2008-02-28

History - Regarding SpaceBattles

Commenter "International Man of Mystery" requested information about my departure from SpaceBattles in comments to the last post.

As that was a mere four and a half years ago, and as SpaceBattles cannot be googled going back that far, I wasn't thinking I'd find much.

But I did. So now, as usual, far too much information:

For starters, a little backstory.

Then, as now, SpaceBattles had a strong cross-pollenation with our old friends at StarDestroyer.Net's forums, meaning that the vitriolic anti-Trek contingent was well-represented. It was, though, a much different environment. First, the overall noise level of so many universes being pitted against one another left Trek vs. Wars discussions a mere drop in the rainstorm. And, there were pro-Trek folks there to a larger degree than one would find at SDN, though without the unity of SDN's spin campaigns.

The natural result of this was naturally that I, the Great Satan (tm), would be piled upon as usual, albeit with the occasional kudo to break up the monotony.

One SDN/SB border-hopper was SpaceBattles mod "H.B.M.C.", who was more than happy to use executive authority in support of his most favored franchise of Star Wars. I naturally found this quite annoying, and my resulting failure to kow-tow led to a tangle or two. Or three.

And there was much to discuss then. This was the era during which the dual canon idea was still relatively fresh, while at the same time the other side was subverting their minds to the ICS children's books as the end-all be-all of Star Wars fact, widening the gap between myself and the other side as they devolved into selective EU worship at the expense of the Star Wars of Lucas. And the other side felt they had the upper hand at the time, as previously pro-Trek poster Alyeska, in an obvious social play, chose to publicly concede to the aforementioned children's books. This was spun as an objective repudiation of any who failed to toe the opposition's party line.

As I had never been one to try to socialize with my ever so ill-mannered opponents, I'd never had need to try to get in their good graces.

Alyeska had already done so, cozying up to the opposition to the point that, as a classic "useful idiot", he was even granted a small moderation position at SDN. His final choice to abandon reason in favor of community was, as he undoubtedly expected, lauded and further rewarded by the opposition, though after his usefulness ended there was a bitter falling out.

At one point, I'd asked another mod with pro-Trek leanings on how best to get HBMC off my back. The fellow noted that HBMC had gotten in trouble for that sort of thing more than once already. A portion of his response . . . quoted here under the presumption that any statute of limitations has run out . . . was as follows:

"I wish I could give you some advice... but HBMC's a tough case. He's been around here much longer than I have, but after a few years, there's a few things I've come to understand about him...

He hates Star Trek, in all incarnations, and considers Star Wars to be practically a masterpiece, instead of the derivative pulp work it frankly is. He does, however, have interests outside of Trek, so it couldn't hurt to find some common ground.

I don't know how often you intend to hang around here, but it certainly could only get better if you visit some of the other forums. {...} Remember, every time you've posted here so far, that I can recall, it has been in a Trek/Wars debate of some kind or other, and you make some very strong arguments against his position, which psychs the hell out of him. So he gets a ten foot pole up his ass the minute he spots your name on the board.

{...} That'd be my best advice. Hang around a bit more, get to know some of the other people... get involved in different forums, and debates about *other* SF universes, and I practically garauntee he'll either shut up voluntarily, or the rest of the people on the board will tell him to."


The fellow's basic advice was to socialize with HBMC -- make friendly with him and/or others.

There was logic to that. However, I'm not involved in this hobby to make friends. I'm in it to establish and support facts on the topic (such as one can have facts regarding fiction, but you know what I mean). Any interest I might've entertained in revealing myself further became extinct the first time such conversations became used by the opposition as ammunition for personal harassment and death threats. (This gives people the impression that I am extraordinarily single-minded on this one topic, with nothing else in life. I'm quite comfortable giving off that impression, given the unpleasant alternative.)

In short, as a rule of thumb, if I want to socialize with people I don't do it with faraway strangers from the internet. And so in regards to HBMC, the advice to socialize fell on deaf ears. My sole interest in SpaceBattles was for the sole purpose of Star Trek vs. Star Wars fact-finding. All else was irrelevant, meaning that, unlike Alyeska, I was completely unconcerned with the opinion others held about me on a personal level.

My only concern with HBMC was that he was interfering in fact-finding. He had what I considered a 'unique' concept of what topics to close and when . . . always seeming to correspond to that which most benefitted the pro-Wars mythology camp of which he was a part. His trolling of threads, support of trolling of me, and abuse of moderator authority were mucking with my goals.

Perhaps some of the most entertaining bits were his calls for invasion of the board he moderated, so as to try to wear me down and drown me out.

"It brings me great pain to do this...
But I am at my wit's end with DarkStar. Thanks be to Alyeska for doing what he has done, but it has made DipShit even more unbearable than ever.

I come here only because no one else will, and because I'm a mod in the VS forum who has his hands tied.

Anyone who can help deal with DarkStar over there is welcome, and I implore someone to help."

-http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=514645

"Are we totally sure that no one wants to pop over and pitch in? A few descenting voices would be nice, and as long as they're not outright attacking him all help (not that we need any, but it's fun to watch him squirm when he has 6... 7... 8 ... 9 people against him at once) would be greatly appreciated."

-http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=524181

"We're getting no-where at Spacebattles and we're sick of his posts.
Worst of all, I can't actually ban him for any real reason as he's done nothing wrong either."

-http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=258675


Of course the invasion requests included the "not outright attacking him" yarn, but merely for cover . . . a total flame-invasion would've drawn the attention of other mods, whereas the usual SDN tone of flaming with an admixture of non-flame words would at least give the appearance of heated debate instead of mere nonsensical personal attacks.

In any case, it was against this entire backdrop that Wayne Poe, using one of his multiple accounts at SpaceBattles, chose to repost his "Trekmiss" video (newer version here). In it, Poe had culled examples of misses by Trek vessels, put them to funny Benny Hill music, and thus crafted a small, fuzzy, low-logic video which purported to show that Star Trek starship weapon accuracy was crappy. As one thread participant put it, "Blind retarded monkeys would make better gunners than Trek targeting computers! That display of accuracy is absolutely PATHETIC! At least Star Wars turrets hit their targets more than 1 out of 10 shots."

To my mind, the most efficient response was to respond in kind with a parody video mocking Wayne's unintentional parody. Thus I culled examples of misses by Star Wars vessels, put them to the music of the Cantina band, and thus crafted a small, fuzzy, low-logic video that purported to remind Star Wars fanboys not to get too haughty in their anti-Trek glee.

I considered it tit for tat, a suitable negation of Wayne's silliness. I certainly see nothing wrong with the tactic. Why would I? Applying your opponent's own irrational attack pattern to your opponent's preference in order to make a point is hardly dishonorable. Turnabout, after all, is fair play.

Imagine my (lack of) surprise when H.B.M.C. came along and closed the thread and removed the video link, calling the whole thing "petty, childish and immature flamebait" compared to Wayne's "harmless fun".

But the idea that I had posted flamebait was silly. It's me we're talking about here, the GREAT SATAN(tm) . . . the fact that I posted at all was flamebait, including for HBMC. More specifically, though, I was annoyed at the obvious double-standards.

And that's the real crux of the matter. The situation was basically that a pro-Wars mod/troll and his fellow pro-Wars members, invasion-buddies, and trolls could not be expected to behave with civility when their opinions were challenged. I, meanwhile, was expected to be respectful of their failings in that regard while peacefully and happily accepting all their challenges and insults to my opinions and person. If I failed to do so, thereby producing flaming from them, I was considered the troublemaker.

If such a consequentialist view is how one wants one's board run, that's fine . . . just be honest about it. The annoying part is when that's done at the same time as the pretense of fairness and justice is maintained.

HBMC sent attacks via PM and I replied forcefully. Seeing that HBMC was rendering SpaceBattles useless to me, I decided to lodge a formal complaint. There was little chance of a good result, but if I was to be made to go I had no desire to go silently.

And indeed, I later learned I was banned. Since HBMC was already effectively interfering with and closing (i.e. banning) discussion, this hardly changed anything. (And according to reports, this still goes on.)

The end result was that, alongside the SDN ban, I had another badge of honor, and more proof that the pro-Wars side cannot take the real heat . . . they can only flame.

36 comments:

Ilithi Dragon said...

That's just... sad... in a pulp-your-head-against-a-brick-wall sort of way...

Lordepa said...

After seeing that, I pity them. Sooner or later they are going to find out the hard way, that the real world does not find their tactics and actions amusing.

--SSFPhoenix

Anonymous said...

Looks like you got banned for being a dick.

As for the tactics, what's worse: Insulting someone to their face, acting dishonestly or using veiled comments?

Author said...

Looks like you got banned for being a dick.

Given that you were directed here by the Spacebattles thread in which they whined about the "State of the Debate 2008" post, I'm not surprised by your opinion, or your unwillingness to recognize the facts.

As always (it seems), the most accurate and concise rebuttal to the fanciful claims in that thread came from TheDarkling. After it was claimed in the whining thread that I shut down my board because I couldn't withstand criticism (what? hahaha!), he responded thusly:

"He didn't do anything of the sort, IIRC he shut down his forum because he exceeded his allotted bandwidth in an extremely short space of time.

The idea that he shut it down because he was getting "beat" doesn't really make sense considering the same people forwarding that idea also allege he is delusion and thus can't see that he is wrong (in their opinion).

It is best to just ignore what people say about Darkstar because it is pretty much divorced from reality by a large margin.

From my POV what people say about him is almost always incorrect, hilariously obsessive and biased for no real reason other than some weird pack mentality.

Darkstar personally seems like an ok guy and has never sought to track down his opponents in real life and harass them which is exactly what happened under the auspices of another board by senior members of that board.

His main sin is that he derives his view on canon, not form the community agreed standard but from what George Lucas says, that certain people consider him akin to fairy tale monster because of this probably say more about them than him.
"

As for the tactics, what's worse: Insulting someone to their face, acting dishonestly or using veiled comments?

Why choose? Most of my opponents deliver all three.

But, if pressed, I'd put the dishonesty first, the insults second, and the last trailing behind. But note that the dishonesty is first because it is *more* insulting than what passes for insults among them, insulting both me and every reader of what was said.

Anonymous said...

Actually I read a bunch of threads that I found on SpaceBattles involving you. Although the ban thread was absent. The one consistant thing I found was that you were acting like a prick throughout most of them.

Author said...

Oh certainly . . . no doubt I was a prick, in response to other pricks.

I have little patience for dishonest, closed-minded debater-wannabes, and I'm only too sure that the extraordinarily bad behavior of my opponents has rubbed off over the years.

After all, when you say "the sky is blue" in each thread and hear back "you dumb ****, **** you, the sky is ****ing red all the time, you piece of ****" . . . well, it's only natural that eventually, instead of patiently trying to hold their hand through a careful explanation of water vapor, refraction, et cetera, you'll someday respond with "listen here you sonofabitch, the sky is blue, go outside and learn the truth".

It lacks a certain charm, to be sure, but makes up for it with efficiency.

If that makes me a prick in your eyes, then I shall wear the title with all the honor it deserves.

Kryten said...

It's just ironic that you decry the vitrol and abuse in the debate and yet will employ it.

I get much amusement out of it, at least the opponents don't claim the high ground and then abandon it.

Author said...

A cute pretense, Kryten, but illogical on its very face.

I certainly reserve the right to respond to "vitriol and abuse" with "vitriol and abuse", especially in situations where it is the only language my foe comprehends. It's not ideal, to be sure, but it is not wicked.

If you're in a debate, and your opponent refuses to acknowledge basic facts, continuing to lie and try to deceive others, with or without more obvious and sophomoric insult patterns . . . what to do? Waste kilobytes on polite and thorough refutations in which you are defending what is obvious? The guy's just gonna keep on lying . . . he's abandoned all reason.

I've played that game too much, and don't have the patience or time to put up with it without getting very direct and very efficient in my responses.

However, if a stranger shows up who disagrees with you and the first thing you do is start flaming them to try to get them to shut up . . . well, that's something else, isn't it?

That's what my opponents do. The purpose is to dissuade others from responding, to short-circuit their reasoning, and so on. (If you wanted to make the argument that I'm falling victim to the short-circuiting when I finally lose patience, you may have something there . . . but as stated you have nothing.)

By analogy, a policeman can decry the culture of violence and murder in gangs. Yet if he kills a gangbanger for any reason, then using your same logic you would argue that he is a part of the problem. And incredibly, given your last sentence, you would seem to suggest that the gangmembers are somehow better people for not decrying the culture to begin with.

That's both absurd and a bit disgusting. What sort of morality applauds unapologetic evil over imperfect good?

Kryten said...

Thanks for the laugh. You made my day a little brighter with all that.

Anonymous said...

Huh, Spacebattles has a thread about the "state of the debate 2008" post?

Author said...

"Thanks for the laugh."

Likewise.

"Huh, Spacebattles has a thread about the "state of the debate 2008" post?"

Yes:

http://kier.3dfrontier.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129191

Lots of SDN folks pile on, but it's not all negative. I guess my loyal opponents are getting lazy in their old age.

Anonymous said...

Lots of SDN folks pile on, but it's not all negative. I guess my loyal opponents are getting lazy in their old age.
More like they just don't give a fuck about you anymore. It isn't like you've said anything interesting for the last four years or so...

Anonymous said...

Are they really your opponents if they don't give a shit about your arguments and just mock you for being a fucktard?

That's like me calling Hulk Hogan my arch enemy.

rskalski said...

Aww man...I wanted to see the rebutal video you made but can't connect to 3dfrontier.com is it on YouTube somewhere?

Author said...

It isn't like you've said anything interesting for the last four years or so...

So *that's* why I'm the constant topic of conversation! Because I haven't made many updates in the past couple of years!

Thanks! I'd been wondering.

Are they really your opponents if they don't give a shit about your arguments and just mock you {...}

Oh, if that was all it was then they would be worthy of even less of my attention.

But even when I'm not noted by name, their infrequently-topical conversations still revolve around what I and other "evil Trektards" have said.

And, of course, we know more thanks to Poe's inadvertent leaks.

http://www.st-v-sw.net/text/freaks/

The group that was consulted for the writing of the E3ICS (by its formerly-active-Vs.-Debater author) had comparisons to Trek in mind when making the calculations, and focused attention on my statements specifically, at least in regard to Trek-specific matters.

But I understand that the chest-beating . . . while under the pretense of there being none . . . is a useful tactic. Kind of like Hillary pretending Obama isn't there, but whatever.

Aww man...I wanted to see the rebutal video you made

I linked to it in the post, but I do need to change my colors some to make links more obvious. Here's the link again:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/videos/ANHmiss.avi

Anonymous said...

After reading your post, something was ringing as familiar to me. I have a couple of questions:

Do you know if any of your opponents in the debates you have participate on political discussion? If so, where on the spectrum do they tend to lean?

Sincerely,
Another Anonymous

Anonymous said...

So *that's* why I'm the constant topic of conversation! Because I haven't made many updates in the past couple of years!
Thanks! I'd been wondering.

Dude, they're LAUGHING at your updates. You may be some kind of hero of Star Trek in your own mind, but to most debators (on both sides) you've become a JOKE. A sad one at that. You just confirmed it when you tried to tell officials from both Paramount AND Lucasfilm that they were wrong and you were in the right concerning Canon policy.

Author said...

"Dude, they're LAUGHING at your updates. You may be some kind of hero of Star Trek in your own mind, but to most debators (on both sides) you've become a JOKE. A sad one at that."

Actually, I'm laughing at you. At the exact same time as you're engaging in your charade, guess what's going on right now?

Yep . . . on SDN, they're trying to attack my arguments with one of their pro-Wars members who (gasp!) read the site. They flamed him and fed him BS responses, but even if the flames and distortions have their desired effect on the poor lad, the point remains.

You, my friend, had very bad timing. At the same moment as you tried to claim my irrelevancy to the opposition, they were having to deal with ST-v-SW.Net (if even poorly) in their very own treehouse.

The same is true elsewhere. Why else would they always complain about "Darkstar acolytes" or "Darkstar c***suckers" coming out of the woodwork? Why else would their members scour the internet for debate locations, always trying to trash me to others who've read the site? Et cetera, et cetera.

In short, you've consumed their kool-aid, and you buy into their attempt to claim victory and run from the field. This is, of course, because you're one of them, as the rest of your post demonstrates.

The truth is quite the reverse. Wong's maintenance of a groupthink community of kids does mean the opposition is 'louder' and better organized, but that is not the determinant of fact. This is not an election . . . there will be no popular vote. Victory in the arena is based on facts, and the facts are that on what they themselves identify as the major points of consequence, they've lost. Deal with it.

Since you're obviously a reader of the blog, slip down a couple of entries to the State of the Debate 2008.

"You just confirmed it when you tried to tell officials from both Paramount AND Lucasfilm that they were wrong and you were in the right concerning Canon policy."

This is the part where I knew you were a kool-aid drinker, because the events you describe never happened.

I have talked to Pocket Books authors and their Viacom (now CBS Corp, IIRC) licensing liaison. And I have talked to Sue Rostoni and Leland Chee. And despite attempts by the opposition to present these message board discussions as arguments . . . of the vitriolic type that they like to have with SW authors as seen in the assorted episodes with Karen Traviss, Nathan Butler, Gary Sarli, et al. . . . the simple fact is that those I spoke to have confirmed what I was positing.

Now, was I flamed by the Pocket Books authors? Oh yes. They hate the canon topic and thought I was someone else, besides, so they piled on. One of them went so loony-tunes that he joined up at SDN just to try to continue his vendetta against me. The exchange is recounted here:

http://www.canonwars.com/STCanonquotes-trekbbs1.html

But having authors flame me and replying to that is hardly the same thing as attacking authors for what they've written, isn't it? Or are you going to claim that there's no difference in order to perpetuate your kool-aid spin?

Author said...

After reading your post, something was ringing as familiar to me. I have a couple of questions:

Do you know if any of your opponents in the debates you have participate on political discussion? If so, where on the spectrum do they tend to lean?


Very insightful.

You'll find that most sci-fi fans who participate in board discussions lean left. My opponents almost invariably seem to lean far left.

I ran a little poll at StarfleetJedi.Net to check the correlation . . .

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=341

The sample is small, but at the very least it appeared that the pro-Trek posters usually seemed more centrist than their pro-Wars counterparts.

Kryten said...

FFS, how many times are you going to trot out the "evil warsies group" in reference to the ICS?

Author said...

how many times are you going to trot out the "evil warsies group" in reference to the ICS?

I don't call it that, but regarding your question:

As many times as required until opponents stop conveniently forgetting it.

Anonymous said...

IMO, SDN is not so liberal. People who argue for the Empire using the classic arguments in favor of colonialism and fascist dictatorships don't seem particularly liberal to me.

Anonymous said...

Kryten,

.................................
FFS, how many times are you going to trot out the "evil warsies group" in reference to the ICS?
.................................

That's a classic one.
There's not such a think as an "evil warsies group", and it takes a particularily blind man not to see the totally over the top figures pulled out of the blue by Saxton in the EP:ICS 2&3.

Author said...

People who argue for the Empire using the classic arguments in favor of colonialism and fascist dictatorships don't seem particularly liberal to me.

I've never really understood how fascism is supposed to be a right-wing thing.

I hate to go into this giving it short shrift, but:

Fascism in Germany was in the form of the National Socialist party, for instance, and I'd been aware for some time that American leftists of the Depression era were all a-twitter over Mussolini.

There was conflict between fascists and communists, yes. But that's more of a bitter sibling rivalry than a stark ideological divide. Mussolini was a quintessential socialist. Fascism was slightly better for business than, say, communism, so alarmed capitalists were likely to back fascism in countries with a heavy communist threat in a best-of-a-bad-lot situation, much as how present U.S. conservatives will end up voting McCain (if they vote at all).

Of course, how the left and the right coalesce issue-wise is different by place and time. For instance, reading about the Australian elections a few months ago could've left me a little confused, given that some of what their right wing supports would be left wing here, along with the opposite being true.

American concepts of left and right have evolved over time, and indeed prior to the "Reagan Revolution" you didn't have such clear distinctions between the parties as you have now, as each had their left and right wings to varying degrees (which is where McCain fits in to the Republican Party, though he almost switched in '01). The 2006 mid-terms were a Democrat victory largely because they cultivated their right wing (such as they have one) in right-wing areas.

Of course much of our left and right politics now still come from FDR's New Deal Coalition, which is why the whole Clinton vs. Obama thing is so historic . . . it is a civil war of that New Deal Coalition.

But generally, the fascistic ideals are *much* further left than "classical liberal" ideals typifying the modern American conservative. Fascism is a totalitarian, anti-democratic concept full of state authoritarianism, collectivism, and so on. To me, calling that "right-wing" is to suggest a "center" somewhere a little ways past socialism.

In any case, my reading of Jonah Goldberg's _Liberal_Fascism_ should occur soon, and if it is as good as my hope and its hype, then perhaps I'll have more to work with should this topic continue.

Anonymous said...

IMO, Goldberg is full of it.

Both "classic liberalism" and "modern liberalism" are quite far ideologically from fascism.

As far as the classic right-left divide, fascists were in general in favor of corporations, militarism, "traditional family values," and outright racism, while violently opposed to communism - something everybody agrees is liberal.

In the modern day, we continue to think of the KKK as being a highly conservative (even reactionary) group, and they are perhaps the most famous American political organization that is a close match for fascists.

Every political wing has its skeletons in the closet.

Author said...

Fascists were in favor of corporatism, which is rather different than corporations. It's like outsourced communism, with groups of blame-able people, under government guidance, running their own industries as a collective group. Wage and price controls were also fascist, and they were in league with the syndicalists, which is on the spectrum with all the "workers of the world" socialist stuff.

Fascists were militaristic, but then so have been communists and capitalists. So I'm not sure we can count militarism either way.

Mussolini's fascism wasn't racist, but Hitler's was. But then so too have been capitalist democracies and communist regimes. Ron Paul is a libertarian racist loon. Again, I don't think we can use that for or against any group insofar as placement on the spectrum.

By that reasoning Jeremiah Wright, Black Panthers, et al. would be right-wing, along with the Clinton camp (in the opposite direction), but that sure isn't so. Clearly, then, racism is an off-spectrum quantity.

The family values thing is too vague to really go into.

And again, violent opposition to communism seems to me a bitter quarrel between ideological siblings, rather than a true "Otherness" situation.

People can be against communism for a variety of reasons. The US opposition falls along classically liberal grounds, with Reagan and Ayn Rand as some of the better examples. But in various countries monarchists, anarchists, and so on have all resisted communism for their own reasons . . . but monarchists and anarchists can hardly be said to fall in the same region of the spectrum.

Proper fascism, in my opinion, is simply socialism plus nationalism, with other sprinklings of ideas thrown in depending on when and where the fascism occurs.

Kryten said...

Anon says:


That's a classic one.
There's not such a think as an "evil warsies group", and it takes a particularily blind man not to see the totally over the top figures pulled out of the blue by Saxton in the EP:ICS 2&3.


I tell you, that bit never gets old. Everyone says this but doesn't bother to back it up. Come back when you've got something original or some proof.

As for Darkstar he's still crowing about his two pieces of "evidence" that indicates there is a Wars conspiracy sourounding the ICS. Except he's got nothing definitive, just speculation. That's his MO, sow doubt because that's all he can do.

Anonymous said...

kryten

.................................
I tell you, that bit never gets old. Everyone says this but doesn't bother to back it up. Come back when you've got something original or some proof.
.................................

Proof of what?

.................................
As for Darkstar he's still crowing about his two pieces of "evidence" that indicates there is a Wars conspiracy sourounding the ICS. Except he's got nothing definitive, just speculation. That's his MO, sow doubt because that's all he can do.
.................................

1. Unified pro-wars argumentation, all starting from ASVS, SDN and SWTC? Check.
2. Said arguments, shoehorned into the EU, in total contradiction with a majority of older (and now newer) material, against the very existence of facts both from the film and the EU? Check.
3. One large group, largely related to, or members of SDN, then credited in the ICS? Check.

You attempt to ridicule with a conspiracy mockery is nothing absolutely original. Just as much as what's needed to trace back the origins of the claims, either from SWTC or SDN, two ensembles which share a large quantities of views on Star Wars.

Kryten said...

Anon, you must be either blind or not paying fucking attention then. The Warsie Group/conspriacy theory comes out all the time. Surf starfleetjedi/st.com or Darkstars website to see it.

Because naturally, giving your friends who you share a hobby with credit for discussing it with you is a sign that the evidence is doctored.

Anonymous said...

.................................
Anon, you must be either blind or not paying fucking attention then. The Warsie Group/conspriacy theory comes out all the time. Surf starfleetjedi/st.com or Darkstars website to see it.
.................................

Blind? What is there not to see? If anything, it's actually extremely easy to pick! :)

Call it a conspiracy if it amuses you, the "conspiracy theory" attack is not a winning argument by any mean, besides being an old appeal to ridicule.

.................................
Because naturally, giving your friends who you share a hobby with credit for discussing it with you is a sign that the evidence is doctored.
.................................

In case you didn't notice, I didn't make any appeal to authority or other source whatsoever.
The ICS is SDN's and Saxton's wank in a nutshell.

Author said...

"{...} the evidence is doctored."

That's a pretty good summation of the issue. They insisted (and insist) that people should view the EU as factual in regards to the films.

Thus, having a known Vs. Debater with ties to other highly partisan Vs. Debaters, all of whom gathered together to work the numbers for a tech-minded children's book, in their working group dedicated to defeating their Vs. Debate foes . . . well, what else could it be?

Obviously, they thought they'd score a major coup by having an opportunity to doctor the evidence. One can only imagine how giddy they were when Saxton told them. At last they could reveal themselves to the Jedi . . . at last they would have their revenge, and all that jazz.

In any case, it is mere dishonesty to try to dodge that issue. The text of the e-mails is a pleasant touch, given that it proves there were many Vs. Debater hands in the ICS process, but largely unnecessary . . . after all, can you imagine the reaction if I had written a Star Trek episode featuring wanktastic Trek tech? Their opponents' reactions are tame compared to what theirs would've been.

Or suppose I'd written the ICS books so that they were in line with the films . . . do you really think they would still be treated by the other side as the end-all-be-all of evidence, with claimed status equivalent to the films, as currently occurs?

Of course not. The simple fact is, they thought they'd scored a major coup, and they're doing everything they can . . . ignoring Lucas, viciously attacking Traviss, Sarli, Butler, et al. . . . to try to keep it. And thus they have managed to marginalize themselves within the SW fandom community, what with banning from SW.com, general disdain of Saxtonites, et cetera.

It's really quite sad to watch, because the realities of SW canon mean it never was a real coup, and, frankly, they never were real Star Wars fans. They're desperate, angry little men trying to change Star Wars into the image they need it to be, by hook, crook, or Talifandom.

All that to try to win an internet debate about sci-fi . . . can there possibly be anything sadder?

Kryten said...
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Author said...

Watch it, Kryten. It's one thing to misbehave toward me . . . it's quite another to misbehave toward others who are here. I tolerate the latter far less than the former, and I'm not particularly fond of the former. Capisce?

Kryten said...

That's ironic coming from the master of lies and deception. But hey I guess you have to defend your fans, all twenty of them.

Anyways, I want to see some proof of these claims. Not speculation, conjecture or heresay. But actual concrete proof.

Anonymous said...

The master of lies and deception? Reality check time, Kryten. He's not lying to you. He doesn't have horns, nor is he challenging you to duel of the fiddle.

The reason why the ICS are persistently claimed to be dubious everywhere from here to ST.com is because they are.

As far as the VS debaters having tried to use it to win the debate ... the names are in the credits. The e-mails are on the website. The abuse of the ICS in discussion is evident. What's there left to show?

Author said...

"nor is he challenging you to duel of the fiddle."

Nice. And, to bring things sorta-kinda-except-not back on topic, I'd guess "Duel of the Fiddles" would've been the popular piece from a Georgia-style Star Wars, complete with underwater-harmonica Jedi rebreathers and Turbo LaserFiddles.

It would be like Star Wars in Hell. But, at least the origin of the X-Wing would be more obvious.

http://images.hobbytron.com/XT-51590-lg.jpg

;)