A scary thing about Traviss.....

[PainRack]

No no no, you see, That's for the PAST! In our modern day special forces elite commando mode, casualties are much lesser, kill ratios are much higher! Why, haven't any of you heard the single SAS trooper joke? (Turns off Fucktwit mode)


I'm still staggering from the ignorance of the posters views and a military correspondent.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I believe Stuart once said something about how the integrity of 'Lizards' was slipping (for one reason or another) and so was the accuracy of their reports. If this isn't an example of that, I'd like to see what is.

[Teleros]

Here's the thing I don't get. Surely being a good 'journo' at best means you have no skill in generating numbers for such occasions. You should seek to accurately convey information provided to you by a more qualified authority.

Well, I'd hope that most of the journalists I read are capable of checking the figures and not simply regurgitating whatever they're given, but I wouldn't expect them to all be qualified accountants or former logistics officers. I mean, it's not hard to use Excel and to dig around a few EU books (or hell, even watch ANH) before settling on a figure for the size of the GAR. Thank god Curtis Saxton slipped that "Grand Armies of the Republic" into the ICS .

[Terralthra]

It's not like she's a former logistics officer or something relevant.

Apparently, she thinks she is. Wasn't there that one character, a glorified accountant, that's apparently qualified to debunk battledroid production levels with off-the-cuff analysis? I doubt my accountant could break down the scale of M4 carbines produced in the United States by materials involved and volume, to use a somewhat similar analogy.

Oh yeah, complicated math her Mary Sue does, too. 40 kilos * 1 quintiliion = 40 QUINTILLION KILOS OMG!

...

[Balthea]

Traviss' mistake is not due to era: it is due to laziness and pride.

And Dr. Evil's lines are comedy... if only hers were meant to be a huge joke as well.

[darthscott]

At this pace I think after a few more EU books series these authors will have created a Star Wars Galaxy where present day Earth will have surpassed the SWG in both technology and population.

I guess the Star Wars universe where there are fleets of millions of capital ships, armies consisting of trillions of troops, and where planet killing weapons are common fare will have to forever remain in my imagination.

[starslayer]

And for shits and giggles, we can continue Traviss' dumbassery to its conclusion:

Assuming a planet like Earth, and further assuming the 90% silicate mass figure is correct, then we have:

Mass of planet: ~6E24 kg
Mass of our droids: ~4E16 kg
So, the planet's mass is about 100 million times that of the droids' mass. Or about .000001% of the planet's mass would be used in the droids' construction. Yeah, Traviss fails at basic math and fact-checking, as does her dumbshit Mary Sue. But then, we already knew that.

EDIT: And I go on to prove that I don't know what a quintillion is . That should be ~4E19 for the mass of the droids. Still, that just makes the droids use one ten-thousandth of the mass of the planet, six orders of magnitude less than the 10% figure.

[Sarevok]

And for shits and giggles, we can continue Traviss' dumbassery to its conclusion:

Assuming a planet like Earth, and further assuming the 90% silicate mass figure is correct, then we have:

Mass of planet: ~6E24 kg
Mass of our droids: ~4E16 kg
So, the planet's mass is about 100 million times that of the droids' mass. Or about .000001% of the planet's mass would be used in the droids' construction. Yeah, Traviss fails at basic math and fact-checking, as does her dumbshit Mary Sue. But then, we already knew that.

Somehow I don't think she even knows how to enter and calculate very large numbers with a calculator. The mystical "5.6 x 10E5" arcane notation probably confounds her. That could explain why she is so stubborn as opposed to spending 10 seconds checking her own numbers and realising the truth.

[Chris Parr]

And for shits and giggles, we can continue Traviss' dumbassery to its conclusion:

Assuming a planet like Earth, and further assuming the 90% silicate mass figure is correct, then we have:

Mass of planet: ~6E24 kg
Mass of our droids: ~4E16 kg
So, the planet's mass is about 100 million times that of the droids' mass. Or about .000001% of the planet's mass would be used in the droids' construction. Yeah, Traviss fails at basic math and fact-checking, as does her dumbshit Mary Sue. But then, we already knew that.

And that's just one planet! One can only imagine what could be done with the thousands of planets, planetoids, moons and asteroids that would be easily available to the Separatists!

[Dooey Jo]

And that's just one planet! One can only imagine what could be done with the thousands of planets, planetoids, moons and asteroids that would be easily available to the Separatists!

Pfft! What could they do? What, I ask! Indeed, our puny planet has only managed to churn out about a billion or so automobiles over last few decades. How could they, a futuristic society with thousands of planets like ours, ever hope to produce anything more than a few hundred million or so droids that only needs a fraction of the metal needed for a car? The mass for that, measured in kilograms, is way too large to write on a small piece of paper. They'd need to use a really small pencil, so it is obviously impossible!

[Darth Hoth]

And that's just one planet! One can only imagine what could be done with the thousands of planets, planetoids, moons and asteroids that would be easily available to the Separatists!

Pfft! What could they do? What, I ask! Indeed, our puny planet has only managed to churn out about a billion or so automobiles over last few decades. How could they, a futuristic society with thousands of planets like ours, ever hope to produce anything more than a few hundred million or so droids that only needs a fraction of the metal needed for a car? The mass for that, measured in kilograms, is way too large to write on a small piece of paper. They'd need to use a really small pencil, so it is obviously impossible!

At least with Traviss/Wennen being ignorant of scientific notation...

[18-Till-I-Die]

It actually may even be worse than that.

We have no idea what those droids are made of. Seeing as they have LOL!STRONG material science in the Star Wars galaxy, it may not even BE metal in the way we understand it. I mean with their technology it may be some kind of uber-strong plastic or something (not as outrageous as it sounds...some guns today have large amounts of plastic parts, IIRC).

[Darth Ruinus]

At this pace I think after a few more EU books series these authors will have created a Star Wars Galaxy where present day Earth will have surpassed the SWG in both technology and population.

The Clone Wars series already proves that wrond doesnt it? How high is the Clone Wars on the canon scale? Does it override books or no?

[NecronLord]

We have no idea what those droids are made of. Seeing as they have LOL!STRONG material science in the Star Wars galaxy, it may not even BE metal in the way we understand it. I mean with their technology it may be some kind of uber-strong plastic or something (not as outrageous as it sounds...some guns today have large amounts of plastic parts, IIRC).

While we don't know what they are made of, in the factory scenes in AotC the stuff definately seems to behave as a metal. Of course, the various force field treatments and such the metal goes through could be anything, but I think you'd need some solid evidence to suggest it's not a metal.

[NecronLord]

The Clone Wars series already proves that wrond doesnt it? How high is the Clone Wars on the canon scale? Does it override books or no?

Perhaps. It's either C or T canon. However, the stylised nature of it (as well as the framing concept that it's republic propaganda) makes it some what questionable. No sensible person would suggest that the CIS continued to use tactics less advanced than those of Hellenic greece throughout the war.

[Swindle1984]

It actually may even be worse than that.

We have no idea what those droids are made of. Seeing as they have LOL!STRONG material science in the Star Wars galaxy, it may not even BE metal in the way we understand it. I mean with their technology it may be some kind of uber-strong plastic or something (not as outrageous as it sounds...some guns today have large amounts of plastic parts, IIRC).

So-called plastic guns, like the Glock series, are 90% steel. The plastic is only the lower frame of the firearm. The moving parts and the ones that must withstand the stress and temperatures of firing the gun are all made of steel. Even aluminum framed guns aren't strong enough and have largely been replaced by alloy frames.

Note that this doesn't refer to firearms like the AR-15/M-16 with their aluminum receivers; that's a whole different ballgame and the barrels, moving parts, etc. that must withstand the stress are still made of steel.

Now, in a universe with neotronium-impregnated hull material, transparent steel, forcefields, and shit, that's all out the window.

[Darth Ruinus]

No sensible person would suggest that the CIS continued to use tactics less advanced than those of Hellenic greece throughout the war.

You mean walking in formation and shooting? Isnt that what they did in AOTC and in the trailers for the new series that what I see them doing.

[Teleros]

Well the droid army on Naboo advanced in formation on the Gungans, but I don't remember formations in AotC during the fight at the arena / the end battle. Waves perhaps but not formations.

[Ender]

And for shits and giggles, we can continue Traviss' dumbassery to its conclusion:

Assuming a planet like Earth, and further assuming the 90% silicate mass figure is correct, then we have:

Mass of planet: ~6E24 kg
Mass of our droids: ~4E16 kg
So, the planet's mass is about 100 million times that of the droids' mass. Or about .000001% of the planet's mass would be used in the droids' construction. Yeah, Traviss fails at basic math and fact-checking, as does her dumbshit Mary Sue. But then, we already knew that.

The 90% bit is correct, its that she doesn't know the difference between silicates and silica. Silica is nearly pure silicon dioxide crystals, where as silicates are minerals made of crystals of Fe, O, Mg, and Si. So yes, the biulk of the planet will be iron or other useful volatiles.

[Ender]

We have no idea what those droids are made of. Seeing as they have LOL!STRONG material science in the Star Wars galaxy, it may not even BE metal in the way we understand it. I mean with their technology it may be some kind of uber-strong plastic or something (not as outrageous as it sounds...some guns today have large amounts of plastic parts, IIRC).

While we don't know what they are made of, in the factory scenes in AotC the stuff definately seems to behave as a metal. Of course, the various force field treatments and such the metal goes through could be anything, but I think you'd need some solid evidence to suggest it's not a metal.

We do know what they are made of. AotC:ITW says they are mainly iron harvested from the planet's belt.

[Xess]

We do know what they are made of. AotC:ITW says they are mainly iron harvested from the planet's belt.

Which can be quite strong in the perfect monocrystalline iron* form that Star Wars tech should be able to make on a large scale.

* I learned about that from Hanging Tough.

[Elfdart]

Traviss's bullshit isn't even justified by Vietnam. What were the casualties there, tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands to millions of Vietnamese? All that in one limited war fought in one small, third-world country.

Going back just a couple decades before that to WW2, individual nations were deploying armies greater than Traviss's "Grand" Army of the Republic.

The most insulting and retarded part of all this is that Traviss was a defense correspondent who prided herself on knowing her shit about the military. And in 2005-2006, while she was writing most of her "3 million" justifications based on bullshit special forces wank, thousands of American soldiers had already died without securing Iraq because they just didn't have the numbers.

Traviss's military writing isn't the POV of Vietnam. It's pure 1990s "push button," "shock and awe" fantasy wank.

Yeah, but American troops don't have as many apostraphes in their names.