Jim Raynor wrote:I'd like to see the entire SW Insider passage posted so that we'll be sure about the context.
Its not about Odds, its about Obi wan's verbal duel with Anakin in ROTS, and about how Obi wan is wrong. He makes the point that just because someone says somethign doesn't make its true.
Thanks. Not surprisingly, this wasn't related to Odds, although it can be applied to it (as Darth Garden Gnome pointed out, no fucking duh).
Can you imagine LFL, most of all Pablo Hidalgo owning up to the company's mistakes and and actually admitting that Odds is full of crap? Maybe in the year 2015. I'm not kidding either, just look at how long it took them to fix the Executor's length.
"They're not triangular, but they are more or less blade-shaped"- Thrawn McEwok on the shape of Bakura destroyers
"Lovely. It's known as impugning character regarding statement of professional qualifications' in the legal world"- Karen Traviss, crying libel because I said that no soldier she interviewed would claim that he can take on billion-to-one odds
"I've already laid out rules for this thread that we're not going to make these evidential demands"- Dark Moose on supporting your claims
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Wait, this has profound implications, not limiting to Odds. Next minute anything a character say can be declared invalid.
How true is this?
Anything a character says is subject to dispute, because people are not infallible. People are subject to ignorance, confusion, and a host of other frailties, and a person's conclusions can be flawed by bad math, misunderstanding of circumstances, &c. It is possible for someone to read a display incorrectly, to accidentally quote the wrong figure, and so forth. There is nothing novel or groundbreaking about the idea that characters are not necessarily the best sources for information.
Wookiepedia has a new article consisting only of sourced quotes from you-know-who. Does anyone have the source for "ripping out someone's trachta" or whatever that bodypart was?
VT-16 wrote:Wookiepedia has a new article consisting only of sourced quotes from you-know-who. Does anyone have the source for "ripping out someone's trachta" or whatever that bodypart was?
It's from her LJ blog.
KT wrote:
Something got right up our collective noses. So we vented our spleen to each other, unable to target the object of our shared rage - not with the ordnance we preferred, anyway - and felt a bit better. And it's at times like this that I say thank God for Mando'a.
Developing the language has saved my sanity more than once. Driven to the brink of ripping someone's trachea out of their pitifully unworthy neck, I can now step back from the precipice by rushing to my spreadsheet and creating a few more choice insults and anatomically impossible instructions.
"Sometimes I think you WANT us to fail." "Shut up, just shut up!" -Two Guys from Kabul
Latinum Star Recipient; Hacker's Cross Award Winner
"one soler flar can vapririze the planit or malt the nickl in lass than millasacit" -Bagara1000
Nothing but her own words, in reverse chronological order, with sources. Usually with multiple links to the same content (thank you, Google Cache). No commentary, no links to "controversial" pages, just links to places where she has posted her own words.
I posted a number of "positive" quotes, to maintain a certain degree of neutrality. Though I don't see why I should have to (if her own words reflect badly on her, isn't that a noteworthy fact in itself?), and I expect people to raise hell about it anyway. But, as usual, the facts speak for themselves.
Sadly, I couldn't find the trachea bit. I think comments on her blog are disabled.
Wookieepedia:
We're better than the Holocron. Leland said so. But Karen Traviss still hates us.
Has anyone brought up in this debate that if the Confederacy hopes to win the Clone War, they've got to be at least capable of occupying Coruscant and the other huge core worlds, and they'll certainly not be able to do that with millions or billions of droids?
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
I added a quote on her reason for leaving TFN - notably its before Insider 84 hit street.
And Surlthe, unfortunately that doesn't fly because they were only fighting for their own independence, not to take over the rest of the galaxy. They only had to defend their own territories indefinately.
بيرني كان سيفوز
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Nuclear Navy Warwolf
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in omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro
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ipsa scientia potestas est
VT-16 wrote:Wookiepedia has a new article consisting only of sourced quotes from you-know-who. Does anyone have the source for "ripping out someone's trachta" or whatever that bodypart was?
It's from her LJ blog.
KT wrote:
Something got right up our collective noses. So we vented our spleen to each other, unable to target the object of our shared rage - not with the ordnance we preferred, anyway - and felt a bit better. And it's at times like this that I say thank God for Mando'a.
Developing the language has saved my sanity more than once. Driven to the brink of ripping someone's trachea out of their pitifully unworthy neck, I can now step back from the precipice by rushing to my spreadsheet and creating a few more choice insults and anatomically impossible instructions.
Do you have the link?
"Brian, if I parked a supertanker in Central Park, painted it neon orange, and set it on fire, it would be less obvious than your stupidity." --RedImperator
Ender wrote:And Surlthe, unfortunately that doesn't fly because they were only fighting for their own independence, not to take over the rest of the galaxy. They only had to defend their own territories indefinately.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Has anybody actually tried calcing how many troops would realistically be needed for the Clone Wars?
Here, I'll take a crack at it.
Note: I'll be using consistent low-end estimates for this, because it's so much more fun to beat the minimalist tards at their own game.
(1)The novelization pegs the Empire firmly at a minimum of one million systems. I am aware that other sources suggest higher numbers, but let's go with the lowest reasonable canon estimate.
For the sake of argument we shall assume the Empire/Republic* has
50 worlds with a population of 1 trillion or higher
500 worlds with a population of 500 billion or higher
10,000 worlds with a population of 15 billion or higher
90,000 worlds with a population of 5 billion or higher
300,000 worlds with a population of 1 billion or higher
400,000 worlds with a population of 150 million or higher
175,000 worlds with a population of 30 million or higher
25,000 worlds with a population of 2 million or lower.
This yields a population of roughly 1.8 quadrillion (1,805,000,000,000,000 to be precise).
(2)Let us also assume, for the sake of argument, that the war zone encompassed a mere 5% of the territory of the Republic, in keeping with the "brush-fire conflict" Traviss would have us believe it was. A rebellion of 5% of your territory sounds like a brush-fire war to me. Let's also assume all these worlds are relatively underpopulated. So the war zone encompasses 50,000 planets total, the majority of which have populations lower than modern Earth.
(3)Comparison of military/population ratios of modern First World nations suggest a reasonable ratio of perhaps one soldier for every hundred citizens. This suggest the following numbers.
20,000 troops to defends a world with 2 million inhabitants
300,000 troops to defend a world with 30 million inhabitants
1.5 million troops to defend a world with 150 million inhabitants
10 million troops to defend a world with 1 billion inhabitants
50 million troops to defend a world with 5 billion inhabitants.
Since we're assuming for the sake of argument the Clone Wars involved only relatively low population worlds we'll stop here.
Now let us assume the breakdown of planets that saw full-scale ground actions in the Clone War was
50 worlds with populations of 5 billion or more
500 worlds with populations of 1 billion or more
15,000 worlds with populations of 150 million or more
30,000 worlds with populations of 30 million or more
4450 worlds with populations of 2 million or less
That leaves a total population of 3.9 trillion, and a garrison force of 39 billion, using a 1/100 ratio of defenders to citizens. Even if one reduces that ratio to 1 soldier for every 300 citizens it leaves 13 billion soldiers, just on one side!
Of course, when invading a planet it is generally wise to commit enough troops to have a significant numerical advantage over the defenders. Therefore, obtaining the total number of troops is going to be more complicated than simply multiplying that by two. The most oft-quoted estimate for the number of troops that should have been sent to properly secure Iraq is 400,000. Iraq has a population of 22 million. This suggests a ratio of 1 invader for every 55 citizens of the invaded world. Therefore approximately
5 billion people=100 million invaders
1 billion=18 million invaders
150 million=3 million invaders
30 million=545,000 invaders
2 million=36,000 invaders
This yields a total man-count of the combined Republic and CIS armies of between 114 billion at the highest end and 26 billion at the lowest end. That is assuming that the entire war consists of nothing more than a continuous series of successful invasions of all 50,000 planets, with none of the beleaguered worlds ever being reinforced before they can fall and none of them changing hands more than once. Both patently ridiculous assumptions, the actual number would likely be a good deal higher.
Some Travisstites may point out that it is possible to overrun an enemy stronghold without numerical superiority, as Iraq demonstrates. To this I reply that the low-end 26 billion estimates is a simple multiplication by two of the low-end 13 billion estimate to garrison the 50,000 CIS and Republic worlds in the population breakdown listed above. And that even if we adopt much lower-end figures, like 1 soldier for every 1000 citizens, we still get numbers that Traviss's 3 million clones would be a rounding error next to.
There. Even if we assume consistently ridiculously lowball estimates from beginning to end for SW galaxy population, the number of worlds effected by the Clone Wars, and the number of droids and clones involved we still need a clone army of some 13 billion. More than 4,000 times Traviss's 3 million estimate! Hell, I've rounded-off numbers that would swallow Traviss's entire Clone Army in those calculations!
PS, you may want to double check some of this if you plan on using it, math aint my strong suit.
Edit: while the 1 million quote is for the Empire, not the Republic, the Empire is essentially the Republic in terms of territory and resources. It may have added some new, previously independent worlds, but there is no source to suggest it balooned massively in population between ROTS and ANH.
Junghalli wrote:Edit: while the 1 million quote is for the Empire, not the Republic, the Empire is essentially the Republic in terms of territory and resources. It may have added some new, previously independent worlds, but there is no source to suggest it balooned massively in population between ROTS and ANH.
Indeed, Shatterpoint places the Republic's size at 1.2 million planets near the beginning of the war, so your assumption and stated figure is not only reasonable, but an under-estimation.
And your calculations were quite well executed and presented, although I'm not particularly well qualified to check your math. Alas, common sense, even stated that plainly, perpetually manages to evade Traviss and her syncophants, even when it is directly supported by canon.
Noble Ire wrote:Indeed, Shatterpoint places the Republic's size at 1.2 million planets near the beginning of the war, so your assumption and stated figure is not only reasonable, but an under-estimation.
It's good to know that's firmly established.
Alas, common sense, even stated that plainly, perpetually manages to evade Traviss and her syncophants, even when it is directly supported by canon.
Yeah. I was going to suggest somebody should post it on TFN, just to see how they react, only I think I can guess pretty well from what I've heard. Either they'll ignore or it Dark Moose will just delete it. Then somebody will say I must be a mysoginist prick, because obviously the only reason I don't like the three million number is I don't want to let a woman into our boy's club.
Surlethe wrote:Has anyone brought up in this debate that if the Confederacy hopes to win the Clone War, they've got to be at least capable of occupying Coruscant and the other huge core worlds, and they'll certainly not be able to do that with millions or billions of droids?
Yes. I noted that in Galactic Battlegrounds, Count Dooku was able to salvage a droid army off Geonosis and launch it straight into the Core. It possessed sufficient numbers to cripple Coruscant power supplies by striking at various worlds.
Similarly, Durge Lance and the fact that the CIS threw up a "wall of troops" in Shatterpoint to defend their systems outright disprove this millions or billions of droids nonsense. If each system contained half of Naboo droid armies, we easily go up into the hundreds of billions.
While the stragetic situation meant that they just needed to defend their territories, the fact that Dooku believed he could use the droid armies to intimidate the Republic into doing what the CIS wanted suggests that they possessed enough force to overwhelm the Jedi and local sector forces of key worlds like Kuat.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
Just a quick note: Traviss has edited her Livejournal blog so no comments can be seen, and/or erased the "garroting" and "trachea ripping" comments.
I however, will not erase Talifan.
"Brian, if I parked a supertanker in Central Park, painted it neon orange, and set it on fire, it would be less obvious than your stupidity." --RedImperator
Lord Poe wrote:Just a quick note: Traviss has edited her Livejournal blog so no comments can be seen, and/or erased the "garroting" and "trachea ripping" comments.
Lord Poe wrote:Just a quick note: Traviss has edited her Livejournal blog so no comments can be seen, and/or erased the "garroting" and "trachea ripping" comments.
I however, will not erase Talifan.
Did anyone save the page pre-Orwellian purge?
Yes, I have the 'garroting' entry. It seems as if the entires has been deleted.
Fortunately a couple of us went there to debate her, and have taken down a number of stupid, incriminating quotes.
"They're not triangular, but they are more or less blade-shaped"- Thrawn McEwok on the shape of Bakura destroyers
"Lovely. It's known as impugning character regarding statement of professional qualifications' in the legal world"- Karen Traviss, crying libel because I said that no soldier she interviewed would claim that he can take on billion-to-one odds
"I've already laid out rules for this thread that we're not going to make these evidential demands"- Dark Moose on supporting your claims
Most of the "deleted" content is available in the Google or MSN cache. You'd think a "journo" would know that the almighty delete button isn't the end of incriminating data.
And somebody saved 268 (not quite all) of her blog entries to disk. And uploaded them in a zip file. I wonder how that happened.
Too bad she had disabled comments already before someone thought of it. Oh well.
Wookieepedia:
We're better than the Holocron. Leland said so. But Karen Traviss still hates us.
Ender wrote:One can only hope that her deletion of the offending entries is not an attempt to cover her tracks, but a prelude to an apology.
OH!
Ender, you can't make jokes like that, I really hurt my sides laughing.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Darth Culator wrote:Most of the "deleted" content is available in the Google or MSN cache. You'd think a "journo" would know that the almighty delete button isn't the end of incriminating data.
And somebody saved 268 (not quite all) of her blog entries to disk. And uploaded them in a zip file. I wonder how that happened.
Too bad she had disabled comments already before someone thought of it. Oh well.
"Brian, if I parked a supertanker in Central Park, painted it neon orange, and set it on fire, it would be less obvious than your stupidity." --RedImperator
KT Jelly wrote:If people don't look around, and don't test information, and don't compare stuff, I can stroll right in and slip the stuff past their mental radar pretty easily and pretty fast.
"Brian, if I parked a supertanker in Central Park, painted it neon orange, and set it on fire, it would be less obvious than your stupidity." --RedImperator
KT Jelly wrote:If people don't look around, and don't test information, and don't compare stuff, I can stroll right in and slip the stuff past their mental radar pretty easily and pretty fast.
While the quote refers to wikis, it's thought provoking. I also thought it was quite funny that she included the phrase "challenge everything". Of course, when you do, you're a misogynist, abusive stalker and a talifan.
EDIT: I've noticed that it's not possible to leave comments in most of the new blog entries on the VIP blogs and it seems as the comments have been disabled in the LJ as well.
I'm not kidding either, just look at how long it took them to fix the Executor's length.
