OOTS #1217 - The Discussion Thread

[KorvinStarmast]

Because otherwise, really, destroying the Falcon upon detecting it would have simply destroyed the plans, and otherwise preventing their escape would have made sure the plans didn't go anywhere, if he wanted to torture them to know if copies were made. Trailing them back to the rebel homeworld seems like a needless risk (were there never other opportunities to put trackers on rebel ships, really?).

And so we arrive at the inspiration for Nale's needlessly complicated plans .... (In an attempt to drag this back on topic, which is the OoTS universe...)

[Peelee]

I was rather annoyed by that scene, but all of the explanations just makes it worse, really.



Even if it was, it's still the size of a small moon.

So your argument is that in a universe where FTL travel is commonplace and a civilization can construct a space station the size of a small moon with enough power to destroy a planet, that fast elevators break suspension of disbelief?

[Metastachydium]

(In an attempt to drag this back on topic, which is the OoTS universe...)

You sure about that?

[KorvinStarmast]

You sure about that?

/me Checks thread title:

OOTS #1217 - The Discussion Thread

I'll bet a quataloo on that one.

[Riftwolf]

And this makes me think of his complaint that the Fable series is essentially racist because the protagonist of every game is recognized as the hero in-universe because of their lineage.

Not so much racist as elitist. It goes against the idea that you can start out as a commoner and become a Hero (as the first half of the first game seemed to suggest, from memory), instead all Heroes are born Heroes with Heroic blood and only Heroes can affect the world for good or bad.
Fable 3 made it worse. Not just the royal right of rule angle, but completely gutting the core idea of the original game.

[Metastachydium]

/me Checks thread title:

I'll bet a quataloo on that one.

[Checks thread. Sees most of it is about Tolkien, Star Wars and Harry Potter fanfics.]
[Begins to seriously ponder taking the bet.]

[Rogar Demonblud]

Only the first couple pages are about the comic. The rest is us amusing ourselves while Rich devises another way to WOW! us.

[Cazero]

I'm very disappointed about the distinct lack of debate regarding the respective pirate merits of Captain Hook and Long John Silver.

[Riftwolf]

I'm very disappointed about the distinct lack of debate regarding the respective pirate merits of Captain Hook and Long John Silver.

Which Hook are we discussing?

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler: why not this one?

Show

[Worldsong]

Star Wars interrogations are different from the real world; My understanding from EU material is that the ultimate goal of interrogation by Darth Vader is to get to the point where Vader can read the subject's mind, just as he read Luke's mind in Return of the Jedi. Those strong in the Force and with a strong will can resist this intrusion. Thus the introduction of torture and drugs and all sorts of other things, not to force Leia to talk, but to break down her mental resistance to the point where she could either be mind-read or Mind Tricked into telling what she knew.

My guess is that a typical Vader interrogation consists of him simply using a Jedi Mind Trick to cause the victim tell everything they know, then kill them once they've been drained of all useful information. That wouldn't work on Leia, not only because of her strong will but also because of her strength in the Force. Hence the use of torture.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I stand corrected. Disregard my input then.

Even if the Death Star is 99% engines, for the gun, propulsion, food, garbage, and all other such components, I believe we see the guns be manually operated, right? And the thing is littered with guns. So presumably, at least the outer shell is "habitable". Which means that the Battle Station has a minimum of its area in floor space. Which, being a small moon sized sphere, is still absolutely huge.

Some quick googling suggests that on Earth the atmosphere occupies a little bit less than 0.4% of the planet's volume. If on the Death Star only 1% is habitable that'd still be quite a lot of space.

Not so much racist as elitist. It goes against the idea that you can start out as a commoner and become a Hero (as the first half of the first game seemed to suggest, from memory), instead all Heroes are born Heroes with Heroic blood and only Heroes can affect the world for good or bad.
Fable 3 made it worse. Not just the royal right of rule angle, but completely gutting the core idea of the original game.

Is there much of a difference between racism and elitism if it's decided by blood?

Also I only ever played the original Fable. I've watched Yahtzee's reviews of the other two and watched my brother play 3 for a bit but it seems like I was right to stick with the first one.

[Fyraltari]

Is there much of a difference between racism and elitism if it's decided by blood?

Similar mindsets born of different sociopolitical currents. I'd explain further but I I think I'd break the rules.

Also racists single out their targets by physical appereance (mostly, this isn't a hard rule) while elitists look for cultural markers so in the second case it's easier to "pass" for an unstigmatized group.

Of course the similarities behind all form of bigotry and their common root (fear of the Other) mean that they often feed off of one another and blend.

[bunsen_h]

Probably not the reason used inside the movie but from what I understand interrogation isn't actually very reliable. It makes people want to tell you what they think you want to hear, which is often not the same as the truth because when people say they want to know the truth what they usually actually mean is that they want their preconceptions confirmed.

Interrogation isn't the same as torture. It's the latter that is highly unreliable as a source of information. The former has its limits too, of course, but I suppose that the big difference is that everyone expects that to be the case, whereas a lot of people believe that torture gives reliable information.

[rbetieh]

I'm very disappointed about the distinct lack of debate regarding the respective pirate merits of Captain Hook and Long John Silver.

Long John Silver has his own restaurant chain, so...

[Riftwolf]

Is there much of a difference between racism and elitism if it's decided by blood?

Also I only ever played the original Fable. I've watched Yahtzee's reviews of the other two and watched my brother play 3 for a bit but it seems like I was right to stick with the first one.

I like the second one more than I probably should, it's buggy as hell (especially if you have kids) and the endings rushed, but otherwise it's fun. 3 is basically a panto version of 2 with a far better villain than the rest of the game deserved. And the weapon levelling system means one of my first acts as King is to run round the city farting in the faces of every guard.

[Goblin_Priest]

So your argument is that in a universe where FTL travel is commonplace and a civilization can construct a space station the size of a small moon with enough power to destroy a planet, that fast elevators break suspension of disbelief?

Kind of?

Have we ever seen elevators, in Star Wars, do anything other than bring people up or down? Because the only examples of elevators that spring to my mind have them do only exactly that.

The Star Wars universe doesn't appear much more advanced than ours. Sure, they use holograms, which we are just starting to master, and they have hovering technology instead of wheels (seems hugely wasteful though), and a few other things like that. But largely... their tech does the exact same thing ours does, with a few "but advanced" versions tacked on. Their speeder moves across the ground, "but without actually touching it". Their space ships soar through space, "but can go much farther". They have armored military vehicles, "but with energy shields". And so on. But we already have tanks, we already have space ships, we already have some form of pretty much everything we see in Star Wars, just less flashy. The same goes with their elevators. A bit quicker, and maybe not always based on the same kinds of mechanics.

Elevators that go supersonic and are multidirectional are a thing that could exist, I guess, but which I don't recall ever seeing in Star Wars. Also, super risky. Obi Wan wasn't in disguise. You can sneak and wait for the entrance to clear, but you can't know who will be there when you exit.

[Peelee]

Kind of?

Have we ever seen elevators, in Star Wars, do anything other than bring people up or down? Because the only examples of elevators that spring to my mind have them do only exactly that.

The Star Wars universe doesn't appear much more advanced than ours. Sure, they use holograms, which we are just starting to master, and they have hovering technology instead of wheels (seems hugely wasteful though), and a few other things like that. But largely... their tech does the exact same thing ours does, with a few "but advanced" versions tacked on. Their speeder moves across the ground, "but without actually touching it". Their space ships soar through space, "but can go much farther". They have armored military vehicles, "but with energy shields". And so on. But we already have tanks, we already have space ships, we already have some form of pretty much everything we see in Star Wars, just less flashy. The same goes with their elevators. A bit quicker, and maybe not always based on the same kinds of mechanics.

Elevators that go supersonic and are multidirectional are a thing that could exist, I guess, but which I don't recall ever seeing in Star Wars. Also, super risky. Obi Wan wasn't in disguise. You can sneak and wait for the entrance to clear, but you can't know who will be there when you exit.

Would you like to consider the totality of Star Wars canon/Legends, or just that first movie as a self-contained story?

Quick tip, neither one will end well for your argument.

[Yirggzmb]

Long John Silver has his own restaurant chain, so...

The food is kinda mediocre though

[danielxcutter]

And this makes me think of his complaint that the Fable series is essentially racist because the protagonist of every game is recognized as the hero in-universe because of their lineage.

"Yeah this spell recognizes the hero of the story and gives them the Stone and everyone else can go buzz right off."
"Okay... What if someone else who isn't the hero but still is on the right side tries to obtain the Stone?"
"Pffft, as if anyone other than the hero can do anything important."

I was more thinking of “don’t give it to the obvious Dark Wizard even if they don’t actually plan on doing stuff with it” woven into the spells. Can’t be that hard in the setting.

[F.Harr]

Durkon's so considerate.

I wonder if now is when they discover the MitD's betrayal.

[Yirggzmb]

I was more thinking of “don’t give it to the obvious Dark Wizard even if they don’t actually plan on doing stuff with it” woven into the spells. Can’t be that hard in the setting.

Also, I figured Dumbledore was probably simplifying a lot with his explanation to Harry. Like, kid's 11, and only a mediocre student (talented perhaps, but not very studious). You're probably not going to get into deep magical theory with him.

I always figured it was that Quirrel still wanted to do something with the stone, ie give it to his master and gain approval/praise. Whereas Harry's goal was to get it for the sake of protecting people, or something like that. A built in "selfless intentions" detector or something.

Of course, had Harry not interfered, the stone would have been fine. But I guess we're supposed to either ignore that or at least accept that Harry didn't know that when he went after it. Big part of his personality is kinda that he thinks he knows better than the authority figures around him - sometimes he's right, sometimes he's not, but either way he definitely has little trust for them especially early on.

I'm in the camp of "the whole defense system was mostly to slow any intruders down" theory. The mirror was the actual "vault", and everything else buys time for Dumbledore or whoever to realize they needed to get down there and stop the intruder. I agree that some sort of "impenetrable without the right key and, no, putting the key near the door doesn't count" system would be ideal, but then again Quirrel did manage to break into the Gringots vault. So maybe even that isn't foolproof in this world?

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'm reminded of a mock-HP comic where the kids put every defend against magic there was on themselves and the bad guy just pulled out a gun. Sometimes you get locked into a paradigm and forget there are other ways. Hence the item on the Evil Overlord list about having a five year old on the committee.

[danielxcutter]

I also think that perhaps maybe we’re overanalizing this. I mean, magic from a children’s book, expecting it to be flawless from the view of an expert is a bit much.

[ebarde]

I feel like people nitpick a lot with more rules oriented magic because a lot of times understanding the systems the series operates by is essential to following the story. I mean, how many times a bad guy in HP was thwarted cause someone threw a slightly obscure magic rule introduced earlier in the book at them? Bringing it back to OOTS, if you take the last book for example, having consistent rules was extremely important since the whole conflict of the book revolved around both the villains and heroes of the book abusing and bending the rules to their advantage.

While if you take LOTR for example, the specific rules for magic were less important there cause it was not like they planned on defeating Sauron by abusing legal loopholes or anything.

[Yirggzmb]

I also think that perhaps maybe we’re overanalizing this. I mean, magic from a children’s book, expecting it to be flawless from the view of an expert is a bit much.

I always figured that over analyzing works of entertainment was, like, the number one geek hobby. I'm perfectly content to enjoy the story as is, but sometimes it's also fun to think about how things work.

[Fyraltari]

Kind of?

Have we ever seen elevators, in Star Wars, do anything other than bring people up or down? Because the only examples of elevators that spring to my mind have them do only exactly that.

The Star Wars universe doesn't appear much more advanced than ours. Sure, they use holograms, which we are just starting to master, and they have hovering technology instead of wheels (seems hugely wasteful though), and a few other things like that. But largely... their tech does the exact same thing ours does, with a few "but advanced" versions tacked on. Their speeder moves across the ground, "but without actually touching it". Their space ships soar through space, "but can go much farther". They have armored military vehicles, "but with energy shields". And so on. But we already have tanks, we already have space ships, we already have some form of pretty much everything we see in Star Wars, just less flashy. The same goes with their elevators. A bit quicker, and maybe not always based on the same kinds of mechanics.

Elevators that go supersonic and are multidirectional are a thing that could exist, I guess, but which I don't recall ever seeing in Star Wars. Also, super risky. Obi Wan wasn't in disguise. You can sneak and wait for the entrance to clear, but you can't know who will be there when you exit.

I'm sorry what? Did we invent artificial gravity, instantaneous communication, alcubierre-drive-like space travel, perfect artificial consciousness and power efficiency so great an object the size of a lamptorch can generate enough eat tobcut through metal pretty much indefinitely without ever needing to be recharged and nobody told me?

EDIT: Oh and cloning.

I mean, for crying out loud, the First Order is casually a type II civilisation on the Kardashev scale!

Just because they are utterly stupid with how they use their tech doesn't mean it's not light-decades ahead of ours.

[Worldsong]

Interrogation isn't the same as torture. It's the latter that is highly unreliable as a source of information. The former has its limits too, of course, but I suppose that the big difference is that everyone expects that to be the case, whereas a lot of people believe that torture gives reliable information.

True, but is there a large effective difference if the interrogation is aimed at someone who's never going to willingly give you the information you want?

I like the second one more than I probably should, it's buggy as hell (especially if you have kids) and the endings rushed, but otherwise it's fun. 3 is basically a panto version of 2 with a far better villain than the rest of the game deserved. And the weapon levelling system means one of my first acts as King is to run round the city farting in the faces of every guard.

If it was common knowledge that you get to fart in the face of every guard I bet a lot more people would be trying to become king.

I was more thinking of “don’t give it to the obvious Dark Wizard even if they don’t actually plan on doing stuff with it” woven into the spells. Can’t be that hard in the setting.

Also, I figured Dumbledore was probably simplifying a lot with his explanation to Harry. Like, kid's 11, and only a mediocre student (talented perhaps, but not very studious). You're probably not going to get into deep magical theory with him.

I always figured it was that Quirrel still wanted to do something with the stone, ie give it to his master and gain approval/praise. Whereas Harry's goal was to get it for the sake of protecting people, or something like that. A built in "selfless intentions" detector or something.

Of course, had Harry not interfered, the stone would have been fine. But I guess we're supposed to either ignore that or at least accept that Harry didn't know that when he went after it. Big part of his personality is kinda that he thinks he knows better than the authority figures around him - sometimes he's right, sometimes he's not, but either way he definitely has little trust for them especially early on.

I'm in the camp of "the whole defense system was mostly to slow any intruders down" theory. The mirror was the actual "vault", and everything else buys time for Dumbledore or whoever to realize they needed to get down there and stop the intruder. I agree that some sort of "impenetrable without the right key and, no, putting the key near the door doesn't count" system would be ideal, but then again Quirrel did manage to break into the Gringots vault. So maybe even that isn't foolproof in this world?

True on both accounts. With Harry Potter magic you could probably discriminate between good people and evil people, at least in how the spellcaster judges good and evil. And it's also possible thet Dumbledore gave a very simplistic version of the actual criteria to Harry.

The main problem is that by this point we reach the limits of information available to us. The only thing I believe is hard canon is the statement that only someone who wished to obtain the Stone without wanting to use it could get it, with everything else being additions meant to make it less of a terrible idea.

Also while a perfect security system doesn't exist you can still grade them on a scale, and you ain't going to get a passing grade with a locked door for which the required key is flying about right in front of the door.

I'm sorry what? Did we invent artificial gravity, instantaneous communication, alcubierre-drive-like space travel, perfect artificial consciousness and power efficiency so great an object the size of a lamptorch can generate enough eat tobcut through metal pretty much indefinitely without ever needing to be recharged and nobody told me?

EDIT: Oh and cloning.

I mean, for crying out loud, the First Order is casually a type II civilisation on the Kardashev scale!

Just because they are utterly stupid with how they use their tech doesn't mean it's not light-decades ahead of ours.

In addition doing the same stuff we do but much bigger and better already would be a sign of significant scientific progress compared to us. It's not like we're intentionally using subpar technology for the aesthetics and nostalgia.

At least not all the time.

[Fyraltari]

If it was common knowledge that you get to fart in the face of every guard I bet a lot more people would be trying to become king.

You might have an issue recruting guards, though.

[Goblin_Priest]

Would you like to consider the totality of Star Wars canon/Legends, or just that first movie as a self-contained story?

Quick tip, neither one will end well for your argument.

Pretty much only what shows on the big screen. With uncertain inclusion of Disney-era stuff. ;)

Hey, maybe I'm forgetting bits of lore. Quite possible. Though I did watch the movies many times, these watching were spaced out over quite a many years.

Star Wars lore nitpicking is why we come to these forums, right? :P

I'm sorry what? Did we invent artificial gravity, instantaneous communication, alcubierre-drive-like space travel, perfect artificial consciousness and power efficiency so great an object the size of a lamptorch can generate enough eat tobcut through metal pretty much indefinitely without ever needing to be recharged and nobody told me?

EDIT: Oh and cloning.

I mean, for crying out loud, the First Order is casually a type II civilisation on the Kardashev scale!

Just because they are utterly stupid with how they use their tech doesn't mean it's not light-decades ahead of ours.

We've got cloning, btw. It's just mostly illegal everywhere, due to ethical concerns, but if we wanted to... and were willing to spend the money on it... and had a few years to work out the finer details, we could absolutely clone a large quantity of people. I mean, the first clone was 26 years ago, and that's 6 years before Attack of the Clones came out (though yea, the Clone Wars was referenced in the original movie).

I'm not saying that the Star Wars universe doesn't have tech that we couldn't mimic before a great many years of technological improvements, that was never my point. My point is that, functionally, their tech is not really any different than ours.

A speeder is just like a car, except floating (which is completely superfluous to the function of a car). Their society is not really any more advanced than ours. Yea, they can go to other planets. So what? Going to Swamp Planet or Ice Planet is functionally the same as going to Swamp Country or Ice Country. The differences between overland movement and interplanetary movement are never made to matter in the Star Wars movies. Moreso that each planet is made to feel like it has a single small city anyways, and the rest is 99% barren. And in the odd case they do need to go on the other side of the planet for whatever reason, all that means is doing a small swim drive by a couple of big fish. Qui-Gon makes travelling through the core of Naboo feel easier than traveling to a neighboring country just a few hundred kilometers away.

The Star Wars tech is always essentially made to be analogous to RL tech, but flashier. Except those stupid First Order treadspeeders. The differences between the modern equivalents and the flashier versions are pretty much never made to matter, except for a handful of rule of cool moments, and even then.

The same goes with every other tech advancement you mentioned. Good AI, yea so what? They just replace a few things that normal people would otherwise do. They still make them humanoids, who fight in medieval-style formations of just casually walking into the enemy lines while shooting. The non-combat ones just replace human labor. Overall, AI is less integrated into their society than it's likely to be just a few years from now. I mean, common, they have humans do their hyperspace calculations on the star destroyers...? There's no way such a task wouldn't be handled by software IRL (Isn't that part of the astromechs' role on X-wings?). Who fires the canons on the death star? And the Falcon...? And every other single ship...? People... Why? Once you've managed to build robust AI and overcome the obstacles allowing you to make their ships' weapons able to aim instead of just shoot straight, there's really little reason to force the pilot or crewmen to shoot. And why are all the droids subservient? They've got "perfect AI" but there has never been an AI mutiny as far as we can tell?

Same with the energy sources. Sure, the jedis run around with mini nuclear reactors on the belts. But what does access to this kind of energy fundamentally change in the world? What do they do that we can't? They make... energy swords? Swords are already obsolete by a few centuries, for the most part. I mean, really, with such miniaturized energy sources, the CIS or the Empire could just have sent tiny fighters or infiltrator ships nuke planets from orbit and wipe out planets cold-war style, with nuclear winters.

But no, instead they make a single big weapon, that blows a single planet at a time, in a setting where planets essentially just have one city each on them. The Death Star is essentially analogous to a RL nuclear weapon, and nothing more. It's a localized destruction, planets come a buck a dozen and are no more important to the galaxy than big cities are to our planet.

So yea, do we have death stars, hand-held nuclear reactors, hover tech, and interstellar travel? No, we don't. But that doesn't matter, because our modern tech can achieve all the same things they do with that fancy tech.

[Shirow]

Not so much racist as elitist. It goes against the idea that you can start out as a commoner and become a Hero (as the first half of the first game seemed to suggest, from memory), instead all Heroes are born Heroes with Heroic blood and only Heroes can affect the world for good or bad.
Fable 3 made it worse. Not just the royal right of rule angle, but completely gutting the core idea of the original game.

I am guessing this is a Japanese game. Since we do still have a monarchy and a high elite class who are elite by virtue of being intermarried to the imperial family. It seems like the kind of game people in this society would churn out.