Suggestions for Arguments on the main site

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-09-15 12:44am

I'm slowly populating the "Arguments" page on the main site before I make it public. I mentioned it a long time ago but I didn't take the time to modify it to add categories until recently. The idea is to create a quickie lookup database of the most common arguments and concise answers to them.

Anyway, feel free to take a look at the existing arguments and suggest more arguments that I should add, or corrections/additions to some of the arguments that are already in there.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Database/Search.php

I know most people have pretty much written off the main site as a dead website, but I do still intend to add updates as time allows. It only seems as if the site is mummified

PS. I'm also planning to add http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Sci ... ction.html

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-15 12:49am

Perhaps you could add the variants on 'cloaks mean ST ships can decloak in blindspots and kill ISDs' argument? It's quite common, despite the 'right place, right time' part being a massive assumption.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2006-09-15 12:49am

From the Tactics and Strategies:

#3: "Even if the Empire could defeat the Federation, they would not be able to handle the combined forces of the Empire, the Klingons, the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the Dominion.

Is that meant to be there?

But closer to the topic; some of the arguments I've found in my limited travels would be that the Federation could technobabble something out of their arse, or that the Feds could try a "fireship" strategy like the Brits used when they beat the Spanish Armada.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-15 12:51am

That reminds me - warp-ramming and warp-strafing. I believe warp-strafing is covered elsewhere, but warp-ramming comes up pretty often on other boards.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-09-15 02:08am

The destruction page is going to be a godsend, I think, for one of my pet projects.

As for the arguments, perhaps you might want to add a "canon" category to answer questions about what's canon, what's not, and debunk disinformation from DarkStar's site?

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2006-09-15 03:36am

I've got a good one:

Dhusk at CBR wrote:Holy crap, you're insane.

100 teratons = 100 TRILLION tons of TNT. That level explosion would have cracked the entire planet in two, not just created a 300 mile-wide crater off the Yucatan.

The 4 to 6 gigaton explosive range of the K-T impact has been calculated by actual RL scientists and experts in their field who have studied the phenomenon for decades and ran simulations on billion-dollar supercomputers. They were not rabid warsies with pocket calculators and bad science assumptions, so I'll take their word for it, not yours.

Claims like this are quite common. I'd say that a response to it should include not only explanations of what gigaton-teraton level energies really do on a planetary scale, but also quotes from "actual RL scientists and experts in their field" like these:

There are three in this PDF.

On the formation of Argyre Planitia:

The total energy in the impact is calculated in ~ 1.56E33 Ergs, i.e., ~ 37,085 millions of Megatons.

and the formation of Isidis Planitia:

The total energy in the impact is calculated in ~ 2.78E33 Ergs, i.e., ~66,110 millions of megatons.

on Chicxulub:

The total energy in the impact is calculated in ~ 1.2E30 Ergs, i.e., ~ 571 millions of Hiroshima.

and this page, which gives a range of 160 to 800 teratons for Chicxulub:

The crater size, meteoritic content of the K/T boundary clay, and impact models indicate that the Chicxulub crater was formed by a short period comet or an asteroid impact that released 0.7-3.4×10^31 ergs of energy.

I especially like the Martian craters since they are not only larger than Chicxulub, but they occured on a smaller planet. Much more damning. I just wish I could find something about Hellas Planitia.

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » 2006-09-15 07:35am

I have several suggestions:

TNG episode Maks
Enterprise uses it's phasers to destroy a comet and reveal some kind of structure in there. Usual Trekkie claim is that it represents gigaton/s level firepower for phasers. Of course the actual effect looked nothing like it would if you hit a ball of ice with such power: the comet merley started to glow reddish and slowly started to "dissapear". Not only that but we didn't even see the actual timeframe for the destruction of comet.

Pegasus
Warbird melts kilometers of rock per second when it seals the Enterprise according to Trekkies. The usual, gigaton/s firepower.

Half a life
They send a modified torpedo tube into the star to try and reactivate it. Since the torpedo was inside a star then so can a starship. No exact depth is given for the torpedo and no initial temperature of the star.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-09-15 07:58am

"Slave I's lasers are weak because of when Boba fired them at AotC."

Boba wouldn't want to kill his father. Don't be stupid.

"But the novel says that the energy packs were depleted after only two shots!"

And you think this is evidence for your position? The same ship that fired over a hundred asteroid-fragging blasts in the Geonosis asteroid belt has weapons that are empty after firing only two shots that are far weaker? This makes sense to you? The answer is obvious- the energy packs were nowhere near full. Considering it's sitting on a landing pad, this isn't exactly unlikely.

Oh PS Mike- you've still got my DS9.txt, right?

(there's some absolute gold in that show)

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-09-15 10:15am

I don't know if it fits in the concept of the arguments page as it stands but the Q as high tech using race instead of godlike being would be near and dear to my heart as I've been involved in a few of those long disastrous threads and the shit that these assholes come up with as evidence is truly vomit inducing.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2006-09-15 04:35pm

There's the ever-popular "the Federation would reverse-engineer Imperial technology overnight and beat them with their own weapons."

And "the Federation would use time travel to prevent the Empire from ever forming."

And the always-popular "the Federation will just transport bombs into the Empire's reactors, since nothing the Empire has can stop transporters."

And the plentiful "the Federation will just employ the [one-shot superweapon of the week] that they got from the [alien of the week] to defeat Imperial troops/starships."

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2006-09-15 04:44pm

And since it came up recently: "Blaster's can't be that powerful, because a direct hit failed to seriously hurt Leia's arm in ROTJ."

And related: "Stormtrooper armor is weak because blaster hits have a 100% kill rate against Stormtroopers."

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2006-09-15 04:46pm

And, of course, the "Half a Life" argument: "The Federation accidentally destroyed a star with a few photon torpedoes; using the same technique, they can obviously destroy stars at will."

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » 2006-09-15 05:25pm

One of the arguments I heard recently is that Death Star doesn't neccesarily mean that Empire could produce millions of Star Destroyers since there is a possibility that Death Star will be cheaper.
The usual basis is the fact that an average US destroyer is some 4 times more expensive than aircraft carrier per unit of mass so extrapolating that to Death Star/Star Destroyer size ratio would lead to thousands of times lesser per unit of mass cost for the Death Star.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2006-09-15 05:40pm

Yeah, because we all know the Death Star is a giant carrier equivalent. Oh wait.
This couldn't possibly have anything to do with the much higher per-mass percentage of the DD that'd be electronics and weapon systems (and I'd BET the yokels claiming that conveniently forget to figure in the cost of the air wing).
Still, something that deserves (barely) to be debunked IMHO.

Kane Starkiller · Post by **Kane Starkiller** » 2006-09-16 11:07am

How about the size of DS1? Many of the Trekkies always trot out 120km scaling made by Darkstar but, as I have already told him on former Newland's forum, he made a mistake in calculation:

Darkstar wrote:It is easy to determine which bay the Falcon was flying toward, based on the shots above.
In this brightened key to the second image, it is the one circled in deep blue. The more distant (circled) bays within the submerged dock area the Falcon flies into appear to be of equal height to the Falcon's intended bay, which allows us to scale the height of the entire submerged dock area (note the farthest wall). The farthest section of the nearest left-side bay entrance measures 7 pixels. The nearest section of the farthest left-side bay measures 6 pixels. Assuming that 23 meters equals 6.5 pixels, then the height of the column between the two bays, measuring 170 pixels, is 247.7 meters. Since the submerged dock area is apparently rectangular, this means that the outermost section of the submerged area is about 250 meters tall.

Notice the part I bolded? Since column is 170px and average bay heigth is 6.5px that means that submerged area is 26.15 times taller than the bays. Since the bay is 23m then the heigth of the submerged area is 601 meters and not 247.7 meters as he calculated!
This means that according to his own scaling the Death Star is 281km in diameter!

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-09-16 11:41am

I've heard Trekkies argue that the Death Stars bankrupted the Empire. It might be good to add that to the quick Arguments page just to hammer the point home that they're a benchmark, not an outlier, of Imperial industrial capacity.

Yoda · Post by **Yoda** » 2006-09-16 12:34pm

Perhaps a rebuttal for the "The Federation could destroy the shield generators (which are actually sensor domes), and then ram the bridge to destroy a Star Destroyer." argument.

P.S. Are you planning on adding something like this to your Creationism vs. Science page?

Yoda · Post by **Yoda** » 2006-09-16 01:38pm

The Transphasic torpedoe arguement would make a nice addition eg. "A Transphasic Torpedoe could destroy the death star by phasing through..."

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-09-16 03:32pm

Sorry, a small correction and elaboration:

The MF set piece was 19 meters in diameter. This would mean that the DS was 170 kilometers in diameter.

According to WEG, the Falcon is 20.5 meters in diameter. This would mean that the DS was 183.5 kilometers in diameter.

Bob Brown scaled the MF to be 27 meters in diameter. This would mean that the DS was ~242 kilometers in diameter.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-09-18 11:56am

OK, slowly working through the suggestions. Some of them have already been added.

Kane Starkiller wrote:I have several suggestions:

TNG episode Maks
Enterprise uses it's phasers to destroy a comet and reveal some kind of structure in there. Usual Trekkie claim is that it represents gigaton/s level firepower for phasers. Of course the actual effect looked nothing like it would if you hit a ball of ice with such power: the comet merley started to glow reddish and slowly started to "dissapear". Not only that but we didn't even see the actual timeframe for the destruction of comet.

Pegasus
Warbird melts kilometers of rock per second when it seals the Enterprise according to Trekkies. The usual, gigaton/s firepower.

Half a life
They send a modified torpedo tube into the star to try and reactivate it. Since the torpedo was inside a star then so can a starship. No exact depth is given for the torpedo and no initial temperature of the star.

Good ideas, but does anyone have screenshots of these events? That would be handy.

Vympel wrote:"Slave I's lasers are weak because of when Boba fired them at AotC."

Boba wouldn't want to kill his father. Don't be stupid.

"But the novel says that the energy packs were depleted after only two shots!"

And you think this is evidence for your position? The same ship that fired over a hundred asteroid-fragging blasts in the Geonosis asteroid belt has weapons that are empty after firing only two shots that are far weaker? This makes sense to you? The answer is obvious- the energy packs were nowhere near full. Considering it's sitting on a landing pad, this isn't exactly unlikely.

Oh PS Mike- you've still got my DS9.txt, right? (there's some absolute gold in that show)

That's another good one. And yes, I still have that DS9.txt file; it's on my (unfortunately enormous) list of things to do.

Yes, I'm still working through the first page. Give me time, people.

EnterpriseSovereign · Post by **EnterpriseSovereign** » 2006-09-18 02:03pm

I have a couple that might be worth adding, I don't know if they've been heard before, what about "SW torpedoes are weak because in EP1 Anakin fires 2 into the ship's reactor and not making a large explosion until the reactors went", and the reply might be, "and you think that Naboo weapons (a peaceful culture) represent the upper limit of torpedo firepower, right?"

And: "the Feds could send the Aeon into the middle of an Imperial fleet and misalign the temporal drive and produce an explosion big enough to destroy a star system"
Countered by "and in said episode debris from Voyager was found afterwards despite being presumably close to the blast" though there are of course other rebuttals.

vivftp · Post by **vivftp** » 2006-09-18 04:31pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote:I have several suggestions:

TNG episode Maks
Enterprise uses it's phasers to destroy a comet and reveal some kind of structure in there. Usual Trekkie claim is that it represents gigaton/s level firepower for phasers. Of course the actual effect looked nothing like it would if you hit a ball of ice with such power: the comet merley started to glow reddish and slowly started to "dissapear". Not only that but we didn't even see the actual timeframe for the destruction of comet.

Pegasus
Warbird melts kilometers of rock per second when it seals the Enterprise according to Trekkies. The usual, gigaton/s firepower.

Half a life
They send a modified torpedo tube into the star to try and reactivate it. Since the torpedo was inside a star then so can a starship. No exact depth is given for the torpedo and no initial temperature of the star.
Good ideas, but does anyone have screenshots of these events? That would be handy.

Here's videos of the events - this should make it far easier for you to make whatever screenshots you want.

Masks:

http://www.rogepost.com/dn/7506/Masks+-+phasers.avi

I'd post the Pegasus video, but really all we see is a glowing wall. If you really want it though, I can rip it.

Half a Life:

Here's a complete video of the entire scene. It's 24 megabytes.

http://www.rogepost.com/dn/wzmc/half+a+life.avi

I have access to every other bit of Trek footage (except cartoons, heh) - so if you require videos of certain scenes for analysis I can provide them.

DaveJB · Post by **DaveJB** » 2006-09-19 08:05am

Might be worth noting the claim that "Federation technology has a more advanced appearance than Empire technology, therefore it's obviously superior," as it seems disturbingly common among Trekkies.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2006-09-19 08:49am

One that I've just remembered, another variation on the "not much to destroy a planet" theme, is the idea that planets are like balloons, and one can destroy a planet by just breaking through the crust and releasing the pressure inside.

EnterpriseSovereign · Post by **EnterpriseSovereign** » 2006-09-19 09:05am

XaLEv wrote:One that I've just remembered, another variation on the "not much to destroy a planet" theme, is the idea that planets are like balloons, and one can destroy a planet by just breaking through the crust and releasing the pressure inside.

That's gold

One I just remembered, what about "it's easy to knock out the shields on Imperial ships because the globes on the SSD when destroyed it was said that the deflector shields on the bridge had been lost" I've heard that one several times.