

Ah, well, I meant in a movie--but yeah. The comics and stuff do such bizzare things... like the galaxy-smashing gun that worked by banging all the planets off of each-other like billiards--that would totally validate all the criticisms of someone who has trouble accepting the power of the movie-version SW, in their own mind at least.

Oh it's not batshit insane like the Galaxy Gun, it's just obvious that the illustrator had no idea what an explosion on that scale would take the shape of, so he just used the same style of drawing that he would apply to say a blaster bolt hitting a wall, only the size of half a continent.

[Darth Hoth]

You never get a chance to see a Heavy Turbolaser hit a planet,

In one panel of the comics you do, but it looks goofy as hell and nothing like what it ought to.

That would be Crimson Empire, right? Ugh, the horror. . .

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh it's not batshit insane like the Galaxy Gun, it's just obvious that the illustrator had no idea what an explosion on that scale would take the shape of, so he just used the same style of drawing that he would apply to say a blaster bolt hitting a wall, only the size of half a continent.

A single shot hitting half a continent could be arguably gigaton/Teraton level firepower.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Oh it's not batshit insane like the Galaxy Gun, it's just obvious that the illustrator had no idea what an explosion on that scale would take the shape of, so he just used the same style of drawing that he would apply to say a blaster bolt hitting a wall, only the size of half a continent.

A single shot hitting half a continent could be arguably gigaton/Teraton level firepower.

Undoubtedly, but the concern is that because it looks like a scaled-up blaster shot hitting a wall, the counterpoint could be made that it's some other phenomena. I don't really know where the line between canon and SFX/illustration error lies.

[XaLEv]

Try telling him that it would take over a kiloton to vaporize the water in a full Olympic size swimming pool, or that the volume of a big box store is in the area of two or three million cubic feet, and see how he reacts.