More Trektardism

[Elfdart]

It's amazing how much information Trekkies can extract from so little as a single sentence fragment in dialogue. Even Christian fundamentalists are often loathe to be so reckless in their interpretation of Scripture.

You understimate the Catholic ones: in my city one of them writed to a newspaper and 'demonstrated' that Halloween is satanic citing the Holy Bible, who don't speak of Halloween.

Isn't Halloween a Catholic holiday?

One of these days I'm going to humor the Trektards by creating a scenario where all or most of their bullshit claims are true...

...and then laugh myself silly when Trek still gets its ass kicked.

[lord Martiya]

It's amazing how much information Trekkies can extract from so little as a single sentence fragment in dialogue. Even Christian fundamentalists are often loathe to be so reckless in their interpretation of Scripture.

You understimate the Catholic ones: in my city one of them writed to a newspaper and 'demonstrated' that Halloween is satanic citing the Holy Bible, who don't speak of Halloween.

Isn't Halloween a Catholic holiday?

Not exactly: Halloween is the eve of a Catholic holiday moved to 11/1 to usurp an older Celtic holiday, and use forms derived from the Celtic one. But in Italy Halloween is very recent, so very very few people know something on Halloween apart the ghosts.

[Singular Intellect]

How does one go about deciding which visual effects in Star Trek are anamolies (FX fuckups) and which ones can be used as a means of disproving stated sizes of spacecraft?

For example, scaling as I just saw seems to disprove the size figure of Borg cubes being a standard size of three kilometers per side (something I always thought was well established).

However, visual comparisons like the Bird of Prey next to Earth's sun in Star Trek IV yielded a Bird of Prey with a diameter of more than thirty thousand kilometers, since the size of our sun is known. Presumeably no one would take this figure seriously, even though it's visually measureable.

That doen't strike me as a consistent method of determining spacecraft sizes...

[Darth Wong]

How does one go about deciding which visual effects in Star Trek are anamolies (FX fuckups) and which ones can be used as a means of disproving stated sizes of spacecraft?

Repeatability. Same criterion we use for real-life scientific observations. If it's never seen again or referenced again, then it was obviously an anomalous outlier. I don't see why people have so much trouble grasping how this is done; we have plenty of real-life examples to draw from. Do they not know how these things are done in real-life? The way some Trekkies interpret the SoD method, they think that the entire laws of physics should be overturned in real-life if some guy produces a picture of a UFO.

[NecronLord]

How does one go about deciding which visual effects in Star Trek are anamolies (FX fuckups) and which ones can be used as a means of disproving stated sizes of spacecraft?

The easiest way is when the FX guys or producers mention one. I believe they've mentioned the Super-sized-Dominion Battleship as an error.

For example, scaling as I just saw seems to disprove the size figure of Borg cubes being a standard size of three kilometers per side (something I always thought was well established).

Some scenes definately show it on that order. What's more, dialogue supports it. There could be more than one type of cube, of course, the scaling could be wrong, or it could be something else. I'd have to see what you're talking about.

However, visual comparisons like the Bird of Prey next to Earth's sun in Star Trek IV yielded a Bird of Prey with a diameter of more than thirty thousand kilometers, since the size of our sun is known. Presumeably no one would take this figure seriously, even though it's visually measureable.

Simply rectified. We also see the Bird of Prey in other scenes which contradict that. We can, for example, see the size of its head from when they climb out at the end, or see it pass under another known variable, the Golden Gate bridge. Given that the whole scene is laden with warp-images (you wouldn't actually see the sun like that) and even some kind of dream vision, it's not a reliable starting point for a scaling. We see it depicted over and over at the same ballpark, so there's no way its' ten thousand miles long...

[EnterpriseSovereign]

More stupidity:
When I pointed out how thick the DS's hull is, this is the response:

Officially the DSII is 160 Kilometers in Diameter, meaning you only need to chew through 80 kilometers or so. Let's say a "Q Torp" is roughly equal to a 10 megaton nuke-- reasonable given they're suppose to be a upgrade and massive step over the traditional p-torp. A 10 megaton nuke has a blast/damage radius (give or take) of around 4 miles, mean 20 to 25 Q-Torps. A load or two, chain loaded into the launchers, with a ship doing hit and runs-- or several ships for that matter-- would be more than enough.

Of course this doesn't factor in secondary explosions (fuel, subsystems, reactors) and explosive decompression as well.

Wait....what?

He's completely ignoring the fact that the Death Star's hull has armor intended to defeat extended barrages from weapons in the yield of hundreds of gigatons.

This also ignores the fact that we've never seen a Q-torp detonation, either in space or on the surface, with an AoO of that size; hell, four q-torps in First Contact generated an explosion not much bigger than the tiny Borg sphere, IIRC.

He's probably going to use this argument as a setup to claim that the hulls of SW vessels are weaker or some nonsense.

When I said that:

What it doesn't factor in is the composition and density of the Death Star's hull, and that's even assuming the DS's shields will be down

He said:

Well it's not like shields have ever been a problem in the past for Trek ships, now have they.

As for shields, A New Hope and Return of the Jedi both showed that the Death Star(s) at best have limited shielding. The DSII had none save for the forest moon Generator. And don't say they weren't working, Palapatine's own words "Fully armed and operational"

Trotting out just about every refuted argument

Palpatine's the biggest liar in Star Wars, I wouldn't put too much stock in what he has to say

Given that the DS wasn't damaged by flying debris from Alderaan (moving at 5% lightspeed), that suggests pretty effective shielding.

And I'm still waiting for your explanation of the effectiveness of QT's vs DS armour (and considering the DSII is actually 900km in diameter, that makes the job even harder)

After some arguing about the size of the DS, not strictly relevant, he came out with:

As for the hull metal, just like shields, Trek always ends up with a work around. There's not much that would stand up to a nuclear blast, especially several concentrated into one area. And, again, the movie showed simple energy weapons casing damage- and internal cascade effects- to the Death Star.

Yep, you read it right. He said that ST would find a way around it

Rather than hurt your eyes quoting the whole thing, I'll link you to the rest:
http://boards.startrek.com/community/me ... 9265;st=60

In the end, I simply asked him for proof of QT effects as that lat at the heart of his argument

[Kane Starkiller]

There are further evidence for smaller cubes in addition to ones I posted on the previous page:

Here we see a Borg cube pursuing the Delta Flyer at the end of "Dark frontier". The Flyer is at least 7px wide while the cube is 447px in height. Assuming Flyer is 10m wide the cube is no more than 640m wide.

This is a shot of Cube Hansen's followed and the Raven flying next to it:

Assuming Raven is 60m wide this particular cube could be 3000m wide.


The cube from "Best of both worlds" is uncertain.
There are shots in which Galaxy appears tiny next to the cube but then there are shots such as these:

Enterprise is still partly obscured by the nebula thus behind the cube.


Again size of the cube is limited to about 1km width.

In conclusion while there may be 3km cubes the standard Voyager cube is certainly much less than 1km, probably 500m-700m in width.

[Darth Servo]

Well it's not like shields have ever been a problem in the past for Trek ships, now have they.

As for shields, A New Hope and Return of the Jedi both showed that the Death Star(s) at best have limited shielding. The DSII had none save for the forest moon Generator. And don't say they weren't working, Palapatine's own words "Fully armed and operational"

Trotting out just about every refuted argument

Amazing these retards love demonstrating abusing the English language. This juicy retarded argument was on ASVS years ago and archived on Wayne's page. Unfortunately he seems to have removed that bit from his 'shields' page. But it was something along the lines of "The word fully only describes the very next adjective, not the next ten. You could tell just by looking at the thing that it wasn't fully operational."

[Peptuck]

Well it's not like shields have ever been a problem in the past for Trek ships, now have they.

This guy is a self-delusional moron if he thinks that shields are irrelevant. Just because they have fancy one-episode wonder tricks to defeat underpowered and weakness-riven Star Trek shields it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to work against the shields of vessels intended to eat teratons of damage.

As for shields, A New Hope and Return of the Jedi both showed that the Death Star(s) at best have limited shielding. The DSII had none save for the forest moon Generator. And don't say they weren't working, Palapatine's own words "Fully armed and operational"

He's believing the words of a historical liar whose entire claim to power was based on manipulating and lying to people? Did he forget that Palpatine was deliberately manipulating Luke in that scene? What did you expect him to say?

"Witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station - minus the shields, of course, those are going to come online next week, which is why we have the Endor generator in the first place, along with the last fifth or so of the station that's still under construction!"

[Aratech]

Man, these posts are getting large. Still, I hope I did a good job with Spock. I find a bit of poetic justice in how he managed to shoot himself in the foot regarding the speeds seen in Republic COmmando: Triple Zero.

[Wyrm]

But it was something along the lines of "The word fully only describes the very next adjective, not the next ten. You could tell just by looking at the thing that it wasn't fully operational."

I cannot see this weaseling as anything but that, dishonest weaseling. A suit with our good friends revolved around the meaning of the clause, "forever free and clear" (referring to the title to land our family sold theirs in regard to building structures that may obstruct the view, an important consideration for property 'round these parts). A intelligent person would figure that "forever" applied to the phrase "free and clear." Not so with our good friends: they argued that "forever" only modified "free", not "clear."

Makes you wish written English had grouping operators.

As an epilogue, that explanation didn't wash with the judge.

[Darth Wong]

The real disconnect here is philosophical in nature. It is simply quite alien to a scientifically-minded person to put so much value on the way something is phrased. People are shitty communication devices after all, prone to all sorts of careless wording or outright errors. It is much better to look at things which can be measured independently of the filter of a character's interpretation (and your interpretation of his interpretation).

In other words, it just doesn't even occur to a scientifically minded person to so meticulously analyze the precise meaning of a sentence from a character; the act of doing so assumes a level of precision on the character's part which is totally out of keeping with normal human behaviour.

[Aratech]

Oh, one other thing, about how much energy would one need to "fracture a planet to its core"? The ROTS ICS points out that a Venator apparently did this to the CIS held planet Pammant when performed an FTL ramming.

[Peptuck]

In other words, it just doesn't even occur to a scientifically minded person to so meticulously analyze the precise meaning of a sentence from a character; the act of doing so assumes a level of precision on the character's part which is totally out of keeping with normal human behaviour.

Sigged for truth.

[Darth Ruinus]

Shit, someone just fucking used the damn MAPS for SW, with the time it takes to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other, explained how you can travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a matter of hours (or in one case, a day and a half) and JMSpock says that all this tells him is that the maps are "dubious" because it specifillay doesnt show the Sullust Endor time.

[Darth Ruinus]

On another note, reading those posts over there, I am suddenly glad I dont "debate" with the hard-core Trekkie fanatics.

Also, whats with this?

Even using Saxton's BDZ assumptions - cited as three orders of magnitude too high by G. M. Sarli speaking in his official capacity as the clarifier of all things Star Wars for Wizards.com

As far as I knew, Sarli is NOT the official on SW canon, (shit I forgot his name) the "Tasty Taste" guy is.

generally much too high

Too high for him maybe, but for a galaxy spannig civilization, wouldnt megaton bombs, hell for that matter, a few hundred gigatons be too low on any meaningful scale?

we only end up with something like thirty gigatons per torpedo. Plausibly? We're looking at a thousandth the density of destructive effect over a hundredth the area, or more like 3 megatons per torpedo.

As I have said before, the higher math and science stuff is over my head, but can someone explain why he assumes this?

[Peptuck]

Shit, someone just fucking used the damn MAPS for SW, with the time it takes to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other, explained how you can travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a matter of hours (or in one case, a day and a half) and JMSpock says that all this tells him is that the maps are "dubious" because it specifillay doesnt show the Sullust Endor time.

As if that matters?

As I have said before, the higher math and science stuff is over my head, but can someone explain why he assumes this?

Mostly because of idiocy.

There's no reason to assume that the torpedoes will do less damage on a planetary surface. Since Saxton's estimates are of the effect the barrage has on the planetary surface, we can't discount their level of firepower because "it isn't plausible." The calcs are based on what happens, not on what the torpedoes should or shouldn't do.

This is a desperate trektard trying to do whatever he can to strengthen his position, even if it involves baselessly weakening the power of the torpedoes for no apparent reason.

[BountyHunterSAx]

In other words, it just doesn't even occur to a scientifically minded person to so meticulously analyze the precise meaning of a sentence from a character; the act of doing so assumes a level of precision on the character's part which is totally out of keeping with normal human behavior.

Sorry to resurrect this day-old post; but ... wow. I'm touched - I think that's one of the most amazingly quotable quotes I've seen on this board yet. Particularly when you take into account the fact that non-scientific minded people do that all the fucking time on this very board.

Amen, and bravo.

-AHMAD

[CaptainChewbacca]

This may be a really stupid idea, but if you want to know the size of Borg cubes, this might be a way to do it:

In a Voyager episode, they have the borg kids doing clay sculpting (bear with me). The two twins each make perfect cubes, which they state are a some-number perfect scalar of a borg cube (I think they said 1/1 million scale.

Now, if someone can find THAT, and multiply it up, it might give you a hard number. Just a thought. Its late, and I'm procrastinating.

[Zablorg]

In a Voyager episode, they have the borg kids doing clay sculpting (bear with me). The two twins each make perfect cubes, which they state are a some-number perfect scalar of a borg cube (I think they said 1/1 million scale.)

Well, those borg ain't gonna be making any mistakes in their calculations, so if you could verify the scale and estimate the size of the model itself, that would pretty much be evidence that even trektards couldn't deny. Oh wait.

[Kane Starkiller]

That is from episode "Ashes to ashes":

AZAN: They're cubes.
SEVEN: I can see that.
REBI: Precisely one one thousandth the size of a Borg vessel.
SEVEN: Well done.

The cube model appears to be maybe 10-20 cm wide which translates into 100m-200m but this is way too small. They are kids after all although Seven did say "well done" so using Trektard logic this is perfectly viable evidence for their size.

[Batman]

That is from episode "Ashes to ashes":

AZAN: They're cubes.
SEVEN: I can see that.
REBI: Precisely one one thousandth the size of a Borg vessel.
SEVEN: Well done.

The cube model appears to be maybe 10-20 cm wide which translates into 100m-200m but this is way too small. They are kids after all although Seven did say "well done" so using Trektard logic this is perfectly viable evidence for their size.

I don't really see the problem with that. All that requires for it to be accurate is the existence of Borg cubes that small and we KNOW they come in differing sizes and types.

[Bounty]

I don't really see the problem with that. All that requires for it to be accurate is the existence of Borg cubes that small and we KNOW they come in differing sizes and types.

It could even be accidental continuity with I, Borg's scout ship.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I don't really see the problem with that. All that requires for it to be accurate is the existence of Borg cubes that small and we KNOW they come in differing sizes and types.

It could even be accidental continuity with I, Borg's scout ship.

That the one with the insanely high mass? Something like five million tons for a ship that only has a handful of drones?

[Batman]

I don't really see the problem with that. All that requires for it to be accurate is the existence of Borg cubes that small and we KNOW they come in differing sizes and types.

It could even be accidental continuity with I, Borg's scout ship.

That the one with the insanely high mass? Something like five million tons for a ship that only has a handful of drones?

What has the mass got to do with the size of the crew?