Why I Don't Like SW vs. ST

[Lilgreenman]

Hey, folks. I joined this forum a couple days ago to weigh in on Into Darkness, and, though I had heard of the site before, I had no idea how old and traditional the SW vs ST debates were.

Now, confession time: I'm half-Trekkie, on my mother's side, and probably wouldn't have seen any of the Star Wars movies more than a couple times if not for Messrs. Nelson, Corbett and Murphy. My experience with this up to now has been in the last half-hour, reading this forum, the "five minutes" thing, and a few of the essays. But even with experience of only one side of this conflict, I still think it's pointless to discuss.

Star Wars tech and Star Trek tech exist for different reasons: In Star Trek, FTL warp drive is still a limiting factor in speed. When a specific speed is used, it's usually in order to add a ticking clock of some kind; and what happens on the journey takes up a significant amount of time before the destination. In Star Wars, saying that a ship has traveled "halfway across the galaxy" is a quick and sensational way to show the ship is fast and has gone far, even if that stretches the Empire's technology level into the improbable.

Now, I don't mean to say that ST is better than SW for this, just that it's apples and oranges. You can't ask who would beat whom because you can't reconcile the two.

[Stark]

How can a fictional technology be 'improbable' from an intertextual perspective?

[jwl]

Because what now? If both universes were exactly the same there would be no point to the debate. You anylise which side has the better technology then come to a conclusion. Simple as that really

A better reason not to like wars vs trek is the debate is old. Really old. This forum really needs more battle threads about other fictional universes.

[Simon_Jester]

Or stuff that isn't "if X fought Y who would win" at all, and is more about comparing characters, or themes, or social structures of different fictional societies.

[Stark]

Lets face it, there really isn't much of that. Indeed, the emphasis on pew pews has seriously devalued such discussion, or even the recognition of such content.

[Connor MacLeod]

There's actually lots of ways to compare the settings that don't involve 'to the death' scenarios, its just that the fandom is so invested/entrenched in the 'to the death' ideas that it literally crushes the life out of any effort to deviate from those long-standing traditions. I think the longevity and polarization of the 'later' eras actually killed any potential for discussion because people are tired of it degenerating into the same tired old topics.

[Zwinmar]

I like both, some of the ideas (replicators, holodecks, and the like) were more accessible on TV if one didn't have some way tot play videos so got to watch more Trek than Wars.

For me, Trek is more akin to the age of sail, the HMS Bounty, et. al. while Wars is more of an analogue to 20th century warfare and industrial might. They both have their appeal, after all they are in space, but they go about it differently.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I like both, some of the ideas (replicators, holodecks, and the like) were more accessible on TV if one didn't have some way tot play videos so got to watch more Trek than Wars.

For me, Trek is more akin to the age of sail, the HMS Bounty, et. al. while Wars is more of an analogue to 20th century warfare and industrial might. They both have their appeal, after all they are in space, but they go about it differently.

I know what you mean, and the Starfleet Command series of games certainly reinforce the "Age of Sail" concept. I don't play Star Trek online and complain that the tech is so primitive compared to SW

[Stark]

I wonder if statements like 'I like both' create a pressure to focus on those two franchises. I don't really like either (well, aside from Star Trek 2009) but I'm happy to go out there and experience other scifi. Being a 'fan' is a strange thing.

[Zwinmar]

Well I like science fiction in general so I tend to go the whole spectrum. Keep in mid they both would own Firefly, Farscape it depends, Andromeda I haven't tried to compare, etc...

[Stark]

Right, but I'm musing in a specifically SDN way (where lots of the culture is ST/SW) around that ST and SW have a different place than 99% of science fiction. I mean, I couldn't even say if I was less disinterested in ST or SW more; maybe SW, because beam sabers are cool. It would be a shame if people felt compelled to come down on one side or the other of a basically useless and irrelevant divide, you know?

[Zwinmar]

I got into SW because of an rpg, trek has the problem of only one ship and one captain... And one rper in charge

[Batman]

I'd actually vote 'insufficient data' on Firefly. They have terraforming to the point that they can make pretty much anything big enough to collapse into a sphere eventually have an earth-like atmosphere and 1g's worth of gravity, whether or not they've got FTL is, essentially, indeterminable, and since we never saw any of their warships in action their firepower is completely unknown.

[Zwinmar]

Firefly always struck me as a harder scifi than most of the rest (with the clarification that its not really that hard) yea they some sort of gravity inducer but everything else seems rather primitive, many of which seems not too distant in the future. That's my perception anyways

[Batman]

Firefly was never 'hard' SciFi. It was 'who gives a damn about the mechanics' SciFi. And it worked, I think, in part because of that. The technology was just a backdrop to the story.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Right, but I'm musing in a specifically SDN way (where lots of the culture is ST/SW) around that ST and SW have a different place than 99% of science fiction. I mean, I couldn't even say if I was less disinterested in ST or SW more; maybe SW, because beam sabers are cool. It would be a shame if people felt compelled to come down on one side or the other of a basically useless and irrelevant divide, you know?

Reminds me of some vs thread I got into a few years back, the Trektard I was debating was so desperate for ammunition he actually claimed I should be supporting ST because of my username
Just for shits & giggles, there's a vs thread on sciforums that's been running and running for the last 11 years
Link

[Zwinmar]

I realize its not hard scifi rather it just seems harder than others. Perhaps because the travel times and the western styling.

[Steve]

Frankly, I've always wondered why this always boils down to "The Empire conquers and enslaves the Alpha Quadrant with 200GT turbolazors and 25,000 ISDs" when it could just as easily be "the New Republic and Federation become friends and the Republic sends assistance to deal with the vile Borg/Dominion/etc, how will the Borg/Dominion fare against the Republic?"). And let's not get started with the old ASVS love of portraying the Federation as a Communist police state as if that were some kind of justification.

[Stark]

Like Connor said, the vs 'debate' has had its core in pew pew. Whether it was 'phasers penetrate shields with 100% accuracy' or 'biggatons blew up your starbase lol', doing some silly calculations on some blurry special effects was much more desirable than discussing social, political or even military issues. Such a discussion would necessarily involve speculation, whereas holding up a ruler to your tv is hard math facts. It makes it 'safer' for people.

[Batman]

I don't know about 'safer', but it's certainly easier. You have a number on one side and another number on the other, you just look at which number is bigger. Whether or not that is the way we should approach the Vs debate is not for me to decide. I suspect the general reaction is going to be 'Great Valen No, I wanna discuss themes and motives and whatnot' but me, I'm a numbers guy.

[Stark]

Except that's always been a stupid way to compare anything and reinforces the simplistic idea that numbers hold prime importance, thus distorting the discussion (if you can even call that a discussion).

And seriously, what are you talking about? Why do you say anyone is interested in dramatic content in vs debates?

[Batman]

Stark? YOU are the one saying people are interested in dramatic content in vs debates. I'm the numbers guy.
And I don't see why those are mutually exclusive. The numbers guys can discuss e=mc^2 and how that figures into Star Destroyer firepower, you discuss how much Trek sucked post DS9 from a dramatic content point of view.
And sorry, yes, it's a pretty damned good way to compare firepower and shield resilience. I seem to have missed the board rule that said 'we all have to care exclusively
about dramatic content and ignore comparative firepower'.

[Zwinmar]

Even without the comparative numbers I know Wars would win, at least in a straight on fight. However, what I would like to see is more of a proxy war between the two. Maybe something along the lines of Imperial Agents provide hardware to species [whatever you want here] so they can fight the UFP. Or even better, whichever side of Wars is providing the gear and armaments does not realize they are funding an extra-galactic war. The interaction is really limitless but people tend to drift more toward the saber rattling, muscle flexing side of things.

The hard theoretical numbers that engineers have used for the debate come into it because people do not want a good story, rather they want their side to be right no matter what, even if all evidence is to the contrary. However, if an event is measurable and can be directly compared to another event that produces a similar condition (and making educated assumptions, not to be confused with making an ass of yourself) one can come up with a pretty good idea what kind of forces are at work.

***just note I suck at math so I can not really verify the numbers, I tend to get lost when letters are put in. I know they represent something, but coming at a problem cold that has letters send my mind in a tail spin, never mind I transpose numbers, sigh.

[Stark]

I suspect the general reaction is going to be 'Great Valen No, I wanna discuss themes and motives and whatnot' but me, I'm a numbers guy.

Why do you 'suspect' this 'general reaction'? I thought you might have had actual experience or fact to back it up, but I guess it's just the narrow-minded nerd version of christians crying oppression. Oh noes, a person said 'theme' once, they devalued my numbers!

The idea that SDN is a place where the 'general reaction' would be 'more thematic or narrative discussion' is completely absurd.

[Batman]

Yeah. Nobody ever said they'd rather do something other than the 'my numbers are bigger than yours' approach to this particular Vs because of been there, done that, can we try something interesting for a change? Certainly not in this thread. Oh wait.
And nice try with the oppression angle, because I totally complained that people wanting to discuss other aspects of the Vs because the numbers thing has been done to death eons ago keeps me from still doing it. Oh wait. I never said that.