JMSpock

JMSpock is a versus debator and very stupid person. He also goes under the name of JediMasterSpock in the StarfleetJedi.net forums where he is the administrator.

JMSpock believes in "civilized discourse" to the extreme. He constantly cautions people for flaming.

JMSpock's greatest hits

The following quotes are collected from various forums and webpages and serve to show his scientific ignorance and dishonesty.

The Death Star Isn't a Starship

JMSpock claims that the Death Star cannot be considered a starship: "The Death Star is not maneuverable like a starship, nor as densely sprinkled with weapons mounts, nor as proportionally heavily armored; it is essentially a giant battlestation with a superweapon and hyperdrive slapped on-"Link

His first complaint is obviously meaningless since a starship will inevitably become less maneuverable as it's size, and therefore mass, grows. Thus, an X-wing will be more maneuverable than a Star Destroyer which will, in turn, be more maneuverable than the Death Star. None of this has anything to do with whether the Death Star is a ship.

His second claim about weapon concentration is completely irrelevant, since the definition of ship requires the object to be mobile, not that it be armed. Furthermore, JMSpock ignores the fact that the Death Star possesses a superlaser weapon that far outstrips any weapon on smaller ships, even when accounting for size difference.

Likewise, the thickness of the Death Star's armor relative to its diameter is irrelevant to whether it is a ship. Besides that, if the Death Star did have armor thickness proportional to its size, the armor would be hundreds of meters thick.

His final remark about hyperdrive being "slapped on" is nothing but a dishonest attempt to bolster his argument without bothering to provide any evidence to support his claim. By design, the Death Star can travel from system to system and maneuver within systems to reach its targets. The hyperdrive is an essential component of the Death Star's design, since a planet-destroying weapon that couldn't get to its targets would be pointless.

Incidentally, JMSpock's own definition of a starship (posted to the SFJ wiki in August 2006) says: "A starship is a manned deep space vessel of any kind, whether from Star Wars or Star Trek. Starships are differentiated from probes by their ability to carry people, and from in-system vessels (usually, but not always, shuttles) by their ability to travel from one star system to the next." By his own definition, the Death Star clearly qualifies as a starship.

Federation Starbases are Starships

Mike DiCenso, another fanatical starfleetjedi.net forum user, made the following comment: "If you allow millions of Imperial starships because of the Death Stars, then you probably have to do a similar thing for the Federation since we have seen that they have the industrial capacity to build a fair number of multi-km space stations (Starbase 74, the Utopia Planita space stations, ect) that are each worth thousands of Galaxy or Sovereign class starships in volume and mass."Link

JMSpock responds: "These, too, have shields and weaponry. They have highly sophisticated massive medical facilities, and on-board construction, repair, and refit facilities. These, too, can lumber about systems - watch the opening episode of DS9."Link

Notice how JMSpock dishonestly mixes large Federation starbases -- namely Starbase 74 and Utopia Planitia -- with the far smaller Deep Space 9 to make his claim that their movement capability is demonstrated in the opening episode of Deep Space 9.

In fact, larger starbases have never demonstrated any capability to move at either sublight or faster-than-light speeds, nor have they actually demonstrated any weapon or shield capabilities. Furthermore, DS9 was not even built by the Federation, making it a red herring concerning the capabilities of Federation starbases.

In a final act of desperation he tries to use their supposed "massive medical facilities", which have never been shown, as a justification for comparing Federation starbases to Federation ships. How having medical facilities or any of the other facilities mentioned (construction, refit or repair) makes something a starship is a mystery known only to JMSpock. Starships may indeed have such facilities but no sane person would try and argue they constitute a defining characteristic of a starship.

This is also a perfect example of double standards, since JMSpock argued that the Death Star can not be used as an example of a starship, even though it demonstrated all the outward characteristics of a starship, while at the same time insisting that Federation starbases can, even though they have never demonstrated anything but the ability to float in space.

A Death Star is Easier to Construct Than a Starship

After having it pointed out to him that the Death Star was built without any shipyards and that therefore smaller ships also won't need any specialized shipyards for their construction, JMSpock responded: "The station itself is its own shipyard. The infrastructure in question are construction ships, droids, personnel, off-site manufacturing and shipping, etc."Link

Again he offers no explanation for why the Death Star can act as "it's own shipyard", but other ships can't. He also seems incapable of distinguishing between infrastructure and worker force.

JMSpock trying to justify his assertion that constructing a Death Star is easier than constructing smaller ships: "It gets easier as they get larger, in fact, thanks to gravity. Microgravity helps keep things from drifting away."Link

Another vague statement. How strong is the microgravity created by the Death Star during various stages of it's construction? Why would "things" drift away in space where there are no external forces? What "things"? Imperial ships possess artificial gravity technology and tractor beams which make any lack of gravity irrelevant. Finally that microgravity will subject the Death Star's frame to mechanical stress even before its construction is complete, which makes it more difficult to construct than a small ship, not less.

Destroying a Planet Doesn't Take That Much Energy

JMSpock, after being asked to provide possible mechanisms of planetary destruction that don't require an external object to supply the necessary energy, had this to say: "Matter annihilation" includes fission and fusion. Other methods for turning matter into energy range the scale from particle-antiparticle reactions to chemical reactions to Hawking radiation.Link

Notice that he doesn't explain exactly how fission, fusion or particle-antiparticle reactions could possibly reduce the Death Star's energy requirement. Even more laughable is his claim that a chemical reaction might somehow produce sufficient energy to blow up a planet as violently as Alderaan.

These kinds of dishonest, vague and evasive statements are his trademark.

Three Weeks Is Really Four Days

In the TNG episode "Ensigns Of Command", an alien species -- the Sheliac -- demand the evacuation of a human colony of 15,000 people that was accidentally set up in Sheliac space. The crew mention that it would take three weeks for a Federation colony ship to arrive for the evacuation. The Sheliac, however, insist that the colonists be removed before they arrive in four days time.

JMSpock interprets these statements as there being a range of four days to three weeks for evacuation ships to arrive, instead of the three weeks being the lower limit that it clearly is. He defends his position claiming that any other ships would have severely hindered their operations elsewhere. Apparently Spock thinks cataloging gaseous anomalies is more important than 15,000 lives. He insists that the Federation could have gotten ships there in under three weeks but -- because it would take over four days -- it was a "non-viable option", even though the three weeks for the colony ship was just as "non-viable".

Note: It might be arguable that, in three weeks, the Federation could not get any other ships to the area that were capable of evacuating 15,000 colonists without using transporters, but that doesn't seem to be JMSpock's argument. Furthermore, the episode explicitly states that the Enterprise working alone could evacuate the 15,000 people in only 32 days. Getting another ship there within the four days might not save all the colonists but saving even another hundred or two is certainly preferable to letting them die. But JMSpock seems to think its either 'save them all or save none of them'. Unfortunately, such black-and-white thinking is typical of the versus trektard.

Star Wars ships run on "diesel fusion"

Apparently some scene cut from ROTS shows a liquid ignited by a spark. From this incident, JMSpock has come up with the idea that Star Wars starships run on "diesel fusion".

He mentions this idea on his webpage but does not clarify where the idea came from or what led to his conclusions.

His comments on the idea from his forum: This is, by the way, still the only hypothesis which explains why in Star Wars, you mine gas giants; why Star Wars fuel looks and acts the way it does; why the energy of an exploding Star Wars ship is of a chemical order; et cetera. I am perfectly willing to debate this point for point; the simple fact is that diesel fusion is the most elegant explanation for Lucas's choice of using familiar visual and practical treatments (clear, explosive, aromatic fuel of not too great density).

Now. Is it actually official? Of course not. It's simply the most scientifically elegant explanation of the film level evidence that you're going to get. Is it going to explain everything in the entire EU? I refer you to what I jokingly coined "Gödel's incompleteness theorem for fanalysis." No coherent explanation will - mine or Saxton's.*

Such a ridiculous idea actually needs no rebuttal, but here are some anyway:

1. Diesel will not explode unless compressed.
2. Hydrocarbons are poor candidates for fusion reactions. Pure deuterium and tritium are far better candidates, since carbon produces far less energy output in a fusion reaction than hydrogen isotopes do. In fact, carbon will interfere with deuterium-deuterium fusion, creating an obstacle to the reaction rather than helping it.
3. How does diesel fuel explain mining gas giants? Their atmospheres are composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter has trace amounts of ammonia at most. The "liquid portion" of the gas giant is liquid hydrogen, not diesel, and the cores might be solid metal or rock. Neptune and Uranus are thought to contain some water and methane as well. Furthermore, the canon films explicitly state that Cloud City is mining "Tibanna Gas", not diesel, which -- according to the official literature -- is used in SW weapons, not power plants. Spock's justification is not even necessary. The literature already gives one, and Spock's justification is in direct contradiction with the canon films.
4. How do SW ship explosions show a "chemical order"? Is he describing the size of the fireball? Why should we assume SW fuels are bombs waiting to go off the way Trek fuel is? Not all energy sources explode upon the destruction of their containers. Of course Spock completely ignores the fact that Trek ship explosions look similar.
5. Name ONE time in SW where we have actually seen the fuel, Spock.
6. How does Spock justify his claim that this "liquid" is aromatic? The FX in Star Wars can be pretty amazing at times but not even ILM has been able to produce a film that releases scents as you watch it
7. The whole "SW uses nuclear fusion" idea's only basis is a couple of obviously metaphorical statements from the canon novelizations. Here is one example: Children on Tatooine tell each other of the dragons that live inside the suns; smaller cousins of the sun-dragons are supposed to live inside the fusion furnaces that power everything from starships to Podracers. JMSpock, Darkstar and other idiot trektards insist statements like this should be interpreted literally.

• Note: this final paragraph of his is just another example of his hypocrisy. He says it isn't canon or official, yet on his webpage, he states this 'theory' in the same matter-of-fact tone and in the same sentence that he describes the canon fact of Trek ships using anti-matter for fuel.