General Order 24

[Lord Pounder]

But the fact of the mater is you are here. So are you an average fan or something special? Do you think you're the only average fan who thought to join a web forum? How about starwars.com are you suggesting that the average fan is so backwards they'll never look on the net when plagued by a bout of boredom?

[MagnusTheReD]

I have, various times, he just quips back with "Who's word would to you take? Lucas' or Chee's?" I always return with "What Lucas says in an interview is not official, besides if it was, why dont you provide me with a website officially claiming the EU to be non-canon?"

He, big shocker, never responds, and goes on to state the same quote again and say "amazing how you edit Lucas' words to suit your argument.

This Trekkie just wont give up.

This is the reason I challenged him to a one-on-one debate via the PM, and I advise you to do the same - this way he won't be able to escape the burden of proof.

[ShadowSonic]

Geez, touchy aren't we? I never said I was the ultimate authority of average fans. Hell, seeing as I did come here and to other forums out of boredom and stuff of course I think others are going to come, I still just think that to the casual viewer, for the most part, they're going to think of only the 6 movies when they think of Star Wars and think of some of the TV series (hell, the casual viewer probably doesn't even know much about some Trek series like DS9 or ENT), and not about all of the novels written.

[Lord Pounder]

And of course you can back this up can you? Actual statistics please. The fact of the matter is many SW and ST books have made the New York Times Bestseller list. So I'd be fair to say more than rabid fans are buying them.

[ShadowSonic]

Really? I haven't looked at any best sellers lists in awhile. So if you can back up that with maybe a link or something, I hereby retract my past statements.

Frankly, I'm still mad they never went through with making a LEXX comic book...

[Lord Pounder]

Being as how I'm in work I can't get much evidence yet. But i do have Dark Force Rising by Tim Zahn in my drawer and on the top of the books it's listed as The Sunday Times Best Seller.

Also on this page you will see two star wards books, Heir to the Empire and the Episode 1 novelisation listed as New York Times Best Sellers.

[ShadowSonic]

The novelization of Episode I made a bestsellers list?! Well, I guess the book must give a lot more depth and background explanation and stuff that the movie didn't...

As for Heir to the Empire, I actually bought that myself years ago. I wanted to see what the Wars novels after Endor were like, but I lost interest and lost the book in a move.

The only books based off a Sci-Fi series I've been reading consistently for years are the ones based off of Red Dwarf.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

Slightly off-topic, I can understand why Lucas has said the EU is canon, whereas Paramount has said that their Trek Novels aren't (even though they're great). [. . .]

With Trek, they've made around, what, 700 TV episodes? And they'd want to make more once someone half-competant takes over production, and so their Trek novles can't be considered canon unless they plan on referencing them in the shows that'll probably be set in the same timeframe, or they move it ahead to the 25th century like the gap between TNG and TOS. And if they tell stories off all the major stuff that happened between TOS and TNG they'd still have to reference the novels. So the easy way out for them is to just say the novel aren't canon.

Or to sum up, because Paramount doesn't give a shit about continuity within the televised episodes, they sure as hell won't bother doing anything with the novels. That's waaayyy too much work. So the novels really are just endorsed fanfiction.

And the same thing to the casual Trek fans over the novels, they likely don't know they exist.

The casual fan likely knows they exist but doesn't know about the VS debate (and hence doesn't know that anybody cares about the canon status of sci fi materials).

[Darth Ruinus]

he posted this

TheRedFear:
"You're talking about a an Asteroid so massive...and so HOLLOW...that the Enterprise flew around INSIDE it. And of course, you conveniently omit that the size of the asteroids the SD destroyed were nowhere near that size or composition. And of course you ignore all the other asteroids their weapons were fully expected to annihilate.

I'd say nice try, but that was a rather weak attempt Rod. "

btw he misspelled my username

He forgets they use proton torpedoes, which are Treks stronger weapons to destroy asteroids, while the Imps use their light weapons!

Anyways I am going to respond with this:
"And you ignore that the Slave I, (a mercenary ship! not a fucking military ship!!) SLICED asteroids in half WITH ONE SEISMIC CHARGE in AOTC

also your argument goes against you, you do know that it is easier to destroy things from the INSIDE right?"

Now I am worried about the last part, having never seen the episode in question, I am wondering if the last part of my argument, the INSIDE part, is correct or not.

Any comments?

[General Zod]

I don't see how being on the inside of an asteroid would make it easier to destroy. It's not as if the density of the material magically changes.

[MagnusTheReD]

Now I am worried about the last part, having never seen the episode in question, I am wondering if the last part of my argument, the INSIDE part, is correct or not.

Any comments?

I think he's talking about the TNG episode "Pegasus". There we see a big asteroid being destroyed from the inside, and Riker claimed it would take most of the Ent-D's photorp payload to destroy it.

[MagnusTheReD]

I don't see how being on the inside of an asteroid would make it easier to destroy. It's not as if the density of the material magically changes.

What do you mean? If you trigger the explosion inside the rock, less energy would escape, wouldn't it?

[Batman]

he posted this
TheRedFear:
"You're talking about a an Asteroid so massive...and so HOLLOW

Could this guy make up his mind, please? As the asteroid was hollow, it can't have been all that massive relative to its size, severely downgrading the firepower needed to destroy it. Didn't Mike base his calculations on a SOLID asteroid of that size?

...that the Enterprise flew around INSIDE it.

IOW it was mostly made up of EMPTY SPACE. Some massive asteroid that is.
Not that that's even correct, there was a not inconsiderable fissure in the asteroid but it was IIRC by no means mostly hollow.

And of course, you conveniently omit that the size of the asteroids the SD destroyed were nowhere near that size or composition.

That's right-they were solid as opposed to the supposedly hollow one they parked Pegasus and later the Big E in. They were ALSO clearly vaporized by single LTL blasts, when it would have supposedly taken ALL the E-Ds photorps to DESTROY (which need not mean anything more than fracture) the Pegasus asteroid.

And of course you ignore all the other asteroids their weapons were fully expected to annihilate.

And we saw that happening where? Not that them expecting to 'annihilate' (whatever that means) asteroids of indeterminate size is much in the way of evidence.

He forgets they use proton torpedoes, which are Treks stronger weapons to destroy asteroids, while the Imps use their light weapons!

Would you do me a favour? WRT Trek, it's photon torpedoes. It's Wars that uses proton torpedoes. I realize this seems petty (it probably is) but I see this one way to often and it annoys me.

Anyways I am going to respond with this:
"And you ignore that the Slave I, (a mercenary ship! not a fucking military ship!!) SLICED asteroids in half WITH ONE SEISMIC CHARGE in AOTC

Which doesn't say beans I'm afraid without knowing the SIZE of the asteroids. All asteroids aren't created equal, you know.

also your argument goes against you, you do know that it is easier to destroy things from the INSIDE right?"

Um-I can't recall anybody ever wanting to destroy the Pegasus asteroid from the inside, indeed that would have been a pretty stupid idea at that point. Riker's comment WRT needing all of the Big E's photorps being needed to destroy the asteroid was made while they were still outside.

[General Zod]

I don't see how being on the inside of an asteroid would make it easier to destroy. It's not as if the density of the material magically changes.

What do you mean? If you trigger the explosion inside the rock, less energy would escape, wouldn't it?

That might increase the efficiency of the explosives you used, but it wouldn't necessarily mean that it requires any less total power to destroy the asteroid.

[Darth Ruinus]

thanks for the comments, oh on the inside things, I didnt see the episode, and I admit it is a stupid idea to destroy something from the inside, but to explain the effect,

if you place a firecracker in your open hand, and leave it open, when that firecracker explodes, it will hurt, but youll still have your hand,

however, if you close your hand around that firecracker, goodbye hand.

I think...

[MagnusTheReD]

I don't see how being on the inside of an asteroid would make it easier to destroy. It's not as if the density of the material magically changes.

What do you mean? If you trigger the explosion inside the rock, less energy would escape, wouldn't it?

That might increase the efficiency of the explosives you used, but it wouldn't necessarily mean that it requires any less total power to destroy the asteroid.

That's exactly my point - it's more efficient to blow it up from the inside.
If you try to blow it up from the outside, you'll need twice as much power, because half of the energy escapes into space. Or something like this - I'm not as fancy in math as some other guys over here, I'll let them calculate it...

[General Zod]

thanks for the comments, oh on the inside things, I didnt see the episode, and I admit it is a stupid idea to destroy something from the inside, but to explain the effect,

if you place a firecracker in your open hand, and leave it open, when that firecracker explodes, it will hurt, but youll still have your hand,

however, if you close your hand around that firecracker, goodbye hand.

I think...

See above. Simply closing up the space doesn't mean that a object takes less power to blow up. It merely means that the explosive you're using is more efficient because there's less empty space for the explosion itself to go to, so more of it is directly absorbed. The amount of power needed to destroy said object remains the same.

[MagnusTheReD]

thanks for the comments, oh on the inside things, I didnt see the episode, and I admit it is a stupid idea to destroy something from the inside, but to explain the effect,

if you place a firecracker in your open hand, and leave it open, when that firecracker explodes, it will hurt, but youll still have your hand,

however, if you close your hand around that firecracker, goodbye hand.

I think...

You are correct.
Since a firecracker is not a shaped charge (not really anyway), it releases it's energy in all direction.
Thus when it just lies in your open palm, it will take only a portion of the total energy produced by the explosion. But if you close your palm, you get most of the energy transferred into your hand, which is not a good thing.

[Darth Servo]

So I'm right, a more appropriate line would've been "The Star will explode" instead of "The Star will go supernova".

More like "the star will exhale". It is not exploding. It is only throwing off gas from its outer layers. It's an emission, not an explosion. The word "explode" implies that the central body of the star is actually disrupted, and that's not what's happening.

It is rather amusing to thing that a stellar fart can wipe out Federation and Klingon battle fleets.

[Darth Servo]

This guys argument is centered solely on the whole "Lucas said the EU is seperate from his universe!!!!" claim, which i keep trying to explain is just talking about timelines and or merchandising chains, oh and he brought backup, but still, Trek back up is much like the Grunts in Halo, they go down fast, but there are lots of em.

Every time a Trektard takes that damnable quote out of context, I reply with: "The quote you provide makes it sound like the EU is separate from George's vision of the Star Wars universe. It is not." -Leland Chee, maintainer of Lucasfilm's Star Wars Holocron in response to that very quote.

I'd suggest you do the same.

Its also good to point out that in the very quote the Trekkie cites, Lucas explicitly defines "his universe" as "a select period of time", not as "the sum total of all that exists in Star Wars" like the Trektards want to believe.

Of course there's always Mike's favorite tactic of using the famousn "Its not Star Trek till I say its Trek" quote from Gene Roddenberry to get DS9, Voyager, a significant chunk of TNG and nearly half of the films excluded from Trek continuity.

[Darth Servo]

He, big shocker, never responds, and goes on to state the same quote again and say "amazing how you edit Lucas' words to suit your argument.

Thats a classic case of the pot calling the kettle 'black'. See my last post.

This Trekkie just wont give up.

You don't expect he has anything better to do, do you?

[Darth Ruinus]

"Stop trying to change the subject Roj. Prove TLs are more powerful than being fully immersed in the sun or concede Trek Weapon/Shield superiority. You have repeatedly insisted that TLs are so God Awful Badass that they can take the Enterprise out with ease. Now I've proven how god awful badass Trek shields are. We've seen them punk out the Sun three times. One of which was BEFORE the invention of Metaphas Shields. Now prove TLs are more powerful than Suns or acknowledge Trek superiority."

This kid is grasping at straws...

[Isolder74]

"Stop trying to change the subject Roj. Prove TLs are more powerful than being fully immersed in the sun or concede Trek Weapon/Shield superiority. You have repeatedly insisted that TLs are so God Awful Badass that they can take the Enterprise out with ease. Now I've proven how god awful badass Trek shields are. We've seen them punk out the Sun three times. One of which was BEFORE the invention of Metaphas Shields. Now prove TLs are more powerful than Suns or acknowledge Trek superiority."

This kid is grasping at straws...

The same shields that can't take a hit form a solar flair? The same shields that are failing because of an energenic star in a Dysan Sphere?

[Batman]

The same shields that can't take a hit form a solar flair? The same shields that are failing because of an energenic star in a Dysan Sphere?

Leave alone can be taken down by a distinctly limited number of photorps which aren't exactly TT level.
And let's just not calculate how much energy E-D would have actually absorbed from that star in 'Relics'. God awful badass Trek shields my ass.
Not that dipping into a star's photosphere for a few moments is quite the proof for Trek shield badassitude this guy thinks it is anyway.

[Darth Wong]

I love the way these people assume that a star's photosphere is like a lake of lava.