Why do people defend stupid numbers?

Darth Culator · Post by **Darth Culator** » 2006-05-25 11:47am

I don't get it. I see it everywhere. TFn, Wookieepedia, even here on occasion (though they get smacked down pretty effectively every time), but I just don't get it.

What is the justification for minimalist thinking? Where is their "logic" coming from? Why can't people accept that when things happen on a galactic scale, they're going to be big?

The Clone Wars are a good example of this. They're called the "Clone Wars." We've been told repeatedly that the war "engulfs the galaxy." And there is canon evidence of 20 million or more inhabited planets. How can people even briefly consider thinking that three million clones might possibly be enough? Why do they defend this number so zealously?

I've tried to see their "point of view," but my brain hurts whenever I do. It makes it hard for me to stay "neutral" as the wiki requires.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-05-25 12:07pm

My suspicion is that they arrive at their initial numbers without much analysis, if any. Pure gut-instinct guess. Then they get defensive when someone tells them that their numbers are ridiculous, and their pride outweighs their intelligence. That's a common problem, particularly when people have a lot of pride and not much intelligence.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2006-05-25 12:22pm

Darth Wong wrote:My suspicion is that they arrive at their initial numbers without much analysis, if any. Pure gut-instinct guess. Then they get defensive when someone tells them that their numbers are ridiculous, and their pride outweighs their intelligence. That's a common problem, particularly when people have a lot of pride and not much intelligence.

I think it's a combination of pride and awe... in awe of the authors who somehow became untouchable and to be worshiped.

It also comes when they have a limited view of things.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-05-25 12:38pm

Even if the so-called "retconned" numbers like "100 million" droids was true, we still don't see individual troops taking down hundreds each. If you take one clone with a gun and put him in a field with 100 B-1 battledroids, that clone will be dead in the first second.

This somehow flies right past people with an agenda. What that agenda is, I'm not sure, but I suspect it's a combination of WEG nostalgia, envy towards fan-writers getting a lucky break, and the will to wantonly piss other people off. (Don't believe their "it's just fiction" meme, if it was "just fiction" they would never defend such a ridiculous position so feverently in debates. Obviously, someone else's positions are "just fiction", in this case.)

In my opinion, the time they spend arguing could have been better used to read up on those "big numbers" they apparently can't comprehend.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2006-05-25 12:45pm

I found the "brushfire" war to be rather amusing.

Just what is a brushfire war when you are talking about that sort of scale?

To me it seems that if it really was at that scale but only a "minor conflict" then there could have been plenty of systems that weren't involved while fighting still could have completly swept over to engulf and effectively destroy whole planets.

I mean, there aren't 20 million or even 1 million countries on Earth so how would we translate a supposedly small scale war to SW galactic scale and still come up with the measly numbers that Travis suggests and still get things to work?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-05-25 12:48pm

The "brushfire war" thing is quite obviously an example of someone desperately trying to make excuses for an earlier mistake rather than simply taking it like a man and owning up to the mistake. The idea that the people of the galaxy would speak of the Clone Wars as a great galactic conflict even decades later even though it was apparently commensurate in scale to a modern youth gang skirmish in New Jersey is too absurd to take seriously.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2006-05-25 12:58pm

I suppose the battle over Corusant in RotS must have been a minor little , slightly violent, political demonstration or something?

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-05-25 01:06pm

I love Traviss' quote about how "People are thinking WWI or WWII. It's not that kind of conflict."

Apparently, this extends to George Lucas and ILM, who envisioned the Battle of Kashyyyk as being similar to "the landings at Normandy".

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-05-25 01:18pm

VT-16 wrote:I love Traviss' quote about how "People are thinking WWI or WWII. It's not that kind of conflict."

Yes, because either of those conflicts was larger in scale than Karen Traviss' ridiculously scaled down version despite taking place on just one little planet.

The ROTS novelization speaks of the Separatists laying waste to entire worlds and this idiot still persists in her "nothing but a few small skirmishes" bullshit. It's utterly amazing.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2006-05-25 01:24pm

VT-16 wrote:Even if the so-called "retconned" numbers like "100 million" droids was true, we still don't see individual troops taking down hundreds each. If you take one clone with a gun and put him in a field with 100 B-1 battledroids, that clone will be dead in the first second.

The claim is especially interesting in light of its direct contradiction of previously-established continuity:

Colmar was in charge of an Imperial army assault trooper unit that was part of a coordinated effort to lay waste to Dalron IV. His unit was engaged in battle when a freak malfunction caused by a Star Destroyer bombardment cut off the unit's communications. A mob of almost 2,000 citizens, wielding captured energy weapons, rallied and attacked. Even an elite army unit cannot last for long against odds of nearly 50 to 1 without backup.

-- Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim (West End Games, 1993)

Even if one were to disregard the fact that such odds are grotesquely unrealistic, they are still problematic from a continuity standpoint alone. One wonders why it is that the standard-bearers of "continuity over all" pick and choose which bits of the official canon they decide to support -- much as they pick and choose which authors they will zealously defend.

Grasscutter · Post by **Grasscutter** » 2006-05-25 01:53pm

Darth Wong wrote:The ROTS novelization speaks of the Separatists laying waste to entire worlds and this idiot still persists in her "nothing but a few small skirmishes" bullshit. It's utterly amazing.

Poor Darth Wong, you've obviously been snookered by Palpatine's awesome and all-consuming propaganda machine

. The Separatists never really destroyed worlds, that's all just spin cooked up by the Sith to further their agenda.

This "Palpatine controls the horizontal and the vertical" bullshit is one of my biggest problems with Traviss. Movies aside, there's a huge volume of EU material that clearly shows a massive, galaxy-consuming war involving trillions of troops. Traviss is essentially spitting on these other authors' works, saying the big war stories are nothing but lies and fabrications in order to cover her ass.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2006-05-25 02:24pm

Grasscutter wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The ROTS novelization speaks of the Separatists laying waste to entire worlds and this idiot still persists in her "nothing but a few small skirmishes" bullshit. It's utterly amazing.
Poor Darth Wong, you've obviously been snookered by Palpatine's awesome and all-consuming propaganda machine . The Separatists never really destroyed worlds, that's all just spin cooked up by the Sith to further their agenda.

This "Palpatine controls the horizontal and the vertical" bullshit is one of my biggest problems with Traviss. Movies aside, there's a huge volume of EU material that clearly shows a massive, galaxy-consuming war involving trillions of troops. Traviss is essentially spitting on these other authors' works, saying the big war stories are nothing but lies and fabrications in order to cover her ass.

Wasn't the passage in question (the introduction of General Grievous) done from a narrative perspective anyway? Not that I propose you thought it was anything else.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-05-25 02:46pm

I don't get it either. Minimalist fanwhores are probably the way they are because a slavish devotion to WEG, an inability to think for themselves (rather than have some rpg sourcebook tell them), and a refusal to admit that they're wrong. But why are they happy about the minimalism? I mean, I could somewhat understand them if they admitted it was all stupid, but still supported small numbers because they wanted to strictly follow canon (giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they're just not smart enough to see the larger scale the movie visuals show). But when I see fanwhores getting excited and wanking over 3 million clone troopers, I'm just at a loss. When we get excited over a new Saxton book, it's because the longstanding EU mistakes have been corrected, and the SW universe is made a lot cooler. But when these people cheer for minimalism, it's like cheering for SW to be stupid and pathetic. "SW is pussy! Hooray for retarded shit!"

As for Karen Traviss, it's extremely clear why she's supporting the minimalist numbers. It's nothing but pure ass-covering for a previous mistake. I still can't believe they actually published Odds. I've never seen an official publication that was so blatantly agenda-driven, instead of even trying to provide entertainment.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-05-25 03:03pm

I remember one of McEwok's stances on Imperial Star Destroyers, that somehow, all the non-Imperial and non-Executor ships were poorly drawn representations of these two classes and could not be used as evidence for more.

I can't understand a mind-set that wants to summarily exclude more variety and diversity in the SW universe (in this case, warships), because early sources did not mention them and simply postulated that evolution of warships went from ISDs, straight to Executors, with nothing in-between either needed or wanted.

You'd think WEG would be fair enough to include the variety of ships from the Marvel comics (when they remembered the Victory and Invincible class from early books). Giel's ship alone could have had an incredible history, but all that and more was somehow forgotten. And with it, some fans' ability to think, apparently. ;P

it's like cheering for SW to be stupid and pathetic. "SW is pussy! Hooray for retarded shit!"

I remember reading about things in Dr. Who and thinking how cool it sounded: "inter-galactic warfare", "ten million ships being sent into a single battle" etc etc. Despite being both baffling and ridiculous (from a 21st. Century human POV).

Isn't that part of what makes sci-fi and fantasy fun? Hearing or seeing incredible things that we here on Earth can only dream about? When you get to a point where armies of WWII could bitchslap some of the CIS and GAR, the fantasy part starts to loose its edge.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-05-25 03:40pm

Looking at the sort of people defending stupid numbers etc. pretty much answers the question. They are repeating the same arguments over and over again, despite the fact that they've been refuted. They claim to have support in the canon, but they are in most cases unable to bring anything substantial or relevant to the table.

Then there are also fanboys who accepts anything that LFL/their favorite author says or does and calls anyone who has the nerve to express any hint of criticism "basher" or "gusher" and they quickly rushes to the defense of LFL/the author.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2006-05-25 04:14pm

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Karen_Traviss

Owned.

EDIT: Damn, some WikiStalker already got it. It was a paragraph mentioning her sense of pride and vigorous defense of incredibly low numbers. I've simply re-edited it with the much simpler "she's also a hack."

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2006-05-25 04:25pm

VT-16 wrote: You'd think WEG would be fair enough to include the variety of ships from the Marvel comics (when they remembered the Victory and Invincible class from early books).

To be fair to WEG, it did include Victories fairly early on in the Imperial Sourcebook, complete with a planet wasting bombardment incident. We should refain from mocking them on this and instead mock them for the Executor bankruptcy idiocy and other errors. Its not like they have a shortage of real errors to go after.

Darth Culator · Post by **Darth Culator** » 2006-05-25 04:32pm

Jim Raynor wrote:But when these people cheer for minimalism, it's like cheering for SW to be stupid and pathetic. "SW is pussy! Hooray for retarded shit!"

That's it. That's why I don't get it. While the Trekkies and other Sci-Fi fans are desperately reaching for evidence to support their side, we have a well-developed universe with reams of evidence to support absolutely mind-boggling numbers and power levels, and people who are allegedly Star Wars fans are arguing against it.

Jadeite wrote:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Karen_Traviss

Owned.

While Traviss and the Al-Travida are the reason for the current scale problem, an encyclopedia isn't the place for such criticism. TFN is a forum, SDN is a forum, Wookieepedia is not a forum.
Although I often comment on Karen Traviss's hard-headedness on talk pages and in the chat room, we have to keep her article neutral.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-05-25 04:37pm

Darth Culator wrote: While Traviss and the Al-Travida are the reason for the current scale problem, an encyclopedia isn't the place for such criticism. TFN is a forum, SDN is a forum, Wookieepedia is not a forum.
Although I often comment on Karen Traviss's hard-headedness on talk pages and in the chat room, we have to keep her article neutral.

Neutral is a word for Wikipedians afraid of controversy who like to pussyfoot around any issue that populist polling of "Which do you think is correct" can't solve. Is showing Creationism to be false violating Neutrality? When one side is clearly wrong and the other is clearly correct, a Neutral Point of View is to show the correct side as correct and the wrong one as wrong.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2006-05-25 04:38pm

Darth Culator wrote: While Traviss and the Al-Travida are the reason for the current scale problem, an encyclopedia isn't the place for such criticism. TFN is a forum, SDN is a forum, Wookieepedia is not a forum.
Although I often comment on Karen Traviss's hard-headedness on talk pages and in the chat room, we have to keep her article neutral.

NPOV

But taking that into consideration, I re-re-edited that entry with a "neutral" viewpoint on the criticism.

If it gets deleted again, I'll just start to get bored and begin defacing obscure articles with Fifty Hitler Posts

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-05-25 04:58pm

To be fair to WEG, it did include Victories fairly early on in the Imperial Sourcebook...

Ahem:

You'd think WEG would be fair enough to include the variety of ships from the Marvel comics (when they remembered the Victory and Invincible class from early books).

:P

I do somewhat agree with Culator on the issue of the Traviss article, you could just have links to her most infuriating remarks and leave the article itself "peaceful". Will have a much better chance of staying since they're her own words, not a wookiepedian's.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-05-25 07:03pm

A lot of the numbers do feel "big" (the 5 mile Executor, the 3 million clones) they just aren't big enough. People who aren't familiar with real number crunching don't realize that "big" isn't good enough when you need "really fucking huge"

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-05-25 07:32pm

Darth Servo wrote:A lot of the numbers do feel "big" (the 5 mile Executor, the 3 million clones) they just aren't big enough. People who aren't familiar with real number crunching don't realize that "big" isn't good enough when you need "really fucking huge"

I would point out that that would mean people were also unable to comprehend the scale of a conflict like WWII, but that obviously is the case.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2006-05-25 08:38pm

Maybe they are like the old computers who can handle 1MB or less of memory and then comprehending large numbers results in Buffer overflow....

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2006-05-25 08:50pm

VT-16 wrote:I love Traviss' quote about how "People are thinking WWI or WWII. It's not that kind of conflict."

Apparently, this extends to George Lucas and ILM, who envisioned the Battle of Kashyyyk as being similar to "the landings at Normandy".

Is that a direct quote from Lucas? I believe you, I just havn't heard it before.