SW "Wankers" and minimalism

[18-Till-I-Die]

This is a phenomenon i believe totally unique to Star Wars.

Everyone who's been on the net has seen wankers of various series, doesnt even have to be sci-fi. Buffy wankers, for example, claim shes as strong as Spider-Man. B5 wankers claim that "in the future, a megaton is a thousand times more than it is now" (i've actually seen thi argument). And of course...Trekkies and their constant attempt to match up the GE with the Federation, by playing up their side or downplaying the other.

But Star Wars wankers are fairly unique. All the one's i've seen actually DOWNPLAY their 'favorite' universe. They want to believe that ISDs have firepower roughly equal to the Cold War nuclear arsenals. They want to believe that the Imperials' battleships, like the SSDs and Death Stars, are many, many times smaller than they really are. They want to imagine the biggest war in the Galaxy's history as a tiny conflict of a few million people, where the Jedi were co-conspiritors with Palpatine and the entire GFFA was populated by morons to stupid to realise any of it. If you try to present them with reasonable numbers (e.g Curtis Saxon's very well reasoned numbers, or estimates from here, also very credible) they say you "ruined" it for them.

This is pretty much unique to Star Wars. Every other universe has supporters who try to make it seem BIGGER but SW has supporters who want it to be smaller. If they had their way ISDs would be armed with sub-kiloton Davy Crocketts launched from primitive hand-cannons, they'd be protected by crudely made armor from the Bronze age, and the largest ships in the Imperial Navy would be the size of my mom's Mazda.

So what is the source of this? Does anyone have any idea at all?

It cant be the size of it. There are fans of Lensmen around who dont actively try to downplay the universe, and Lensmen has numbers in it that make the GE look like a third world country. Same with the Culture, and even Star Trek which is comparitively weak has fans who try to make it BIGGER not weaker.

Fo someone like me, this is all quite midnd boggling: i like reading about large, fantastical universes. I have a limit, of course, where i call bullshit but it's, to say the least, pretty fucking high. After all i'm a fan of both Lensmen AND the Culture.

These SW "wankers" arent even real wankers, as wanking means trying to play up a universe without just cause. They're actually some kind of...i dont even know what the hell to call them. "Antifans", the Antimatter Universe version of a fanboy, i guess?

Has anyone ever explored this bizarre movement within the SW fan community? Any theories as to what their reasoning--if ANY--is or how they justify this point of view?

[Stofsk]

At a guess, I would say the 'minimalists' as you call them read the EU and also played the WEG RPG - both sources very much depicted a small universe.

Remember, there was a long time between the OT and the PT, and the EU and RPG filled the void. Since these fans didn't have anything other than the OT to satisfy them, they turned to the EU and for a long time that was the continuation of SW. And if the EU were to say a dozen X-wings could take out an SSD, well why not? Luke took out a Death Star, right?

I don't think the minimalists want SW to be 'small' so much as they want the EU to be validated.

That's my guess, at any rate.

[VT-16]

Funny how even WEG doesn't always follow this line of thought, with the mention of an average Moff or Sector Commander having access to SSDs or torpedo spheres (Dark Empire Sourcebook), SSDs being made to be sector level command vessels (Cracken's Threat Dossier) etc.

I've been trying to explain this to McEwok with varied success over the last couple of days. If you want to see my latest reply, you'll have to look at my last post before I reverted it to save space. :P

[K. A. Pital]

Those who argue for 3,000,000 clones are not wankers. They are idiots, and they know it. They just do it because their author slipped up on this idiocy and could not step back, resulting in a disgusting recon attempt which tarred all - from clones to the jedi to even the seprartists themselves - as willing liars and co-conspirators with Palpatine.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Even if they want the EU to be validated it still makes no sense. The EU is where most of the acounts of BDZs, gigaton laser cannons, and the really impressive shit (stuff lke World Devastators, SunCrushers and the Galaxy Gun) come from. Indeed if the WHOLE EU were made canon, there is a weapon in the comics which can destroy the entire universe and remake it. I also believe the RPG, or one ofthe sourcebooks anyway, was used in more than one estimate here that placed the Imperial Navy at around 10 million+ ships (i may be wrong it's been a long time) so even then it shows a much larger universe than what they believe.

And of course the 'Brave Three Million' argument completely derails even that because, it would imply that the ENTIRE galaxy is populated by retards and that Palpatine was working in unison with the Jedi to perpetuate a war. The movies (highest canon) show this to be BS, the Jedi in fact had not the slightest idea of what Papatine was doing, in fact they were trying to get Anakin to spy on him for them. And the same is true both ways, Palps was so desperate to figure out what the Jedi knew he was trying to strike a deal with Anakin to get a 'voice' in the council. Obviously one hand didnt know what the other was doing. No conspiracy can function that way, not on a galactic scale, fuck it couldnt work that way in HIGH SCHOOL politics let alone on that level.

The only conclusion i can come to is these are secretly Trekkies who have infiltrated the SW community as sleeper agents, staging terrorist attacks and then fading back into the shadows...i kid, i kid...

Actually i have no idea what their problem is. The best REAL guess i got is that they honestly think that it makes Star Wars seem more 'legit' to make it more 'realistic' which to them means less powerful. But this ignores the fact that A--that causes inconsistancies, and B--above a certain level of real world technology all scifi is 'wank'. You cant have sorcerers with telekinetic powers and space pirates while still having a "hard scifi" universe. They want to have their cake and eat it too. Basically i think their kin with those guys from Orion's Arm, declaring hwo 'realistic' (e.g. small) they wnat everything but at the same time demanding psionic wizards and space pirates.

[Stofsk]

Even if they want the EU to be validated it still makes no sense. The EU is where most of the acounts of BDZs, gigaton laser cannons, and the really impressive shit (stuff lke World Devastators, SunCrushers and the Galaxy Gun) come from.

Yeah I know, but it's also where fighter wank and 3 million clones comes from as well.

EDIT: Actually it just occured to me, that while this is minimalist it ALSO is wank.

Think about it, when you have a fleet of tens of thousands of ISDs. (millions of other ships of course). And god, billions of tie fighters? What happens when in all that multitude, they can't stand against a dozen guys in x-wings?

Three million clones sounds minimalistic? Or these guys are supersoldiers the likes of which Steve Rogers would blush? Maybe if the Galactic Army had billions of conscripts and ordinary joe enlisted it would somehow diminish the perception that the Clonetroopers were a significant force to reckon with.

[K. A. Pital]

Not. In all the EU prior to the 3,000,000 bullshit huge battles on a Galactic scale were shown with hundreds of thousands of clonse thrown simultanously into battle on different worlds, as well as high billion/quadrillion droid armies.

Only after that Traviss misstepped once and then pounded the bullshit idea like it was a big issue. Of course due to that, continuity was fucked up. But continuity editors did not step up against her since she's an author.

And the SW continuity got fucked up.

[nightmare]

I figure they think intuitively rather than logically and believe that their numbers are more sensible, and we are the wankers. Of course, the problem with that is that they have no justification for thier position. But if you call them on it, they get defensive rather than understanding. Obviously this position is counter-logical, and if you press charges further, they get emotional about it.

[Sam Or I]

I don't think people fathom how big a galaxy really is. In B-5 Earth Alliance has what, 6 or 7 colonies, thats easy. Star Trek the Federation has a couple hundred worlds. It is a bit hard, but we all can count to one hundered. Now the Galactic Empire has millions if not billions of worlds. It is very hard to picture. Even the SW authors have trouble picturing it, they keep going back to the same couple dozen worlds.

Kind of like the miniture earth flash animation. The average person cannot imagine six billion people, thats why they break it down to one hundred

[Jim Raynor]

Mental laziness, ignorance of canon rules, and basic stupidity are the qualities that allow minimalists to accept their ridiculously small numbers. A lot of people out there aren't smart enough, or willing to expend the effort, to do things such as scaling from visuals. Because they are not able to this, they assume that other people (like the guys over here) are making must be making things up. My brother, who has no connection to any of these fanwhore communites, saw SWTC once and said that Saxton's site was "based on assumptions" because he said the Executor was more than 5 miles long. I've seen a number of people saying that the novels or Essential Guides must be correct, and in the case of contradiction, the movies made a mistake (even though they came first ). Nothing is easier than having a book TELL you how big a SSD or Death Star is, without you having to do any work on your part.

These fanboys obviously don't understand science, history, military strategy, etc. I mean, I'm no expert, but I know that in real war, numbers and industry matter. Full-scale wars between major powers are won by the sacrifice of numerous men, many of whom die inglorious (by Hollywood standards) deaths. But these fanboys have watched too many cartoons, movies, and ST episodes. They think small numbers of l33t troops and uber special forces can kick ass everywhere they go and win the war single-handedly. They think of war as some kind of retarded puzzle game, where you can win by being "creative" or other such bullshit. Find your enemy's weakspot, or come up with a magic tactic, and all of a sudden you can wipe out his entire force.

I believe this explains how the average fanboy can accept their numbers. But it still explain the passion with which they defend WEG's mistakes and their antagonism towards Saxton.

"Saxton has ruined SW." Give me a fucking break. SO WHAT if a couple trivia numbers are changed here and there. If tomorrow, LFL decided that a Carrack-class light cruiser was armed with 8 medium turbolasers and was 360 meters long, or that a Dreadnaught-class is 700 meters long, I would shrug and say "OK, whatever." I would question what brought on such an arbitrary change, but it's not like it would affect me very much. When I do get into debates about the numbers, it's because I want the SW universe to be consistent and less stupid. But an example like the one above really does not matter. The story is not affected in any way. Nor is it dismissing the old WEG material if some of their fluff facts are changed.

I think what has happened is that these fanwhores have elevated the old WEG sourcebooks to Bible-like status. They're like fucking WEG-fundies, getting worked up over the most minor of details. WEG is great, and anything that dares contradict it is horrible. And just like fundies, they're so stupid that they haven't even read or understood the entirety of the books which they have exalted so much. Lots of Christians think God is the epitome of morality, even though the Bible has insane crap like God tag teaming with fucking Satan to destroy Job's family. WEG itself is not as minimalist as the minimalists think it is. After all, 51 million worlds, millions of warships, etc. all come from WEG. But don't expect these dumbasses to do any actual work on their part, and actually read through the sourcebooks carefully. They came to certain stupid conclusions based on some surface details in the material, and they're just too fucking stupid and stubborn to change them.

[Darth Wong]

I don't think it's that complicated. The minimalist mindset is quite simple: people who have no scientific background tend to go with "gut instinct", and "gut instinct" says that any really big numbers must be wrong.

Think about it: do you have any idea how many people have E-mailed me to say that my figures for the gravitational binding energy lower limit for destroying a planet are grossly inflated? It is physically impossible to do it with less energy, yet I get a steady stream of people telling me that my figures are inflated. The fact is that people get used to seeing numbers of a certain magnitude (billions or trillions) because they see numbers like that in the financial papers or news magazines. The fact that those numbers (for gross domestic product etc) are totally irrelevant doesn't matter; the minute you go beyond "billions", they figure you're "wanking". If you combine "billions" and "mega", they figure you're really wanking.

They can't justify their claims scientifically and they don't care, because they hated science in high school anyway. Even the self-styled "science enthusiasts" treat science like plumbing; great to have and they're happy it exists, but they don't want to get their hands dirty working with it. They just want to cop a few buzzwords here and there so they can use them in polite company to impress the impressionable.

[Darth Servo]

My two cents:

The EU authors don't do their homework and can't grasp the scale of the whole SW universe because its just too damn big for them. So that plus their desire to have their own self-developed characters be meaningful in this galaxy results in scaled down versions of everything. Said EU authors then go into chat boards where the fanboys think they can get special favors with the "VIPs" by defending their work.

The insecurity of fanboys of other franchises leads them to inflate their own numbers in a pathetic sci-fi dick measuring contest. The insecurity of SW fanboys leads them to mindlessly worship anyone who will give them two bits of attention.

[Darth Wong]

That's a good point; the fans of most sci-fi franchises feel that they have to defend it by making it seem bigger than it is, so they try to engage in dick-measuring contests with the more popular franchises.

Star Wars, on the other hand, is the heavy hitter of sci-fi. Numero Uno. The Big Kahuna. So its most fanatical fans aren't so concerned about proving how big and powerful it is. Instead, they are primarily concerned with dragging it down to a level that they can understand, which (given the pitiful average level of scientific comprehension) is a pretty low level.

[Fire Fly]

Its simply dogma. When I was far, far younger, I used to take the WEG books as the authoritative sources for technical specs on Star Wars. With time, WEG molded the version I saw Star Wars as and I am sure the same is true with the minimalists. They are unwilling to relent an inch because someone, years ago who worked at a desk writing RPG bits, said so. When I came across Saxton's website, I also thought that he was exaggerating the entirety of Star Wars. Never in all of the Star Wars literature did it mention an 800 km Death Star II or an SSD that was 18 km long or two dozen variants of a Star Destroyer. To me, it was simply unimaginable because nothing in the literature said so and therefore, it seemed to me, at the time, that Saxton was simply making things far bigger than what they were.

So what changed in me? I simply got older and wiser and smarter. I came to the sense that even if all the literature said one thing and the movies showed something completely different, then the movies were right.

[K. A. Pital]

You're overcomplicating guys.

They simply lack reading/viewing comprehension. The pathetic 5 mile error arrived because someone didn't bother to see the movie but read and misinterpreted a quote. Same with most bullshit errors.

Why do people defend things that fuck up continuity? Well, if they were done by their favourite author, or simply a person with authority (affiliated with LFL), herd mentality comes into play.

And that's all.

[Aquatain]

Truth of the matter is not the lack of scientific sense, As much as it's the lack of common sense that drives these people.

I have no scientific degree whatsoever, I suck at higher math and i have never understood any laws of thermal dynamics, I'm pretty much your average Joe nothing, But even i could see that there's no way possible the the Executor could be 5 miles long.. for Gods sake just look at the screen, There is all the proof you need.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Truth of the matter is not the lack of scientific sense, As much as it's the lack of common sense that drives these people

I believe there's a quote, It's not common unless many people possess it.

[PainRack]

The problem is that the RPG authors weren't trying to analyse the SWU and its connotations. They were simply trying to create a roleplaying universe that could be played in.

That obviously placed huge restrictions and emphasised more on the art, feel and style, rather than on any real analytical work. SSD being "5 times longer" just feels much more convienent than 10 times as long, similarly, ships seen onscreen must be the big hitters, because they're familar. You need to slowly work your way up to get those ships.......... although every tom dick and harry is a jedi because they're cool.

These are the tricks of the trade to suck players in, and they did a good job.

Too good......... I still shudder at ppl saying "we should see how we can squeeze population to fit 1 trillion for Coruscant".............

[Drooling Iguana]

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the scale of Star Wars is only really conveyed by looking at the numbers. The ships are just regular sci-fi ships, they're just really big. The guns are just regular sci-fi guns, they're just really powerful. If the Death Star worked by exciting the quasi-quantum chromoparticles in a planet causing it to oscillate through space-time until it had turned itself into a blob of lime-flavoured frozen yogurt, I'm sure everyone would be rushing for the chance to attach all sorts of no-limits fallacies to it and wank it like nothing's been wanked before, but as it is the Death Star is simply powerful because of how many zeroes there are in the power output for its big giant laser, which a lot of people just can't understand.

[K. A. Pital]

Zeros? People struggle to get what 10^38 is, they have a fucking problem with comprehending large numbers unless they were trained to do it.

And I mean it. Ask an average person what "gigaton" means, he probably will not give adequate description of a gigaton-explosion effects.

[Darth Wong]

Absolutely. Put too many zeroes behind something, and people assume that it just can't be that big. I've seen people balk at the weight of a large volume of water because the number "just feels too big" even though the calculations are bulletproof. Without proper training, people are reluctant to let abstract calculations interfere with everyday experience. And since they have no everyday experience with spaceships, this makes them pretty much useless for discussing or analyzing anything involving sci-fi.

[K. A. Pital]

And of course, if a technician comes along and explains the meaning of the number, idiots spring up plenty with "NOOOH!!! You're WROOONG!" bullshit.

[The Cooler King]

A confession: I have no scientific background, so I try to defer to those that do.

I used to be a minimalist. My experience stems from, as some have mentioned, the old WEG RPG. I've played the game for years, and I noticed even in the early days that some of the numbers seemed a little 'off', especially the whole SSD debacle. When the EU came along, the information in the new books seemed to support WEG, so the fans supported and added to the new information. It was like building a house on a bad foundation.

At some point, I stumbled onto Dr. Saxton's Technical Commentaries, and that was it for me. I loved the site, and I loved how much work and research went into it, even if my players didn't. I may not be able to grasp everything he mentions there, but I can certainly appreciate the work he put into it, and I tried to work as much of the information into my games as possible.

When Lucas made the prequels, a LOT of the people I know (many of them in my gaming group) were quite upset that certain aspects of the Star Wars universe, things they had liked from the EU, seemed to be contradicted. This was most apparent in AOTC, and I still have arguments with some of my players. Most of them prefer the gaming universe, but I'm slowly converting them. According to one of my friends, they liked the EU because it was, and I quote, "better documented". They seem to like the idea that the Star Wars universe is manageable, that they can go to the same places over and over and over again.

I still get eye-rolls and heavy sighs as soon as I mention SWTC or SD.net, because I reference them both heavily, with things like the power of blasters and turbolasers and the actual speed of a hyperdrive. As Darth Wong mentioned, they seem to need to drag it down to a level they understand, and assume that anyone who uses the actual levels involved must be trying to con them, or is only inflating the numbers to appease their own egos. Like I said when I started, I'm not a scientist, and I don't really grasp the big numbers. I just know they're big, and that's what's onscreen, and I want the stuff I run to be as consistent with the movies as possible.

[Aquatain]

Absolutely. Put too many zeroes behind something, and people assume that it just can't be that big. I've seen people balk at the weight of a large volume of water because the number "just feels too big" even though the calculations are bulletproof. Without proper training, people are reluctant to let abstract calculations interfere with everyday experience. And since they have no everyday experience with spaceships, this makes them pretty much useless for discussing or analyzing anything involving sci-fi.

I would still say that as long as people know and understand their own limitations they can still contribute, not with calculations but perhaps with other aspects or point of views.

[Surlethe]

I would still say that as long as people know and understand their own limitations they can still contribute, not with calculations but perhaps with other aspects or point of views.

The key is knowing and understanding your own limitations, which is something that all too many people think they can do, but really don't. How many creationists, for example, think they're qualified to debunk science because they read a pamphlet or the AiG website? If people actually do realize what they're not qualified to judge, then there's no issue the problem is when people think they know their limitations and they balk when they're told otherwise.