Target practice (2008-07-22)

[Darth Wong]

From: Bob <[email protected]>
Subject: Tech levels

I'm impressed at the sheer volume of your work. But the but is it's one of the worst cases of "fanboyism" I have ever seen. If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

Your judgments seem to have no relation to what we saw in the movies. All of the SDs we saw lost in action where taken out by fighters. That shows they have weak shields, and weak anti- fighter defences. If you assume an X wing has more fire power then the Enterprise D, your just being silly.

SDs are shown moving like bricks, in normal space. SW ships use fusion drive in normal space, in trek terms pure impulse. Power is fusion, that's it. Power plant output is way below what a Matter/Anti-matter reactor could put out. They have big reactors, to make up some of the difference vs the more compact power plants on STs ships. But they need more power for movement of their huge mass, and less efficient power systems.

Most SW fans are fixed on size. A SD is so big for a few reasons. First they can carry 10,000 ground troops, that takes up a lot of internal volume. Second they carry a fighter group of 72. Third they have a huge crew. Each gun is manned like a WWII ship, that's why ship crews grew so large during the war. Automation, and central fire control tech seems lower then modern naval ships.

Weapons in SW are stated to be lasers, (Ion cannon aside) though they don't look or act that way, a lot of the time. Laser energy just burns it's target, no blast effects. Poor weapons for bombardments from space. Lasers can be countered in several ways. Refraction is a simple low tech way in use today. wide band adjustable shields would find it easy to jam their wavelength frequency. ST ships do this in most combat stories, lasers are in a low wavelength, by the nature of what a laser is. For them it's a low tech weapon, easly countered.

Phasers & Disrupters seem to convay a shock wave that shatters matter at an atomic level. They make things go puff. Photon torpedoes can be set at a multi magaton range, and the blast effects can be set unidirectionaly. That is all the force directed at one point, in one direction. That's why they do more damage then phasers, and don't always spread out in a huge blast.

Your guess that "Proton Torps" are nukes I think is wrong. In ANH the PTs that "pecked the surface" were not nuke blasts. If you think they were, you have no idea what a nuke blast is like. They may have been a conventional blast pumped energy pulse weapon, that would shatter the magnetic containment field in a fusion reactor. The same concept as the X Ray Laser concept in the 1980s.

In terms of speed, fire power and shielding there is just no contest. Over all science is all so no contest. The federation transporter & replicator tech means they understand & and can control the nature of matter, up to a planetary scale. Genesis may have failed, and been canceled, but the fact they could even atempt such a project is staggering.

In terms of numbers SWs has a lead. The Empire is much bigger then the Federation, with many more planets. The size of the fleet is more debatable. If most SWs fan argue the fleet at Endor was less then 1% of the fleet, then the emperer never understood the principles of concentration of force, or economy of force. No wonder the smuck lost the war. "He who tries to be strong every where, is weak everywhere." He wanted the DS because he coundn't have a fleet everywhere. I will grant the Empire a larger industrial base, though it's a lower tech level. Industrial replicators, and such.

In terms of FTL in both universe's there is no real measure of time and space. Both sort of just say they get from system to system in a short time, that they just gloss over. In Voyager they say they can go about 1,000 LYs a year. However the Enterprise D was said to be able to cross 7000 light years in less than 3 years.

As far as fighters are concerned, they don't really exist among advanced races in ST because they are ineffective against shielded ships.

The bottom line is fine to like one franchise more than the other but not let "fanboyism" completely cloud your analysis. I liked Babylon 5 more than ST but it's technology is more on the SWs level. The new Galactica is a fantastic show but it's tech level is way below SWs. These arguments are more based on what you like and the ego of sheer size. Just because SWs are bigger does not make them better.

May the force be with you.


------ eviromental variables ------
REMOTE ADDR: 66.177.164.237
BROWSER: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0; SpamBlockerUtility 4.8.4; ZangoToolbar 4.8.3)

Frankly, I don't want to waste my time on this idiot, who obviously didn't read any of the arguments underlying the site's conclusions (hence his failure to address any of them instead of attacking the conclusions themselves as if they materialized out of thin air). But if any of you feel like taking a crack at it, be my guest.

[Darth Tanner]

If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

Yes. We frequently see star destroyer blasts vaporise planets.

Your judgments seem to have no relation to what we saw in the movies. All of the SDs we saw lost in action where taken out by fighters.

Cool. I didn't realise they had released a different edition of the Star Wars film to which I have seen. I'm surprised it hasn't been better marketed.

That shows they have weak shields, and weak anti- fighter defences.

Because if something can be destroyed it is obviously week. That steel on the Yamato, made of compressed wood I tell you.

SDs are shown moving like bricks, in normal space.

So they obviously couldn't chase down say... the Millennium Falcon.

SW ships use fusion drive in normal space, in trek terms pure impulse. Power is fusion, that's it. Power plant output is way below what a Matter/Anti-matter reactor could put out.

In normal space? Do star destroyers have a different reactor they use in hyperspace?

They have big reactors, to make up some of the difference vs the more compact power plants on STs ships.

Because size is a bad thing, naturally. We don't even need to measure the output of the two systems to know this.

But they need more power for movement of their huge mass, and less efficient power systems.

Yes again, I distinctly remember Luke saying to Han during the prison break on the Death Star, "Han don't you hate how our energy systems are so inefficient compared to Federations."

Most SW fans are fixed on size.

Because size actually matters maybe?

A SD is so big for a few reasons. First they can carry 10,000 ground troops,

Thats far too many. Star Trek clearly shows us a couple of drunks with pointy sticks is all you need to run a war.

Third they have a huge crew. Each gun is manned like a WWII ship, that's why ship crews grew so large during the war.

Because we know that operating multi gigatonne turbolasers is as complex as operating WW2 era cannons. Theres no massive reactors or multi light second ranges to work with after all.

Weapons in SW are stated to be lasers, (Ion cannon aside) though they don't look or act that way, a lot of the time.

But don't worry, I'll just cling to the laser part of the word like a gnat on a Klingons arse.

They make things go puff

Except for those super dense neutronium packing crates. Thats how advanced Trek tech is that we use neutronium for packing crates!

Photon torpedoes can be set at a multi magaton range

Wow, multi-megaton. That must be good, not as good as modern day Russia obviously but still, must be good.

That is all the force directed at one point, in one direction. That's why they do more damage then phasers, and don't always spread out in a huge blast.

A huge blast like every single torpedo detonation we ever see? Or the torpedoes that couldn't be used because Picard was worried about the blast damaging his own ship?

They may have been a conventional blast pumped energy pulse weapon, that would shatter the magnetic containment field in a fusion reactor. The same concept as the X Ray Laser concept in the 1980s.

See, I'm so smart I can make shit up now. Its handy however how the surface of the Death Star was covered in those fusion reactors at just the right spots where the X-Wings were firing at.

In terms of speed, fire power and shielding there is just no contest. Over all science is all so no contest.

Because... er... Spock rocks!!!1

up to a planetary scale. Genesis may have failed

Yes. It may have failed but obviously we'll treat it like it worked and didn't kill a large number of the people working on it.

In terms of numbers SWs has a lead. The Empire is much bigger then the Federation, with many more planets.

But who cares about numbers? I've seen 300 and numbers don't matter for shit.

then the emperer never understood the principles of concentration of force

Because a galactic government should mass every available ship, leaving vast tracks of its territory to be consumed by piracy and civil war to deal with a bunch of fish people in warty ships. Especially when its got a battle ship the size of a moon with a giant superlaser on scene as well and its already got numerical superiority. I mean whats the worst that could happen, your supreme and ultimate leader gets knocked off by his apprentice and his son?

I will grant the Empire a larger industrial base, though it's a lower tech level. Industrial replicators, and such.

I love re watching that episode where the Federation used an industrial replicator to produce a planet sizes star base. I mean the shear mass of products that we see everyday Star fleet personnel use. They live like kings in their pyjamas and empty quarters.

In Voyager they say they can go about 1,000 LYs a year. However the Enterprise D was said to be able to cross 7000 light years in less than 3 years.

So I'll choose that one single mention in a single episode which was just an off the cuff remark rather than the central plot point of an entire series. I'll also ignore my previous admittance that the Empire was bigger and had more space to travel around it, necessitating higher speeds.

As far as fighters are concerned, they don't really exist among advanced races in ST because they are ineffective against shielded ships.

The last thing we'll see is Starfleet using fighters to fight say... the Dominion.

[Lonestar]

What's with the disparagement of engine size(forgetting for the moment that a not-insignificant chunk of Starfleet vessels are devoted to stuff like Nacelles)? How big does he think engines in modern warships per volume are?

[Darth Servo]

I was bored:

I'd just like to say we are getting a great laugh from the email you sent to Mike Wong of StarDestroyer.net.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=124869

Really, the vast majority of your "arguments" were shot down years ago and are already on Mike's hatemail page.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/HateMail/

But since I have nothing better to do at the moment...

If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

I see you are utterly clueless about the energy difference between glassing a planet and making it blow up like a bomb. You are similarly ignorant of this thing in SW called "planetary shields" that can stymie bombardment from a few ISDs but not from the Death Star.

Your judgments seem to have no relation to what we saw in the movies. All of the SDs we saw lost in action where taken out by fighters. That shows they have weak shields, and weak anti- fighter defences.

Wrong. All we ever saw the fighters do is blow up small targets on the surface. Without cap ship support, the fighters would have been useless. In fact, when Admiral Ackbar gives his order to "concentrate all fire on the super Star Destroyer" we see a Mon Calamari Cruiser blow up an ISD with its heavy turbolasers.

If you assume an X wing has more fire power then the Enterprise D, your just being silly.

Its not an assumption. Its a calculation based on the fact that Slave-1 caused more destruction in AOTC than the E-D could do in Pegasus with "most" of its photon torpedos.

SDs are shown moving like bricks, in normal space.

You do realize that in the middle of a battle, you want to divert power to weapons and shields, rather than engines, right?

Hey, ever watched footage of the space shuttle in orbit? It looks like a brick in space too but its really moving at about several THOUSAND miles per hour.

The Death Star was able to travel half-way around the gas giant Yavin in half an hour. ISD's were able to travel around Endor in seconds. You don't even try to calculate the acceleration and velocity needed for such an event.

SW ships use fusion drive in normal space

They never said it was NUCLEAR fusion.

in trek terms pure impulse.

In other words, STL is IDENTICAL according to you, contradicting your claim of Trek superiority.

Power plant output is way below what a Matter/Anti-matter reactor could put out.

Which is used for their WARP drive, not their sub-light maneuvering which is what you were talking about in SW. Compare apples to apples. How does matter-antimatter compare with hypermatter used in SW?

Most SW fans are fixed on size. A SD is so big for a few reasons. First they can carry 10,000 ground troops, that takes up a lot of internal volume. Second they carry a fighter group of 72.

You make it sound like a bad thing to have an actual ground army.

Second, how does this compare to Federation ships which waste all that space on things like luxurious crew quarters or DOLPHIN TANKS (TNG Perfect Mate)

Weapons in SW are stated to be lasers though they don't look or act that way, a lot of the time.

Ah, so we should ignore the physical characteristics and fixate on the name. Got it. So photon TORPEDOES have a propeller to drive them through water, right? Because they're called "torpedoes" and we're ignoring the actual properties.

For them [lasers are] a low tech weapon, easly countered.

Is that why the ship is in grave danger every time they get too close to a star?

Phasers & Disrupters seem to convay a shock wave that shatters matter at an atomic level. They make things go puff.

They make things disappear into thin air. No shock wave is EVER observed from the magic phaser disappearing act.

Photon torpedoes can be set at a multi magaton range, and the blast effects can be set unidirectionaly.

Bullcrap. They repeatedly talk about close proximity torpedo explosions being a threat to the firing ship (TNG Q-who, VOY The Swarm)

Your guess that "Proton Torps" are nukes I think is wrong. In ANH the PTs that "pecked the surface" were not nuke blasts.

The only Proton Torpedo explosion seen in ANH was Red Leader's impacting next to the exhaust port. Explain to me why we should assume the warhead had armed itself at that point when it was dozens of miles from its intended target--the Death Star reactor.

The federation transporter & replicator tech means they understand & and can control the nature of matter, up to a planetary scale.

Yet the list of things they can't replicate are legion. Hardly the universal control of matter you're wanking about.

This is really just the old "Trek has a couple devices that SW doesn't so Trek must be superior across the board" idiocy. I could make the same argument in reverse--SW has light sabers, Trek does not.

Oh, and if SW doesn't have transporters, how did Qui-gon Jinn get Anakin's blood sample from Mos Espa back to Amidala's ship in TPM?

Genesis may have failed, and been canceled, but the fact they could even atempt such a project is staggering.

Collapsing a nebula into a planetary mass is a net NEGATIVE energy event. Hardly staggering at all.

If most SWs fan argue the fleet at Endor was less then 1% of the fleet, then the emperer never understood the principles of concentration of force, or economy of force.

No, it means a huge fleet is harder to HIDE. You were aware that Endor was a TRAP, right? That the Emperor wanted to maintain the illusion that the Death Star was unprotected until the very last moment, right, when the Rebels would be next to the Death Star and be extremely difficult to escape.

Industrial replicators, and such.

Yet every time we see a place like Utopia Planitia, ships are being built the old fashioned way--putting it together, not being replicated.

In terms of FTL in both universe's there is no real measure of time and space. Both sort of just say they get from system to system in a short time, that they just gloss over.

Wrong. In SW they repeatedly talk about crossing the entire galaxy in short order. Han had claimed he'd done it personally and Imperial officers in in TESB stated that the Falcon could have done it by the time Vader had choked Captain Needa.

In Voyager they say they can go about 1,000 LYs a year. However the Enterprise D was said to be able to cross 7000 light years in less than 3 years.

I see you are incapable of telling the difference between sustainable velocity cut off from your supply base for decades and burst velocity over a much shorter period of time and much larger reserves.

As far as fighters are concerned, they don't really exist among advanced races in ST because they are ineffective against shielded ships.

So those Peregrine fighters I saw in DS9 were a figment of my imagination, right? Those Scorpion ships in Nemesis were a hallucination. Then again, Nemesis was so bad, its not inconceivable it induced temporary insanity.

Of course I doubt this moron will even understand many of the rebuttals here.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Servo, not to argue, but I have a point of clarification; If its not NUCLEAR fusion, what are your other options?

[Darth Wong]

Servo, not to argue, but I have a point of clarification; If its not NUCLEAR fusion, what are your other options?

Fusion is the act of joining two objects together. Pouring material into a black hole would qualify as fusion.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Servo, not to argue, but I have a point of clarification; If its not NUCLEAR fusion, what are your other options?

Fusion is the act of joining two objects together. Pouring material into a black hole would qualify as fusion.

Hm. So is matter-antimatter interaction a kind of 'fusion' as well? It seems my education in physics somehow failed me here.

[Darth Wong]

Servo, not to argue, but I have a point of clarification; If its not NUCLEAR fusion, what are your other options?

Fusion is the act of joining two objects together. Pouring material into a black hole would qualify as fusion.

Hm. So is matter-antimatter interaction a kind of 'fusion' as well? It seems my education in physics somehow failed me here.

I guess you forgot that "latent heat of fusion" is also the enthalpy change in the solid-liquid phase transition? The word "fusion" actually has plenty of applications. It's become synonymous with "nuclear fusion" only because that's the only usage the public became familiar with.

[Singular Intellect]

Oh, and if SW doesn't have transporters, how did Qui-gon Jinn get Anakin's blood sample from Mos Espa back to Amidala's ship in TPM?

Servo, I seriously hope you were joking here?

It's one thing for Qui Gon's hand held device to extract blood and send/store readings for a starship analysing computer...quite another to jump to a transporter arguement.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Fusion is the act of joining two objects together. Pouring material into a black hole would qualify as fusion.

Hm. So is matter-antimatter interaction a kind of 'fusion' as well? It seems my education in physics somehow failed me here.

I guess you forgot that "latent heat of fusion" is also the enthalpy change in the solid-liquid phase transition? The word "fusion" actually has plenty of applications. It's become synonymous with "nuclear fusion" only because that's the only usage the public became familiar with.

Yes, yes I had forgotten. We used different terms, and the sci-fi-part of my mind linked fusion and 'nuclear fusion'.

[Batman]

Oh what the hell, I'm bored too.

I'm impressed at the sheer volume of your work. But the but is it's one of the worst cases of "fanboyism" I have ever seen. If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

Yeah, because there's tons of examples of ISDs blowing shielded planets to smithereens. Oh wait.

Your judgments seem to have no relation to what we saw in the movies. All of the SDs we saw lost in action where taken out by fighters.

Actually, NONE of them were. The ONLY SDs we saw lost in action were the ones at the Battle of Endor and all of them were killed by capship fire except Executor, which was killed by crashing into the Death Star.

That shows they have weak shields, and weak anti- fighter defences.

Yeah, a fighter crashing into the UNSHIELDED (thanks to bombardment from a number of enemy capships) bridge of an SD totally translates into them having weak shields.

If you assume an X wing has more fire power then the Enterprise D, your just being silly.

I must have missed the part where he did that. If we're talking about the main site, Mike even attributed the E-nil more firepower than an X-Wing.

SDs are shown moving like bricks, in normal space.

I like how you elaborate on that. Oh wait, you don't. Without a point of reference it's IMPOSSIBLE to tell how fast something is moving in empty space.

SW ships use fusion drive in normal space,

Because-you say so.

Power is fusion, that's it. Power plant output is way below what a Matter/Anti-matter reactor could put out.

As we know Wars ships are powered by hypermatter reactors this is relevant why, exactly?

They have big reactors, to make up some of the difference vs the more compact power plants on STs ships.

Which are also several million times less powerful.

But they need more power for movement of their huge mass, and less efficient power systems.

DO tell me how efficient a hypermatter reactor is, especially as it can still put out several million times more energy than a Warp Core can.

Most SW fans are fixed on size.

Because-you say so.

A SD is so big for a few reasons. First they can carry 10,000 ground troops, that takes up a lot of internal volume.

No it doesn't. On a ship the size of an ISD housing 10,000 troops is an utter and complete nonproblem.

Second they carry a fighter group of 72.

Modern day carriers carry 100 aircraft noticeably larger than TIEs and are a fraction of an ISD's size.

Third they have a huge crew.

For something that size, actually no they don't.

Weapons in SW are stated to be lasers, (Ion cannon aside) though they don't look or act that way, a lot of the time. Laser energy just burns it's target, no blast effects

Yeah. Flash vapourizing lots of target matter will totally not result in blast effects. And that's leaving alone the superheated air along the way of the discharge in an atmospheric attack.

Poor weapons for bombardments from space.

Bwahahah.

Lasers can be countered in several ways.

As turbolasers cannot possibly be lasers this is relevant why?

wide band adjustable shields would find it easy to jam their wavelength frequency.

As supported by-you saying so. Oh, and wavelength frequency is a redundant phrase.

ST ships do this in most combat stories, lasers are in a low wavelength, by the nature of what a laser is. For them it's a low tech weapon, easly countered.

Which is why the Big E is never in any trouble at all from lasers throughout all of TNG. Oh wait.
Not that I see what wavelength has got to do with it.

Phasers & Disrupters seem to convay a shock wave that shatters matter at an atomic level.

As evidenced by what, exactly?

They make things go puff.

Somehow. Your evidence they do so by shattering matter at the atomic level (whatever THAT means) is...?

Photon torpedoes can be set at a multi magaton range,

regardless of the fact that they apparently never ARE,

and the blast effects can be set unidirectionaly.

As evidenced by?

That is all the force directed at one point, in one direction. That's why they do more damage then phasers, and don't always spread out in a huge blast.

The fact that they usually DO spread out in a huge blast notwithstanding.

Your guess that "Proton Torps" are nukes I think is wrong. In ANH the PTs that "pecked the surface" were not nuke blasts.

Because-you say so.

If you think they were, you have no idea what a nuke blast is like.

Actually Mike does. You're the one who doesn't.

They may have been a conventional blast pumped energy pulse weapon, that would shatter the magnetic containment field in a fusion reactor.

Which is a completely made-up term likely as not.

In terms of speed, fire power and shielding there is just no contest.

THAT much is true at least.

Over all science is all so no contest.

True again. As above, Trek loses by a landslide.

The federation transporter & replicator tech means they understand & and can control the nature of matter

It does no such thing. It means that they can teleport matter within limits and that they can rearrange matter within limits. Those limits being nothing to brag about. Cue in the World Devastators...

, up to a planetary scale. Genesis may have failed,

Not MAY. DID. Tather spectacularly, I might add.

and been canceled, but the fact they could even atempt such a project is staggering.

Why?

In terms of numbers SWs has a lead. The Empire is much bigger then the Federation, with many more planets. The size of the fleet is more debatable. If most SWs fan argue the fleet at Endor was less then 1% of the fleet, then the emperer never understood the principles of concentration of force, or economy of force.

He did. You obviously don't.

In terms of FTL in both universe's there is no real measure of time and space.

Err yes there is?

Both sort of just say they get from system to system in a short time, that they just gloss over.

Except that short time means 'hours' for Wars as opposed to 'days' for Trek, and that's with Trek's far lower distances between systems.

In Voyager they say they can go about 1,000 LYs a year. However the Enterprise D was said to be able to cross 7000 light years in less than 3 years.

100,000 ly in less than 8 hours. Your point being?

As far as fighters are concerned, they don't really exist among advanced races in ST because they are ineffective against shielded ships.

Which is why the Feds totally didn't use any in the Dominion war.
Oh, and UNLIKE in Trek, in Wars fighters generally ARE ineffective against shielded capships.

The bottom line is fine to like one franchise more than the other but not let "fanboyism" completely cloud your analysis. I liked Babylon 5 more than ST but it's technology is more on the SWs level.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

[skies]

Sounds like the only clueless fanboyism is this guy's love of Star Trek.

Besides most of his arguments being picked apart on this board ages ago, he obviously didn't give this sight more than a cursory reading before spouting off his BS.

Comparing star wars fighters to star wars capital ships does not tell us anything about the relative power of Star Wars to Star Trek, since nothing in the comparison is quantifiable. If he had actually read the website carefully, he'd see that the SW vs ST debate has moved far beyond semantics and on to analysis of firepower effects that CAN be quantified, like asteroid destruction.

Of course, he didn't have the courage to post his argument in public on the board, preferring to stealth snipe through private e-mail, so he can hardly expect to bve taken seriously.

[Batman]

Thunderbird understands BBCode tags? AWESOME

[Darth Servo]

Oh, and if SW doesn't have transporters, how did Qui-gon Jinn get Anakin's blood sample from Mos Espa back to Amidala's ship in TPM?

Servo, I seriously hope you were joking here?

It's one thing for Qui Gon's hand held device to extract blood and send/store readings for a starship analysing computer...quite another to jump to a transporter arguement.

Whats wrong with the idea. Qui Gon didn't say he was sending readings. He said he was sending the blood sample.

[Darth Servo]

The dialog in question:

QUI-GON Make an analysis of this blood sample I'm sending you.

[Singular Intellect]

Oh, and if SW doesn't have transporters, how did Qui-gon Jinn get Anakin's blood sample from Mos Espa back to Amidala's ship in TPM?

Servo, I seriously hope you were joking here?

It's one thing for Qui Gon's hand held device to extract blood and send/store readings for a starship analysing computer...quite another to jump to a transporter arguement.

Whats wrong with the idea. Qui Gon didn't say he was sending readings. He said he was sending the blood sample.

And when someone says they are sending me "the file" over the phone, you don't automatically assume he has a transporter on hand because he must be sending the physical copy over.

[Ford Prefect]

If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

I'm not going to bother even reading this letter, let alone respond to it. But seriously, it seems like every single one of these goddamn things starts with 'If Star Destroyers were this powerful, then you wouldn't need a Death Star'. Jesus Christ.

[Darth Wong]

If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

I'm not going to bother even reading this letter, let alone respond to it. But seriously, it seems like every single one of these goddamn things starts with 'If Star Destroyers were this powerful, then you wouldn't need a Death Star'. Jesus Christ.

These people are retarded. They don't realize that if Star Destroyers were any less powerful, it would be completely unthinkable for them to be capable of building a Death Star. It would be like suddenly jumping from wooden canoes to the USS Nimitz.

[Ford Prefect]

These people are retarded.

Amazingly so. How many of these rebuttals do you get a year? It, to a degree, astounds me that there are new people who take the time to email you over this.

[Darth Wong]

These people are retarded.

Amazingly so. How many of these rebuttals do you get a year? It, to a degree, astounds me that there are new people who take the time to email you over this.

I don't bother keeping count. I delete most of them, although the volume has dropped off ever since Trek started sliding off the pop culture radar. This guy was somewhat unusual because he actually put in the effort to write a long screed rather than just firing off a single paragraph of stupidity.

[Dark Flame]

Genesis may have failed, and been canceled, but the fact they could even atempt such a project is staggering.

Bwahahahaha!! I believe I remember watching a History Channel special where Nazi Germany tried to build genetically engineered super soldiers. The fact that they would try to do that is staggering!

If I remember correctly, WW2-era Japan tried to make a death ray. Once again, the fact that they could even attempt it is staggering!

Even though all of these projects failed miserably....

[The Spartan]

Servo, I seriously hope you were joking here?

It's one thing for Qui Gon's hand held device to extract blood and send/store readings for a starship analysing computer...quite another to jump to a transporter arguement.

Whats wrong with the idea. Qui Gon didn't say he was sending readings. He said he was sending the blood sample.

And when someone says they are sending me "the file" over the phone, you don't automatically assume he has a transporter on hand because he must be sending the physical copy over.

Except the only way to analyze it is to have it in the, well, analyzer and if Qui Gonn had one in his handheld device then he could have read the results there instead of having to send anything to Obi Wan and hear the results over the communicator.

[PeZook]

If you assume an X wing has more fire power then the Enterprise D, your just being silly.

Oh, yeah! I get this image of a WWI guy who thinks that airplanes will never ever have enough firepower to challenge the mighty Dreadnaughts of the era. I mean, that's just silly! An airplane with more firepower than a HEUGE armored battleship? Impossible!

[Peptuck]

If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star.

I'm not going to bother even reading this letter, let alone respond to it. But seriously, it seems like every single one of these goddamn things starts with 'If Star Destroyers were this powerful, then you wouldn't need a Death Star'. Jesus Christ.

These people are retarded. They don't realize that if Star Destroyers were any less powerful, it would be completely unthinkable for them to be capable of building a Death Star. It would be like suddenly jumping from wooden canoes to the USS Nimitz.

What I've noticed in these types of arguments is people's general inability to wrap their heads around the sheer number of zeros that get involved with the kind of tech that Star Wars plays around with. Either that or being totally disbelieving that anything could have that kind of power when it doesn't show it outright.

One of my favorite arguments I came across was someone who said that Amidala's shuttle couldn't have the kind of power output it was supposed to have if it exploded on Coruscant in AotC and didn't leave a massive crater.

[Lord Pounder]

Genesis may have failed, and been canceled, but the fact they could even atempt such a project is staggering.

Bwahahahaha!! I believe I remember watching a History Channel special where Nazi Germany tried to build genetically engineered super soldiers. The fact that they would try to do that is staggering!

If I remember correctly, WW2-era Japan tried to make a death ray. Once again, the fact that they could even attempt it is staggering!

Even though all of these projects failed miserably....

Last week I attempted to ask out a model. She told me to fuck off an laughted at me. Still the fact I attempted to pul a person way hotter than me is staggering. Fuck, this could go on all night.