A Debate

[TheDarkling]

Much appreciated , I believe the fellow was talking about how it would happen in ST since hes taking the laws of the ST universe as SF always wins, at least thats what I thought and thats how I responded.

If it happened in SW universe a young human from a far off colony would fly a strafing run on the ISD of doom the empire was using and hit its one huge design flaw that no Imp engineer had got around to fixing.

You Imperials and your super weapons .

[Cpt_Frank]

Well yes, that's why we fight under reality's conditions (as much as possible with sci-fi), we don't want a fancy plot with heroes, we want a 'realistic' war.
Fair, don't ya think?

[TheDarkling]

Yes it is or else theres nothing to debate since the Imps lose and ST never does thus the debate would be over, hmm actually

Thats why I said this

SF ability to use technobabble to win the day is also disregarded since it isnt easy to factor into a debate,

.

Im not disagreeing with you Im just saying that if it was set in either verse instead of "reality" (Im not surt what it is but I have heard of it) ST would win like he was saying but I then said we discount those things for the debate.

[SirNitram]

Well yes, that's why we fight under reality's conditions (as much as possible with sci-fi), we don't want a fancy plot with heroes, we want a 'realistic' war.
Fair, don't ya think?

Insofar as piting an ancient spacefaring civilization on war footing against a fledging group of a few hundred worlds more interested in exploring than fighting can be fair, yes.

[SirNitram]

Yes it is or else theres nothing to debate since the Imps lose and ST never does thus the debate would be over, hmm actually

Thats why I said this

SF ability to use technobabble to win the day is also disregarded since it isnt easy to factor into a debate,

.

Im not disagreeing with you Im just saying that if it was set in either verse instead of "reality" (Im not surt what it is but I have heard of it) ST would win like he was saying but I then said we discount those things for the debate.

Reality is where the pizza guy comes from!

[Spanky The Dolphin]

New information overrides older information.

The Marvel comics are ignored. The Dark Horse ones are official.

DarkStar is a whiny bitch and a sore loser. Don't listen to anything he says. There is a 99.99% chance that he's completely wrong or lying.

[Cpt_Frank]

Insofar as piting an ancient spacefaring civilization on war footing against a fledging group of a few hundred worlds more interested in exploring than fighting can be fair, yes.

Well IMHO a fair fight is a fight were both sides fight within the same rules, not if both sides are equally strong, that'd mean all fair fights would end in a draw or would be won thru sheer luck.

[Khan Jackal Moreau]

Hah. Reality.

Hypermatter. Supspace.

The Force. Q.

DeathStars. Species 8742.

Plot Contrivances. Plot Contrivances. Plot Contrivances.

A random Galaxy class. A random ISD. Stats from TNG and from the Trilogy. From there, we have fun. But no. We bring in TOS. And the new Trilogy. And then DS9 and Voyager, then the EU.

For our baseline of power we use lousy special effects, and confusing dialogue. How can we possibly reach a conclusion? We can't. So we argue, which is really why we are here. We like to both belittle those who don't agree with us, and be patted on the back by those who do.

Fun, I mean, I do the same thing myself, at dinner with the family.

Like the SIG says though. Ask and you shall recieve. If you allow the impossible into the equation (scritch, Hypermatter, force, time travel) you'll never solve anything.

[Cpt_Frank]

Reality as far as applicable to sci-fi, ie a fair fight as it would go if we assume these technologies were real.
It's called suspension of disbelief.

[SirNitram]

Reality as far as applicable to sci-fi, ie a fair fight as it would go if we assume these technologies were real.
It's called suspension of disbelief.

Then again, this guy thinks the Ringworld Builders are invincible and unstoppable from all sci-fi. Which is amusing, as I figure a single Netherese Archwizard would own them sufficiently...

[Ender]

Tell you what smart ass. Well go head to head here. You get the Ringbuilders and any other Niven groups you want. Use whatever sources you want. I will limit my self strictly to visual canon.

But I get the Irken Empire.

Can you feel your asshole puckering?

[Cromag]

Hey Khan, if you can't already tell, this board has some rules regarding what constitutes canon in debates. The lists you've seen represent what is considered canon both here and in at least one other popular debate site, namely www.spacebattles.com.

What should also be apparent is that Darkstar has fought/is fighting for his interpretation of what is and is not canon. Finally, it should be glaringly obvious that his is an opinion not held in high esteem and that in general, the man himself is regarded as a pain, to put it nicely.

It would be a good idea to check out both sides of the issue, though, as a debater's character shouldn't in any way be attacked in order to defeat his argument. But, even with an objective view of the situation, Darkstar's canon policy is an extreme position to hold, and is lacking in solid evidence to back it up.

From what I recall, in previous threads where he posted on this issue, his argument hinges on a quote from GL regarding the EU occupying an alternate universe. The first problem with the argument is that the quote was not originally presented in context. Even so, when I first read it, I interpreted it as an answer to some question like "How does the EU factor into your work when adding to the Star Wars saga?". GL's answer shows he doesn't let it factor in when creating his own stories. This is quite reasonable, as it would lengthen the already time consuming process of creating the new films. It also explains how canon can sometimes contradict what we see in the EU.

Darkstar's position, however, is that GL considers the entirety of the EU as an alternate universe, that with GL being the "god" of the SW universe his position overrides the stated policy of LFL and thus any evidence derived from EU sources is null and void. He went on to interpret quotes from LFL officials other than GL so that they lined up with his view of what GL said. He even went so far as to establish a seperate definition of "Continuity" (with a capital "C") to differentiate between what goes on in the EU from what we see in the canon films. While this theory does explain how canon can contradict what is in the EU, it has some major problems as I see it.

For instance, how is it that major events in both universes' timelines occur, or are remembered to occur, exactly as they did in the films? Surely at least one decision made by the parties involved could have gone differently (eg. Endor shield bunker commander decides not to pursue the fleeing rebels) thus changing the outcome of the events. The odds that two seperate universes would exactly overlap on these events when there are multitudes of things that could have gone differently in EU's "alternate universe" in the years between each film are vanishingly small, I'd wager.

Another issue, as I see it, isn't so much one of logic but rather character. I can't see GL telling all the authors that have written stories for the EU that their work has no bearing whatsoever on the SW universe. He has said quite the opposite, actually, on at least one occasion (I believe in the intro to the story of Anakin Skywalker). In that instance, he actually said he was happy to have others add to the saga. I think it would be quite out of character for him to effectively negate the efforts of the EU authors by relegating them to a seperate universe that has no substantial ties to that of the films.

Ultimately, perhaps inevitably, the debate turned into much sniping from both sides. There certainly wasn't enough evidence for Darkstar's position to sway a majority of the opinion his way, in either the SW or the ST camp. The issues I bring up are just off the top of my head. I don't think they necessarily "poison the well", but I didn't see those issues brought up in the original debate. Consider them food for thought.

It's your decision about whether you would like to debate the SW vs ST issue here, considering the rules. There is nothing to stop you from attempting to change the canon policy, but you would need to avoid the same mistakes that Darkstar made in his attempt.

[TheDarkling]

What with the troll invasion, this is the third one in as many days.

Well I guess I will pop over to sb.com and read up on the new theory that Impulse = Ftl, that should give trek a boost since an impulse strafe would then be ftl .

[Ender]

Hey if DarkStar is going to keep using the GL quote, I'm gonna start using the GR quote about TOS. That makes all Trek non canon, and therefore unusable.

[DarkStar]

It would be a good idea to check out both sides of the issue, though, as a debater's character shouldn't in any way be attacked in order to defeat his argument.

(Gasp!)

What a delightfully unusual viewpoint for this group. Well said.

From what I recall, in previous threads where he posted on this issue, his argument hinges on a quote from GL regarding the EU occupying an alternate universe.

Actually, no.

The Lucas quote is the final nail in the coffin, but the argument was already in play before the quote came out.

http://kier.3dfrontier.com/forums/showt ... Wars+canon

The first problem with the argument is that the quote was not originally presented in context.

Not presented in context? I suppose I could have reposted the entire interview, but I don't see how that would affect what he says, since at no other point in the interview does he make reference to the issue.

Even so, when I first read it, I interpreted it as an answer to some question like "How does the EU factor into your work when adding to the Star Wars saga?".

You just made up your own context.

Darkstar's position, however, is that GL considers the entirety of the EU as an alternate universe, that with GL being the "god" of the SW universe his position overrides the stated policy of LFL and thus any evidence derived from EU sources is null and void. He went on to interpret quotes from LFL officials other than GL so that they lined up with his view of what GL said. He even went so far as to establish a seperate definition of "Continuity" (with a capital "C") to differentiate between what goes on in the EU from what we see in the canon films. While this theory does explain how canon can contradict what is in the EU, it has some major problems as I see it.

As you can discover by following the provided link, there was no revision of previous quotes to fall in line with GL's Cinescape quote from July 2002. A re-examination of the common Warsie re-interpretations of canon policy statements was already underway, and the Continuity fact had already been discovered.

'Continuity' is not simply an evil Trekkie attempt to revise the definitions and thus win some game. It is clear from what already existed that the term 'continuity' as used did not refer to a generic form of continuity, but something very specific. I looked at how it was used to determine what was meant by the term by those who were using it.

For instance, how is it that major events in both universes' timelines occur, or are remembered to occur, exactly as they did in the films? Surely at least one decision made by the parties involved could have gone differently (eg. Endor shield bunker commander decides not to pursue the fleeing rebels) thus changing the outcome of the events. The odds that two seperate universes would exactly overlap on these events when there are multitudes of things that could have gone differently in EU's "alternate universe" in the years between each film are vanishingly small, I'd wager.

Perhaps, but sci-fi is replete with examples of such occurrences. After all, once you start dabbling in the infinite possibilities of parallel universes, then by default you can have a large number which are very close in certain details.

Another issue, as I see it, isn't so much one of logic but rather character. I can't see GL telling all the authors that have written stories for the EU that their work has no bearing whatsoever on the SW universe.

Truth be told, I was astonished that he said what he did in Cinescape. Whether you think it is his character or simply shrewd business, acknowledging that the EU isn't the real story of Star Wars and placing it in a parallel universe could adversely affect sales and marketing. That is especially true in a situation such as this, where some people had simply assumed they were part of the real canon stories.

[Khan Jackal Moreau]

George Lucas thinks you're a huge nerd. It's been well established.

You get no respect from the man. What was the quote, something like "people who live in their parent's basement".

So he doesn't seem to care what universe it's in. As long as he gets to play around with neat CG toys, he's cool. As far as the history, as long as he recoups cost, and gets MORE CG toys, he's happy.

I reiterate. If you let GL dictate what's canon from what you can get sifting through his table scraps, that's fine. I can imagine him one day finding out about all this, and releasing a press release saying "nothing is canon" and then going back to Industrial Light and Magic giggling madly. This man hates fans, but doesn't bring it up much, as he tries to ignore it.

The polar oppisite of Shatner. See Free Enterprise. He loves to make fun of fans, but deep down, he enjoys it.

Moving on.

The Ringworld Builders were presented as creatures of rock hard science. No psionics. No metaphysics. No magic. But they made scrith, which is, well, impossible to make, as far as we know. As well as making the Ringworld itself. Impossible, as far as we know.

So therefore, I wouldn't mess with the Ringworld Builders. Reality seems to be a inconvience to them. If they simply used the sun beam around a Ringworld to fire a chunk of Scrith at your homeworld, you would be screwed. As, as has been stated, Scrith doesn't conform to the real world, and so what real world answer do you have.

Coming at the RWB with Captain Marvel, as you say, is all well and good. "God can take you" is always a fun argument, as it's unbeatable. I hope you have enjoyed yourself. It's like a punch to the face, followed by a kick to the nose. Your grandma has little choice but to come around to your point of view.

So I'm sure that some published author somewhere out there has come up with something that is that crazy. The Lensmen, for sure.

Not exactly GOOD fiction, but hey. If it were GOOD fiction, it would be celebrated by more people than us, who simply enjoy pretending we're smarter or better informed than our neighbor.

[TheDarkling]

Hmm my Troll'ometer is spiking, SirNitram alreadyput an end to your "Ringworld builders RoXXor" maddness so why drag it up again here, if we dont take what Paramount/Lucas say is canon their would be anarchy with people claiing only episodes/books that showed high level calcs are canon for their side but that only low end calcs are canon on the other side.

I can just see it now TOS with its uber antimatter and 65 Million Km range phasers but with the fleet as shown in DS9 Vs the Imps from Rogue squadron with cap ship ranges of >10 km.

[Khan Jackal Moreau]

Niven cares about science, and so his books have a decent yardstick in them to measure power. TA Fanfic does not.

Frank Richards kills everyone. He just does. No argument. It's that wonky.

Nobody wants Frank Richards showing up. So where do you draw the line? Well documented hard science fiction? Would be a start. SW and ST are both there, well, almost. Niven is the best I've ever seen. The man ENJOYS writing technical treatises on the ships in his books. Fun stuff!

I mean, honestly. Why bother with some random undocumented uber-powerful race?

If you start that game, you always end up in the Marvel Universe. You have to draw the line somewhere. Niven falls well behind MY line, as he bothers to include hard science in his books. Who else can claim the same?

*cough*

Scrith has already been mentioned as Niven's brand of wonkiness. My favorite Sci-Fi is Lexx, simply because this brand of argument has no place there. It's calm and serene.

[Khan Jackal Moreau]

As far as canon goes, of course what Lucas says is canon. Same with what airs on ST. I mean, I'm not saying it's NOT.

I'm saying, what happens when he says something you're NOT willing to believe?

Something about, oh, I don't know, virgin birth. Do you ignore it? Just choke it down? How much can you choke down before you croak?

Niven has never seemed like that to me.

GL has proven time and time again he enjoys "fun stuff". Like showing off the Death Star in Ep2, although everybody ELSE who enjoys Star Trek thought it was designed in the MAW.

Midichlorians. Jar Jar Binks. MAKING FART JOKES in Ep1. Ewoks.

You have to accept a certain amount of universe abuse, but SW has had more than it's fair share. COME ON, the Eclipse?

Does it bother you that the writers are making superlasers smaller and smaller? I mean, does it seem a little off to you, that? Do you simply accept it and move on?

I wouldn't accept a hand phaser in ST:X blowing up a planet. Canon or not, it's stupid. Not going to choose to believe it.

And honestly, I'm not going to accept the Ep2 bugs designing the Death Star. It's stupid, and retconning. I prefer the story of the Maw. Much more interesting.

That's my problem with canon, at least in terms of SW. It relies on GL, and only GL, and he has proven time and time again he doesn't care.

[TheDarkling]

I can see what you are saying about accepting insane stuff but we just have to.

Your views are however shared since some people will not accept that Federation weapons got orders of magnitude lower after TOS and I would agree that it is stupid to think that so we just have to attempt to do the writters job for them and try to make sense of it all.

Some people do throw out things to make it match up with real science though (just take a look t realism entries in wongs database), he doesnt like a statemetn of Data's because it violates conservation of energy so he concludes data is an idiot (which isnt the call I would make).

The entire area is a little vague but thats just the way it is.

[Ender]

< snip pointless trolling >
Moving on.

The Ringworld Builders were presented as creatures of rock hard science. No psionics. No metaphysics. No magic. But they made scrith, which is, well, impossible to make, as far as we know. As well as making the Ringworld itself. Impossible, as far as we know.

So therefore, I wouldn't mess with the Ringworld Builders. Reality seems to be a inconvience to them. If they simply used the sun beam around a Ringworld to fire a chunk of Scrith at your homeworld, you would be screwed. As, as has been stated, Scrith doesn't conform to the real world, and so what real world answer do you have.

Coming at the RWB with Captain Marvel, as you say, is all well and good. "God can take you" is always a fun argument, as it's unbeatable. I hope you have enjoyed yourself. It's like a punch to the face, followed by a kick to the nose. Your grandma has little choice but to come around to your point of view.

So I'm sure that some published author somewhere out there has come up with something that is that crazy. The Lensmen, for sure.

Not exactly GOOD fiction, but hey. If it were GOOD fiction, it would be celebrated by more people than us, who simply enjoy pretending we're smarter or better informed than our neighbor.

Lets review shall we?

Nivenverse = Level 5 civilization
Scale goes upt to Level 12.

So many people can wipe out the Ringbuilders without it taking more then a second it isn't fucking funny.

[SirNitram]

So, basically, you admit the Ringworld Builders, while powerful, are useless at magic.

One Netherese Archwizard, five minutes.

Two if he's got Karsus' Avatar which just makes this pathetically lopsided in his favour.

[Cromag]

Actually, no.

The Lucas quote is the final nail in the coffin, but the argument was already in play before the quote came out.

http://kier.3dfrontier.com/forums/showt ... Wars+canon

Ah, so I see. I misremembered that debate.

Not presented in context? I suppose I could have reposted the entire interview, but I don't see how that would affect what he says, since at no other point in the interview does he make reference to the issue.

Actually, all that would have been necessary was for whoever posted the quote to include at least the question GL was presumably asked. If the question was the one I thought up, for example, it would have been enormously helpful in establishing GL's meaning.

You just made up your own context.

Given that the quote was posted by itself and I didn't have any way of immediately bringing up the entire interview, I thought up what was for me a question that best explains GL's answer. However, I didn't presume my interpretation was the only possible one, just one that made sense to me. In a way, yes, that is making up my own context, but I didn't have much choice at the time.

As you can discover by following the provided link, there was no revision of previous quotes to fall in line with GL's Cinescape quote from July 2002. A re-examination of the common Warsie re-interpretations of canon policy statements was already underway, and the Continuity fact had already been discovered.

I wasn't suggesting you revised the quotes, only interpreted them to jibe with how you interpreted GL's quote. In light of the fact you didn't have that GL quote from the get-go, clearly I was wrong.

I take issue with your referring to your "Continuity" argument as "fact". Reading over the debate, I don't think too many people caught on to your initial attempt to distinguish between "Continuity" and "continuity". Their agreeing with you on later posts where you threw in "Continuity" doesn't amount to it being accepted fact. It reminded me strongly of Gothmog's debate with Mike. He tried to setup definitions for terms that would, if accepted, prove his theory. Your definition of "Continuity", once accepted, would prove your theory on LFL's canon policy. Unfortunately, none of the proof you offered could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the various officials you quoted were using the term you defined.

'Continuity' is not simply an evil Trekkie attempt to revise the definitions and thus win some game. It is clear from what already existed that the term 'continuity' as used did not refer to a generic form of continuity, but something very specific. I looked at how it was used to determine what was meant by the term by those who were using it.

I don't think there's anything inherently evil about trying to change an accepted policy. It isn't clear however that there is a seperate "Continuity" for the Canon that exists apart from the EU. If it were clear there wouldn't be any other valid interpretation of the quotes and the LFL officials would more than likely at some point try to make the distinction on their own.

Perhaps, but sci-fi is replete with examples of such occurrences. After all, once you start dabbling in the infinite possibilities of parallel universes, then by default you can have a large number which are very close in certain details.

I'll have to take your word on the other sci-fi examples until someone else objects. The point is moot, however, since the probability of one universe in an infinite series of universes overlapping another universe in that series such that for a 30-odd year period they match in every detail is 1. Thus, the EU could exist in such a pseudo-parallel universe.

The issue is whether you've proved that the EU exists in that universe. Your interpretations of the GL quote and those of the LFL officials does support that possibility, but there are several problems, to wit:

1) I still have yet to see the presumed question that elicited GL's response, much less the entirety of that interview (perhaps it was posted and I just missed it).

2) I did not see you address the other quote from GL. IIRC, in the opening to The Anakin Skywalker Story, he spoke of his happiness that others are contributing to the Star Wars saga.

3) Current interprations of the quotes do not add the extra term of a seperate "Continuity".

Point 2 is important because while it's still not an explicit statement of how the EU is related to the films' universe, GL is pretty much saying that the EU is a part of the "SW saga". SWS has been used interchangably with "SW universe". GL's subsequent Cinescape quote will only have bearing on this point if we can see either the entire interview or at least the question that I believe exists. Personally, I'd prefer the entire interview.

Point 3 is important because there is no source to explicitly support a seperate definition of continuity. Thus, your "Continuity" term is an extraneous unknown and thus makes your theory logically inferior to the current one.

Truth be told, I was astonished that he said what he did in Cinescape. Whether you think it is his character or simply shrewd business, acknowledging that the EU isn't the real story of Star Wars and placing it in a parallel universe could adversely affect sales and marketing. That is especially true in a situation such as this, where some people had simply assumed they were part of the real canon stories.

And yet, in your astonishment, you didn't consider that the possibility that he was merely talking about how he goes about creating his stories is more in line with his character than telling all the people who have worked hard to add to the story that they actually have no place in the Star Wars universe?

The first possibility preserves the understood scope of the Star Wars saga, doesn't harm GL's reputation or his finances and, most importantly, doesn't alienate all the authors who wish to add to the SWU or the fans who genuinely love the EU and consider it an integral part of the SWU.

The second possibility, that GL has done a 180 and is now a childish diva type who refuses to let others add to his "vision" of the SWU, would almost certainly adversely affect his bottom line. That is not by any stretch of the imagination a practice of "shrewd business".

[NecronLord]

Lets review shall we?

Nivenverse = Level 5 civilization
Scale goes upt to Level 12.

So many people can wipe out the Ringbuilders without it taking more then a second it isn't fucking funny.

Level 12?

[Ender]

Nope, not even Enterprise.

See, TNG met with Cochran in FC, and Cochran was in the premier of Enterprise giving a speech on video as the ship was launched so...


There is no such thing as Star Trek!