2007-01-29

Wow . . . Just Wow -- Dooku's Landing

This is one of the better examples of StarDestroyer.Net absurdity.

In a thread on SDN, a poster recently sought assistance in his efforts to spread the rabid SDN line on another board. There, he encountered resistance from someone familiar with SDN and ST-v-SW.Net who could see through the usual SDN BS. Hence the thread title, "Need help with Darkstar's follower!"

So naturally, they've all piled on to try to provide counterarguments and rebuttals . . . even our old friend Ossus.

The attack is occurring at a forum not conducive to debating, so the usual invasion has not occurred. Instead, the SDN intelligentsia is posting jewels to the original poster like this:

in AOTC, we see precisely what scooter denies--Coruscant having two suns. When Dooku is landing on Coruscant after Geonosis, the camera pans across the cityscape following him in. We see a bright glow in the sky at the beginning of the panorama and another at the end.


Here is a quick-and-dirty low-quality 200k 3ivx video of Dooku's landing. Please, someone explain to me how a second sun is supposed to exist based on that shot?

(C'mon, fellas, at least pretend you have a ticket for the clue train, even if you invariably refuse to board.)

20 comments:

Author said...

See, I could stop with the post above, but I just can't quite let some of the other stuff in that thread pass. The nutjobs then go on to claim all manner of wickedness that I purportedly perpetrated, while linking to sites wherein one can find my personal information, location, et cetera.

That's the fun part, isn't it? Even if I had done a few of the things they claimed . . . such as telling Mike Sussman he was a liar (which didn't occur), or attacking VIPs at StarWars.com over canon (which didn't occur, and besides which Leland "Tasty Taste" Chee concurs with my idea of dual continuities anyway (1, 2), et cetera, it would hardly make me the evil man when they're off posting people's personal info, address, satellite photos of their home, and so on.

But of course, the SDN regulars are also known as the Talifan . . . those lovely little minions who continually attack and harass online any EU authors who fail to agree with the Wong-Saxtonian wanking of Star Wars (such as Karen Traviss, Gary Sarli, et al.).

So, slipshod handling of fact, plus illogic, plus spin-doctored diatribes and lies based on the psychotic levels of hate they have for their ever-growing opposition shouldn't surprise me, I know. After all, I've been observing their ludicrous behavior for some time. These people have always been a minority of Star Wars fandom, and like any angry little insular minority they get more and more nuts as time goes on. If anything, now that they're starting to feel shut out by Lucas Licensing . . . as opposed to when they were, by their own statements, calculating things for Saxton's ICS, the EU children's book that they've used to support their wanking . . . they're getting even more rabid, vitriolic, and just-plain-psycho.

Hopefully, though, they'll work harder to avoid making just-plain-hysterical claims about Star Wars like their Coruscanti double-sun silliness. I've been using them to help idiot-proof my pages against goofball counterclaims, after all, but I'm not going to waste my time addressing wacky stuff like that. It's just too far off the map.

Anonymous said...

What board?

Anonymous said...

How do we see two suns? Easy. Early we see clouds brightened on the TOP but NOT the sides, even though the sun seen later is clearly quite LOW on the horizon.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't the Episode III novelization refer to orbital mirrors? Would that have any effect on this issue?

Anonymous said...

Orbital mirrors that provide MORE illumination than the actual star does?

Anonymous said...

Oh and Darkstar is lying again. No one in that thread has said Anderson "attacked" the VIPs on SW.com. It was simply pointed out that they explicitly told you your "Canon Policy" was flat-out wrong. But then I forget who I'm talking to. In RSA's eyes, ANY disagreement with his ideas constitutes an "attack". RSA once said Mike Wong calling a woman a "bitch" constituted "threatening"

Anonymous said...

However, said orbital mirrors WOULD torpedo Anderson's entire argument that the Senate scene in AOTC is at night.

Anonymous said...

More illumination? Not sure I'm seeing what you're referring to. Could you post the time stamp from the video clip G2k provided so I know what you're talking about?

The only reason I bring it up at all is because in the novelization, it talks about the mirrors being there to enhance pre-existing daylight, as if Coruscant doesn't usually get enough sun light, which with two suns, would seem unlikely.

Anonymous said...

However, said orbital mirrors WOULD torpedo Anderson's entire argument that the Senate scene in AOTC is at night.

Possibly, however it should be noted that the novelization does still acknowledge that Coruscant has a definite day-night cycle with sunsets and sunrises, though the time specifics becomes more complicated.

Anonymous said...

Sure Coruscant has "a definite day-night cycle with sunsets and sunrises". So does Tatooine.

Bright tops of clouds: 10-12 second mark. Sun on horizon: 13 second mark.

Anonymous said...

Sure Coruscant has "a definite day-night cycle with sunsets and sunrises". So does Tatooine.

Right, so why would orbital mirrors automatically torpedo the notion that the Senate scene in AOTC is at night?

Bright tops of clouds: 10-12 second mark. Sun on horizon: 13 second mark.

Ok, well, from looking at it, seems like depending on the placement of the mirrors, if the sun is far on the horizon and being somewhat obscured by clouds, then yes, the mirror could provide more illumination than the star itself.

Anonymous said...

Right, so why would orbital mirrors automatically torpedo the notion that the Senate scene in AOTC is at night?

Because IIRC, he states the "Bright spot" on the senate dome is in the same location in both scenes. RSA's argument says it would be impossible for the sky to be a darker shade of blue in the AOTC senate scene that that seen in TPM senate scenes if Coruscant had only one sun. With a second sun or orbital mirrors, that argument goes down the drain.

Anonymous said...

Ok, well, from looking at it, seems like depending on the placement of the mirrors, if the sun is far on the horizon and being somewhat obscured by clouds, then yes, the mirror could provide more illumination than the star itself.

Time for a lesson in conservation of energy. IF there is only one star in the neighborhood, that star is the ONLY source of light for the planet (and mirrors). Therefore it is IMPOSSIBLE for a mirror to provide more light than the star itself does, especially given that the mirrors can't be all that big given there is no sign of them in any of the scenes orbiting Coruscant.

Do these mirrors now have tracklighting around them? Kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a mirror.

Anonymous said...

I don't mean there is more light reflecting off the mirrors than there is light coming from the sun itself (that obviously wouldn't make any sense). I simply meant that, from the perspective of the audience in that scene, if sunlight coming in from that angle (at 13 seconds) was being obscured by clouds and the sun being on the horizon, and sunlight was not obscured going to the mirror(s), then we could be seeing more sunlight getting through on that spot (at 10-12 seconds), as opposed to the sunlight we see getting through on the horizon.

Author said...

Anonymous said...

How do we see two suns? Easy. Early we see clouds brightened on the TOP but NOT the sides, even though the sun seen later is clearly quite LOW on the horizon.


Hey wait, Servo . . . weren't you the one who argued against the whole Coruscant night sky thing because you didn't believe that a nighttime sky could be anything but pitch black? Even then I was astonished at the lack of observation regarding one's surroundings, but here we go again.

http://www.bigfoto.com/sites/galery/sky/12_sky.jpg

See those clouds with a dark bottom in a pic where the sun is low on the horizon? Guess what the top looks like.

Remember, the sun is not in orbit of Coruscant, nor is it within the atmosphere.

Oh and Darkstar is lying again. No one in that thread has said Anderson "attacked" the VIPs on SW.com.

Well, if I wanted to play word-games like you do in a desperate attempt to claim a lie, I'd cross-reference the users in that thread versus the ones in http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=82115&start=0 and elsewhere, wherein claims of harassment, attacking, and so on are made and generally agreed to.

But, suffice it to say that you guys were trying to paint me as being in conflict with the VIPs of StarWars.com, whereas in fact we are obviously in agreement on the dual continuities thing . . . a point which, curiously, you ignored.

RSA once said Mike Wong calling a woman a "bitch" constituted "threatening"

Did I? Well, I might've overstepped there, 'cause one thing little Mike is not is threatening in any physical sense. Well, unless the woman in question was a midget.

Of course, you guys seem to think calling to threaten adversaries, plotting to confront and/or assault people in person offline, and similar wacko behavior is not threatening, so you're hardly a good judge of that term's usage.

Anyway, as for the orbital mirrors stuff (compared with the single-light-source in the canon), would anyone care to explain why a ring of mirrors at a stationary point between Coruscant and its sun (La Grange or via other means), with their reflective surfaces on the inside of the ring, focusing the sun as per the novelization, would fail to meet all the required criteria?

After all, with a little luck we'd never really notice them even in orbital views.

I'm just saying, there's no reason to imagine a focusing orbital mirror intended to concentrate the sunlight as being wayyyy off to the side of where the sun is. This "fiber optic orbital mirrors" idea would work just as well for the purpose.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the comment was that Wong was harassing the woman (though there is a line about fear in there)

Anonymous said...

Hey, all you lot that come here and post, how about using another name than anonymous. There are even a couple posts by 'anon' and I can't tell if they are both the same person or not. It doesn't even have to be the name you use on the board, but have it be something other than anonymous, so we can know who is saying what. Call yourself 'Shoe', for all I give a fuck. I don't care, but not 6 people calling themselves anonymous for both sides.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes when i try to use a name the comment won't post so I have to go with anonymous.

Ilithi Dragon said...

Hmmm... Watching that vid, I don't get the impression that there's a second son, or even a second source of light, just light cloud-cover wherever Dooku is at around the 9 second mark, and much thicker cloud cover around the 13 second mark. In fact, it appears that the sun is lower on the horizon at 9 seconds than at 13 seconds, suggesting that Dooku's destination was far enough around the planet from the point where he entered the main traffic patterns to be in a slightly different timezone, and as such have different weather conditions, conditions which you can see to differ in the opening seconds of the video, when Dooku is approaching Coruscant.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I got a indirect blog mention. Nifty.

I'm the guy who's get the OP of that thread so flustered.