Damien Hailey

May 13, 2002:

You feel it is "ridiculously overinflated" ...

No, I believe the figure is rediculosly overpowered for it's job. LTLs, even on the Assault ship, are secondary weapons. The Empire is still not at Culture level yet.

Also note that The heavier guns on the Assault ship are actually Missile/Torpedo launchers. Apparently the SW universe DID actually use torpedo weapons as their heavy guns, at least for a while. ^_^

I see that you've gone to the Lord Edam school of constantly changing your position and then accusing your opponent of distorting it.

In your first message, you said that the 200 gigaton figure is "ridiculously overinflated", going on to say that you accept it without explaining why. Now, you claim that you just meant to say the ship is "overpowered for its job", which implies that the figures themselves are not overinflated; just indicative of a design which is inappropriate for its task (presumably based on assumptions about its task).

But if that's the case, and you actually had no problem with the 200 gigaton figure, then why did you go on to claim (in the same message) that its shielding couldn't possibly withstand that kind of firepower, limiting it in your mind to the KE of impacting asteroids that we saw onscreen? Obviously, if you think its shielding can't withstand anything more than low megaton energy yields, then you don't think these ships can realistically blast away at each other with 200 gigaton cannons or even 6 megaton light guns.

Here's a hint: if you don't want to look like you're contradicting yourself, try to keep your story straight. Anyone who reads your first message will quite clearly interpret it as an attack upon the ICS figures, and any attempt to revise your position after the fact merely makes you look dishonest.

Ah, so it's a matter of being "decent human beings", eh?

No, it's a matter of only wanting to argure with 6 immature jerks rather than 47. Debates are no fun if everyone's the same.

So everyone at ASVS is "the same", ie- they're all "immature jerks"? On what do you base this broad generalization? On what do you base the smart-ass remark that "You'll forgive me for wanting to hang with at least *some* halfway decent human beings." as an explanation for preferring spacebattles.com over ASVS, despite the heavy pseudoscience being spouted by certain spacebattles.com participants with whom you have obviously been in communication?

I say anything about spacebattles.com (despite the personal history) and I'm a terrible, terrible person, but you say that ASVS is devoid of "halfway decent human beings" and you simultaneously hold your nose in the air and pretend that you're taking the moral high road as opposed to my evil, evil ways? Puh-lease ...

I'd rather deal with Fallacies than Phallacies. [Editor's note: oh, look! He admits that he thinks it's better to lie, cheat, and bend the rules of logic than to be rude! That would ordinarily be a rather damning admission, but he said it in a rhyme, and as Jesse Jackson knows, rhyming arguments are always right] You can argue with someone if they're wrong, but as you know from both ends, it's hard to argue with someone who's being a dick.

Only if he's being dishonest. I can debate with any rude person any day of the week, because quite frankly, I hold the superior position. I don't fear insults (sticks and stones, remember?), and more to the point, I don't use them as an excuse to weasel away from a fair fight, the way the self-styled "Wong haters" on spacebattles.com do. They're afraid of facing me one on one, hence their insistence that I take them on in a venue where they can gang up on me and "win" through sheer volume and exhaustion rather than a legitimate argument.

I warn everyone before E-mailing that if you send a claim which is indicative of laziness, I reserve the right to flame you at will. Don't whine and complain about it now, because I've actually gone easy on you. If you want a more honest approach, I could have pointed out that only a fucking moron could possibly see people converting from watts directly into teratons and need help figuring out what's wrong with that. Only an imbecile could see someone assuming that the damage mechanisms from a purely thermal weapon would be identical to those from a purely physical impact, and fail to see the flaw without help.

I refrained from saying that in my first reply, but I see now that this was a mistake. You are making no effort whatsoever to be honest and forthright, and it is becoming increasingly clear that your entire agenda is to generate justifications for righteous indignation at my boorish and totally unexpected behaviour (gee, I guess you somehow skipped right past all those warnings on my E-mail page).

Not to mention I get a great variety of debates and information from SB. I can say that SB made be a Bolo fan, and has inspired me to try a lot of games, books, and TV series' that I never would have otherwise [Editor's note: notice the absence of “inspired me to learn about science” in that list].

It has also inspired you to adopt a dishonest debating style and to subscribe to the style over substance fallacy, where the manner in which your opponent makes his argument is deemed more important than his factual accuracy or logical consistency. Congrats.

"You" Spacebattles people? Question: Do you think a disclaimer helps when you go back and do the exact opposite anyway?

What disclaimer? You are a spacebattles person, are you not? You've got the whole tribal "ASVS is devoid of decent human beings" mantra down pat, so what basis do you have for denigrating my characterization of you? There are people on that board who are nice enough (I've dealt with some of your mods such as CoolGuy, LordChaos, and Big Steve in the past, and they don't act like you and your little friends), but there's a core group on that board which has made "ad hominem" into an art form, and so far, I don't see any distinction between your tactics and theirs.

And while I'm at it, what right to YOU have to say ANYTHING about Spacebattles, when you never go there? That's it, I'm throwing the gauntlet at your feet.

I have the right because there is a core group of assholes at spacebattles.com who say bad things about me all the time, and who have been doing so since before I was even aware of their existence. I have the right because some of those people felt it was OK to drag my wife into this and desecrate my family photos just for fun. I have the right because the asshole who did it is still there, still cocky, having refused to apologize (and now he claims he never even did it, even though one of the mods testified as to its contents).

As for the "gauntlet", I've challenged the little pocket of idiots hiding out on your "vs" forums before. I crunched their champion, I crunched Lord Edam just for fun, and I'll crunch anyone else they want to throw into the meat grinder.

Here's your challenge.

Get a free E-mail address, and pick a name.

Why? Because I want you to use those to join SpaceBattles as a member for three months. And tell nobody(not even me if you want) that it's you. Participate on any of the boards you like. Spabattles, Vs, Story Debates, Art, or Non-Sci-Fi. You don't have to argue SVS if you don't want to, either. Try spending some time with those of us who on the whole don't give a damn about you or your site.

((Insert self-righteous reason why you won't here))

For someone who doesn't give a damn about me or my site, you seem to be quite interested in attacking my personality. So I'm "self righteous" now, eh? I had no idea that my stated reasons for not participating in bulletin boards or newsgroups any more were considered "self righteous". Since when is it "self righteous" to want to work on one's own website rather than spending time at somebody else's website? Since when is it "self righteous" to want to spend more time with one's family?

[Editor's note: judging by the way he thinks I can casually embark on a months-long enterprise of participating heavily on a bulletin board in addition to everything else I do in my life, it's pretty obvious that he's just an arrogant teenager, who naturally assumes in his egocentrism that everyone in the world has just as much free time as he does. No adult, and certainly no parent of small children would even think of such an idiotic proposal. He must be fairly new to be unfamiliar with the particular history between me and the “we hate StarDestroyer.Net” brigade at spacebattles.com, not to mention my recent public challenges, and from his arguments, it's obvious that the “Wong is afraid to come here” bullshit is still their favourite excuse for carefully avoiding the Imperial Smack-Down™]

BTW, I have an account at spacebattles.com already. I used it when I engaged in that public debate earlier this year. I threw down the gauntlet and crushed your champion, and then I crushed a few of his little friends just for fun. The level of discussion outside your "vs" boards is hopefully better, but it is also of no interest to me; I run a "vs" website, and that is where my interest lies. When I want to do other things, I've got a family and a real life to attend to.

((Insert Anti-Spacebattles mini-rant here))
((Insert Perosnal attacks here))

I don't need to make personal attacks. Your ignorant blustering, sophistry, and unfounded assumptions speak volumes [Editor's note: any personal attacks I make are completely gratuitous, which is why they're fun :)].

And since we're being petty here, one last question:
In your Database section, you pointed out:

Season 2, Ep# 34: "A Matter of Honor"

DATA: Slow to impulse speed. Continue on course.
WESLEY: Aye sir, impulse speed.
...
RIKER: I recommend you do not fire until you are within forty thousand kilometers.
KLAG: Why?
RIKER: It will reduce their response time.

Naval Weapons: Riker's dialogue appears to establish a weapon range of many tens of thousands of kilometres, although later events conflict with this figure.

Ted Collins notes the possibility that the units of "kilometres" have become the equivalent of modern "metres" in the 24th century, since onscreen combat tends to occur at ranges of 40 km or less, rather than thousands of kilometres. Moreover, while transporters can be used at ranges of thousands of kilometres when transporting to and from a planet, we saw in "Coming of Age" that transport range is much shorter for ship to ship transport (indeed, they could not transport to a shuttle which was between them and the planet, even though they could easily transport to the planet!). Starships close to just a few kilometres before initiating transport to other ships, which would be fully consistent with the units of kilometres and metres being altered in the future. It sounds goofy, but then again, the English language is a very pliable thing. After all, four centuries ago, the word "nerves" meant sinews and muscles (hence the holdover phrase "straining every nerve". Who's to say what might change in the next four centuries?

Yet you later go on to say:

Season 3, Ep# 52: "Who Watches the Watchers"

PICARD VO: Captain's log, Stardate 43125.2. We are en route to Mintaka Three, where a three-man Federation anthropological field team has been studying the inhabitants. Our mission is to resupply the outpost and repair their malfunctioning reactor.
...
GEORDI: We've finished replicating the parts they need. What I don't understand is why a three-man station needs a reactor that can produce four-point-two gigawatts.
RIKER: That's enough to power a small phaser bank, a subspace relay station, or...
GEORDI: A hologram generator. Right -- a "duck blind."
PICARD: The anthropologists are studying an extended family of Mintakans at close range... from a camouflaged observation post.

Naval Weapons: according to Riker, a small phaser bank can run off a 4.2 GW reactor. Of course, I'm sure some of the Trekkies will assume that a "large" phaser bank would be millions or billions of times more powerful than a "small" phaser bank, in order to preserve their carefully exaggerated phaser firepower figures.

Season 3, Ep# 63: "Yesterday's Enterprise"

WESLEY: One ship has broken off and is heading toward the Enterprise-C.
PICARD: Mister Crusher. Belay previous course change... keep us within two hundred kilometers of the Enterprise-C.
WES: Aye, sir. Coming to two-one-seven mark one-one-five... increasing to two-thirds impulse.

Naval Weapons: the ships exchange fire at ranges of less than 10 km, yet Picard gives an order to stay within 200 km of the Enterprise-C. This seems bizarre in light of the fact that they're already within 5 km, and it's enough to make one wonder if they've "recalibrated" the metre the same way they "recalibrated" the warp factor between TOS and TNG.

Season 5, Ep# 114: "Conundrum"

PICARD: What are the defensive capabilities of the Central Command?
DATA: Armaments consist of four laser cannons and thirty-nine cobalt fusion warheads with magnetic propulsion. Defensive shield output is only ... 4.3 kilojoules.
RIKER: One photon torpedo ought to do it.
TROI: Data... how many people are on that station?
DATA: Fifteen thousand, three hundred eleven.

Naval Weapons: Riker expects a photon torpedo to overwhelm the 4.3 kJ capacity of the station's shields. Note that 4.3 kJ is roughly the same amount of energy that you will use in order to walk up two or three flights of stairs.

Simply put, the point is this: Why do you take the later statements as being directly analogous to their present levels, when you earlier showed that that is more than likely not the case?

Because the quoted speculation about changing units was just that: speculation. It is hardly a conclusive theory, and if I were to run around reducing all figures by orders of magnitude on that speculative basis (ie- using it as an excuse for over-broad generalizations), I would be just as bad as the rabid fans on spacebattles.com's "vs" forums. Don't project other peoples' dishonest tactics onto me.

[Editor's note: notice how he protests that he has no particular issue with me, and that he came innocently asking questions of someone he viewed as an expert, yet he has obviously spent time digging through my site looking for minutae to nitpick, and false dilemmas to create. For someone who is careful to avoid declaring membership in the aggressive “we hate StarDestroyer.Net” brigade, he certainly seems to be fond of their methods (particularly the false dilemma, which is their favourite fallacy)]

On a related, and less vemonous note: Your remarks about the Enterprise. Being the "flagship" of Starfleet when it isn't by the normal definition of the word today could also mean another shift in a word's meaning. From the looks of it, "Flagship" may have also taken on a Symbolic meaning, in regard to the achievements of the ships past and present that carried the name Enterprise.

Of course, since that is the civilian use of the word, ie- the "flagship product" of a manufacturer, this ties into my longstanding contention that Starfleet is not a military organization. Did I not make that clear in the database?

But I'm digressing. Back to the meat of this mess...

You think my response is rude? Too bad. I think you and your friends have been rude to someone I hold in high regard. And as I said, I'm not out to win any Miss Congeniality contests, so I see no reason to humour ignorance.

Then I suggest you so something a little more effective than bitching about it to me.

I am. I wanted to use this exchange to determine what the spacebattlers were saying about Curtis' book, so that I'd know what arguments to address on my website. Now that I have communicated with you at some length, the pathetic nature of those arguments is quite clear, and I have enough ammunition to destroy them on my site. My mission is accomplished.

I'm not sure what you were hoping to accomplish (and don't give me that "innocently asking questions" bullshit), but I surmise that you just wanted to reinforce the standing ad hominem attack that people should avoid my site because I attack without provocation.

You think the figures are "ridiculously overinflated". I think that constitutes a problem.

See above. I don't feel that constitues a problem, as I am fully capable of living with it.

And precisely what does "living with it" mean? Please clarify your position, since it seems to be all over the map.

Research is not simply asking an expert what he thinks. It's finding out some of the underlying facts and principles for yourself.

And what is one of the best ways of doing that, when one is uncertain of where to look?

Books. You should try them sometime.

[Editor's note: do you remember the old line about how “if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime?” This guy just wants one damned fish, and he calls it “research”. Normally the word “airhead” is applied to silicone-enhanced blonde girls, but there are times when you must seriously consider applying it to guys as well]

You're evading the point, which is that you made a claim about asteroid impacts disproving the ICS figures, but you made no attempt whatsoever to produce any numbers to support that claim. And what's this nonsensical assumption that I "have them on file anyway"? Are you saying that you've sent me numbers in the past? I certainly don't recall receiving any. You were responding to my public query as to why no one had come to me with these objections, remember? What makes you think I've already got them in my inbox?

Because you apparently "painstakingly" make these calcs yourself, and unless Lucas is paying you on the sly, for little to no profit.

And now you commit the ever-popular "burden of proof" fallacy, in which you try to transfer your burden of proof to your opponent. I'm obligated to produce the calcs to support or disprove your claim for you? Don't be ridiculous. You claimed that given the ICS figures, "I don't see how that asteroid field could've posed any danger to a Star Destroyer even if it powered through it at maximum combat speed, ignoring everything but Planet Killer-sized rocks." When you make a claim, you're supposed to back it up with something, rather than expecting others to do the work for you. If you can't do that, you have no business making the claim in the first place (and once again, it was a claim; if it was a question, you should have phrased it that way).

And the reason I didn't give any proof was because I DIDN'T HAVE ANY, dumbass! I'm not here to argue a point, I'm here to ask a question!

Something seemed wrong, but I wasn't sure if I was looking at it right, so I thought I'd ask you to get a straight answer. I already know that most of the people on SB don't do their stuff right, but I know they do it better than me. So I thought I'd ask a person who has the calcs there(see the Turbolaser commentaries section of your sight), and already knows.

Don't lie to me, you dishonest little dipshit. Your message was not phrased as a series of questions, and you know it. It was phrased as a series of claims, such as your claim that the ICS firepower figures were "ridiculously overinflated" or that the shield strength numbers were "past overinflated", with an implicit challenge for me to disprove those claims. Its ending line: "have you any better answers?" is phrased as a challenge, not as a genuine question.

Maybe if you lightened up, and dug your head out of your own ass, you'd understand that. Not everyone who comes from Spacebattles is trying to pick a fight! But if you want one, I'll be glad to oblige. [Editor's note: ooooh, I'm scared] Now look, you've got me flaming mindlessly.

You probably think you're pretty clever, playing games to pretend that by attacking your lazy-ass claims as per the warning on my E-mail link, I attacked you without provocation. Now you can hold your nose in the air about your moral superiority (it's OK to flame back because "he started it!"), and as anyone familiar with the spacebattles.com "vs" forums knows, that's the basis of the standing argument against my website. Gee, nobody will ever see through your oh-so-original tactic! If you lack intelligence or honesty, I suppose contrived righteous indignation is the next best thing, eh?

If you want to do research, go read some fucking books. Books on real science, which is where you obviously need the most work. Asking an expert is not research; it is what journalists do, when they're in search of a quick sound bite and they don't honestly want to learn squat.

So? Vader told them to go in, even though they didn't want to. He ordered a holo-conference, even though they undoubtedly would have preferred to be commanding their ships. He was not thinking of their safety. But would the commanders of those ships have been wise to refuse Darth Vader's instructions? Not unless you figure they were itching for a death by suffocation.

Let's see... Death by Suffocation, or Death by Asteroids.

For someone who's just innocently "asking questions", you sure seem quite argumentative, don't you? Oops ... did I just expose your dishonesty again? Silly me.

Here's a hint: One won't take your crew with you, and you actually have a slim chance of talking your way out of it.

The ship suffered some damage to its bridge tower, but most of its crew undoubtedly survived. Moreover, this damage was by no means guaranteed. If the gunners had destroyed that asteroid, it wouldn't have happened, so don't act as if it was certain death to go in there. As for "talking your way out of it", only an idiot would expect to talk his way out of disobeying a direct order from Darth Vader.