Eight(y) is Enough: The Galactic Span Percentage of the Republic

I.  Introduction

The AotC script features the scene where Kenobi tries to have analysis droids look at the Kamino saberdart.  This was actually a fully realized scene that was cut from the film for some reason.

From the text of the script I was looking at, I could presume the scene was cut because, like the Jocasta Nu scene, it's just arrogance in place of research, so it's a bit repetitive.   However, all the arrogance was removed as filmed, so I don't actually know why it was cut.

II.  The Import of Good Sources

A.  The Galactic Republic = Canada

Something else doesn't show up in the real scene, either, but is preserved in the script:

INT. JEDI TEMPLE, MAIN HALLWAY - LATE DAY
From high above, light streams down from the lofty ceilings. OBI-WAN crosses the floor of the great hallway, heaading for the Analysis Rooms.
INT. JEDI TEMPLE, ANALYSIS CUBICLES - LATE DAY
OBI-WAN walks past several glass cubicles where work is going on. He comes to an empty one and sits down in front of a console. A PK-4 ANALYSIS DROID comes to life. A tray slides out of the console.
PK-4
Place the subject for analysis on the sensot tray, please.
OBI-WAN puts the dart onto the traym which retracts into the console. The DROID activates the system, and a screen lights up in from of OBI-WAN.
OBI-WAN
It's a toxic dart. I need to know where it came from and who made it.
PK-4
One moment, please.
Diagrams and .... appear on the screem, scrolling past at great speed. OBI-WAN watches as the screen goes blank. They tray slides out.
PK-4
(continuing)
As you can see on your screen, subject weapon does not exist in any known culture. Markings cannot be identified. Probablt self-made by a warrior not associated with any known society.
OBI-WAN
Excuse me? Could you try again please?
PK-4
Master Jedi, our records are very thorough. they cover eight percent of the galaxy. If I can't tell you where it came from, nobody can.
OBI-WAN picks up the dart and looks at it, then looks to the DROID.
OBI-WAN
Thanks for your assistance! You may not be able to figure this out, but I think I know someone who might.

That line about thorough records almost made me spew my beverage, because it has PK-4 arguing that eight percent of the galaxy constitutes thoroughness.   "Jocasta Nu, call your office," indeed.

Certainly this would represent a devastating blow to Star Wars inflationism and the EU more generally, because having such a limited knowledge of the galaxy at large would seemingly contradict the views that the Empire covered the entire galaxy . . . or in the case of some more recent inflationist claims, that it covered the central galaxy plus two other satellite galaxies.

Don't get me wrong . . . having records about doodads from known cultures and societies like that even across eight percent of the galaxy is impressive.  Just imagine having a massive scanning apparatus of the kind seen at the Jedi Temple Analysis Rooms and the database that had to identify all the random pieces of crap created just on Earth in the past few years.   It isn't like we've seen any UPC codes on anything, and even if we consider that a guide, not everything has them (nor do they commonly stay on after departing the retail location).   Individual chips and circuits, or in this case something more like individual arrows for a bow, et cetera . . . there's a lot involved there.  Even as impressive as something like eBay can be when you're trying to figure out what something is, it doesn't have every little knick-knack that has ever existed (just most every piece of crap of the last 75 years or so).

That said, though, if the Jedi's cultural knowledge spanned a mere eight percent of the galaxy, I would think this would have rather severe implications for the size of the Republic.   After all, the possibilities would be:

1.  That the Archive had information on artifacts and products from every world in the Republic.
2.  That the Archive had information on artifacts and products from every world in the Republic plus worlds outside it.
3.  That the Archive did not have complete information even from every world in the Republic.

Certainly the arrogance of Jocasta Nu and PK-4 would suggest that #3 is not correct, leaving our options as #1 or #2.   #1 would imply that either the Republic constituted eight percent of the galaxy, or #2 would imply that it constituted a smaller amount of the galaxy but that eight percent was known well enough to have extensive cataloging of artifacts and products.

#1 actually worked out the best.  After all, the later Empire constituted a million systems per the ANH novelization and when displayed represented a "tiny fraction of this section of one modest-sized galaxy."  Per my explorations of such points, I had concluded that the Empire's extent was probably somewhere in the 10-12,000 light-year range . . . which was already stretching the boundaries of "tiny fraction" a bit, but allowed for a properly modest-sized galaxy.   After all, even discounting galaxies below 10,000 light-years, the average after that is about 36,500.   In such a galaxy, and assuming uniform thickness (thus allowing us to use simple circular area), a 10,000 light-year wide Empire would constitute 7.5% of the total, with a 12,000 light-year galaxy making up 10.8%.

If we reversed the order and took 10,000 and 12,000 as being eight percent (with the intent of finding out the 'true' size of the galaxy), then:  a 10,000 light-year Empire would have an area of  78.5 million square light-years, and the figure is 113 million for a 12,000 light-year Empire.   Thus, the total size of the galaxy would have to be between 982 and 1,414 million square light-years, translating to diameters of 35,400 and 42,400 light-years, respectively.

However, apparently the reality of the situation is more in line with option #2.

B.  Oh Wait

You'll notice in the script snippet above that there are a few spelling oddities, such as "sensot tray" for "sensor tray", "screem" for "screen", and "Probablt" for "Probably".   I presume these are the result of an optical character recognition system that wasn't quite at 100% accuracy.

Given these facts, I went ahead and googled for "eighty percent of the galaxy", cross-checking against the novelization as well, and found that this seems to be the preferred figure.   For instance, this site has the AotC script with no obvious spelling issues, and uses "eighty", and the novelization concurs with this value.

Therefore, the Jedi Archive has cultural artifact and product references for eighty percent of the galaxy.

Glad I didn't waste any beverage (or monitor) due to someone's bad OCR job!

III.  Doing it Right This Time

Just for reference, eighty percent of an average size galaxy of uniform thickness would represent an area with a diameter of 32,650 light-years.

We are thus left with a few choices, which (to avoid confusion with the other set of choices) I shall label with letters.

A.  The member systems of the Republic span about 10% of the galaxy, give or take a few points by comparison to the later Empire, but known galactic civilization as a whole is far larger, and the archives are thorough in regards to both Republic worlds and many other areas outside the Republic (e.g. Hutt-controlled space, other galactic nations, non-aligned planets or factions such as Kamino (were it not deleted), et cetera).
B.  The Republic spans some percentage of the galaxy between 10 and 30%, but known galactic civilization as a whole is far larger, and the archives are thorough regarding both Republic worlds and the many other areas outside the Republic (e.g. Hutt-controlled space, other galactic nations, non-aligned planets or factions such as Kamino (were it not deleted), et cetera).
C.  The Republic spans some percentage of the galaxy between 30 and 60%, but known galactic civilization as a whole is rather larger, and the archives are thorough regarding both Republic worlds and the several other areas outside the Republic (e.g. Hutt-controlled space, other galactic nations, non-aligned planets or factions such as Kamino (were it not deleted), et cetera).
D.  The Republic spans some percentage of the galaxy between 60 and 80%, but known galactic civilization as a whole is somewhat larger, and the archives are thorough regarding both Republic worlds and the few other areas outside the Republic (e.g. Hutt-controlled space, other galactic nations, non-aligned planets or factions such as Kamino (were it not deleted), et cetera).
E.  The Republic spans about 80% of the galaxy, but known galactic civilization is a bit larger, and the archives are thorough regarding both Republic worlds and the handful of areas outside the Republic.
F.  The Republic member systems span the entire galaxy, with the artifacts and products of certain lowly inhabited worlds (Endor, for example) not recorded in the archives, hence the 20% listed as missing.

Just to clarify, the "other areas outside the Republic" would not include Separatist worlds, since almost all of those would be expected to be part of the Republic prior to separating, and of course this is before the outbreak of hostilities when several hundred had declared an intent to leave.

IV.  Making Sense of Things

Now, given that the Empire represented a "tiny fraction of this section of one modest-sized galaxy", several of the options above represent contradiction.  For instance, a Republic spanning 80% of the galaxy doesn't constitute a tiny fraction of anything, much less a tiny fraction of a "section".

Indeed, relative population also supports this view.   In the AotC novelization we hear of the trillions of common folk in the Republic, and in the RotS novelization we hear of Palpatine pondering possibly quadrillions in the galaxy at large.  If there are trillions of common folk but the galaxy at large has quadrillions, then obviously the Republic is some factor of times smaller than the galaxy as a whole.

However, we must also accept that the Disney-era canon is going to be chock-full of old EU-era misunderstandings.  For instance, at times the EU version of the Star Wars galaxy was said to be even larger than our rather stout galaxy, and while at times there were "unknown regions" and "wild space" and whatnot, many old inflationary claims argued that the EU had a completely galaxy-spanning Empire, and newer claims suggest more still.)

Nevertheless, until that inevitable contradiction with the old existing canon occurs, it makes the most sense to stick with the canon facts as we now know them.  (And indeed, when that day comes, we would be wise to remember that the Lucas-era canon stories are "the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align."  I suppose one could argue that leaves the facts open to revision, but that'd make things a hot mess.)

The fact that they would have references spanning eighty percent of the galaxy represents significant upward pressure for our conclusion.   However, at the same time, the "tiny fraction" quote refers to a map which, it is suggested, ought to show a contiguous and small part of the galaxy.

Were it not for the contiguous million systems suggested by the map, we might consider the option of a Republic of complicated shape, perhaps looking more like a road system than anything else but with a lot of untamed space in-between the roads.   The Republic would be all contiguous, but rather abnormally spread out.  Such a "Gerrymandered Republic" has some precedent . . . indeed, from the TCW novelization, we have Palpatine using a holographic map:

Ch. 2: "Palpatine sat down and activated a holochart. It hovered above his desk, a complex web of lines and clusters of light representing the major points of the known galaxy. He tapped the control to remove layers of detail, and entire star systems and planets winked out of existence -- so easily done, so very easy -- to leave a few snaking threads of colored light that ended in the Outer Rim. "A hologram, as they say, is worth a thousand words." The threads were hyperspace routes. And they were all controlled by the Hutts. [...] This Hutt has control of the hyperspace access we need to move troops and materiel to the Outer Rim,"

One could argue that the web of lines and clusters of light supports a Gerrymandered Republic, with snaking threads and such.  (And note also the "known galaxy"!)

But as noted, the ANH map seems to be contiguous.

Or is it really?

We could, after all, argue that the million stars on that map, while indeed being the Empire, did not in fact represent all the stars.   That is to say, just as Palpatine hid layers on his holomap, so too might the map Vader was looking at only have contained inhabited systems, and thus was itself only showing a "tiny fraction" of the stars..   Then, all we would have to deal with would be not the "tiny fraction", but only "this section of a modest-sized galaxy".

This would allow us to move up from Option A to something at least a little bigger, like Option B . . . maaayyybe even Option C, though it doesn't really follow to allow for a "section" that is larger than half of the galaxy.

V.  Conclusion

So, let's say we have an average galaxy of 36,500 light-years . . . and let's say the Republic constituted a third of it.   That would be either 12,000 and some-odd light-years just by taking that diameter and dividing by three, or, using our flat-galaxy area technique, a circular area of a bit over 21,000 light-years in width.  (Specifically, a 36,500 light-year diameter galaxy would, at uniform thickness, represent an area of just over a billion square light-years.  A third of that falls a bit shy of 350,000,000 square light-years.)

The reality is not clear, of course, since we've never actually seen a real map.  And, even the 21,000 light-year diameter doesn't seem to sit well compared to "this section".  But, this is somewhat easily managed.  After all, the Republic and Empire need not be circular.  It could meet its area requirement by being a square 18,675 light-years on a side, or a rectangle or oval spanning almost the whole length of half the galaxy but only penetrating half-way across its width, et cetera.  The most interesting thought is that it simply represents a wedge of about a third.  This seems to best satisfy the notion of "this section", certainly.

But, it does feel proper to roll with the area figure generally, since then there would be enough additional galactic area fairly close to the borders to allow for eighty percent of the galaxy to be known well.

But, the true value could be well above or well below that figure.   After all, the Republic was a vast network of tens of thousands of systems . . . the Empire seemed somewhat bigger, numerically-speaking, though perhaps more consolidated.

In any case, none of this represents firm figures.   A galaxy of uniform thickness and perfectly average size is a shot in the dark.   There's thus currently no hard data to go on to get a real size other than "modest-sized" for the galaxy itself.   For all we know, this could actually refer to a tiny galaxy . . . the smallest spirals are currently thought to be about 15000 light-years wide, in which case the whole Republic could easily be a mere 12,000 light-years across, by our easy area maneuver.

And, there are other possibilities which I haven't followed here.   People complain about my excessive length, after all.

VI.  Addenda

Is it even plausible that the Republic has extra-galactic holdings?   Not really, no.  Brian Young of SciFights has, of course, argued that the Republic completely controlled both the main galaxy and two satellite galaxies, an apparent effort to put Star Wars on par with Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

His basis for this is two satellite galaxies showing up in a picture where he then ignores that the zoom-in to the stated location is well within the galaxy.  His other basis is the name of the "Intergalactic Banking Clan".

Perhaps the owner of Interstellar Data in California should call his office.  These cats, too.   Beyond mere "interstellar" modern businesses, we have "intergalactic" ones . . . Intergalactic Toys LLC, Intergalactic Bread Company, Intergalactic Web Designers . . . these all came up on a quick Googling for "intergalactic small business".  And don't forget all the small businesses who fancy themselves "International" . . . I've dealt with one whose effective range was about fifty miles on its best day.   The same goes for "National" businesses that aren't, or ones who fancy themselves "United States" something-or-other or something-or-other "of America" or similar.

For banks themselves, how many "national banks" do you know of that are actually tiny and only capable of transactions in one state?   The first Google hit for "national bank" was this small bank called "National Bank" serving a dozen contiguous counties in southwest Virginia.  For small "international bank" types, I see that "United International Bank, L.L.C., a community bank" is referred to and seemingly only exists in Flushing, New York.

Perhaps we're thinking too small, though.   Just search for "universe LLC" to find several places that would be willing to cater to our entire billions-of-light-years-wide universe of customers, if only they'd show up.   I mean, it isn't like we can take our goods and services to them.  

Similarly, I rather doubt the Intergalactic Banking Clan is likely to be opening up a branch location in the Milky Way anytime soon.  Similarly, unless someone's gotten *very* lost and is floating along on a long-dead ship, I rather doubt they have any market penetration whatsoever in the satellite galaxies of the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

2000 Parsecs

In "Supply Lines"[TCW3], we get a bit of a prequel to the first season's Ryloth trilogy, as well as a prequel to the first regular episode "Ambush"[TCW1].   In it, we see the destruction of "the entire Outer Rim garrison", apparently based on Ryloth, and seemingly this must be early in the war.

(A little side note, but given that they kept Geonosis for a bit longer, a planet in the Outer Rim, they can't have lost the Outer Rim altogether.)

The Ryloth garrison was out of food, fuel, and ammunition, and the ships in orbit were similarly strained, shortly being destroyed altogether.    This leads to the following call for help from the Jedi Council to Bail Organa's ship, somewhere in hyperspace:

Kenobi: "Senator, the fleet protecting Ryloth has been destroyed and the supply lines have been cut. The troops are out of food, fuel, ammunition . . . and the civilian population is starving."
Organa: "That is grim news."
Windu: "Our blockade runners should be able to penetrate the Separatist lines and drop relief supplies. But, they do not have the range to reach Ryloth."
Kenobi: "The planet Toydaria is 2000 parsecs closer than the nearest fleet. If the blockade runners can supply from there, they might reach Ryloth in time."

There's a lot of interesting tech detail in this episode . . . such as the Republic fleet at Ryloth being out of fuel and ammunition also, the Admiral of the Republic fleet there losing his ship to the Separatists via a hit to the reactor and the subsequent shutdown of all systems, and so on.

But for the moment, let's focus on that distance.

The number of parsecs given was 2000 in reference to how much closer Toydaria was to Ryloth than the nearest fleet. That is about 6500 light-years.

Given the circuitous routes hyperdrive usage can require as seen with Malevolence, plus the fact that the Separatists would have seized the hyperspace lanes early on in the war (cutting off the Outer Rim from other support), the notion that this is a straight-line distance is an assumption only, and a poor one, at that.

Even if we assume it, though, it is still roughly consistent with a Republic/Empire as I have described.

For example, if you imagine a Roman civil war circa 115 CE with the fighting of interest happening in the boonies of Morocco and the Med seized by Separatists, it is not impossible to imagine that the nearest army that can intervene might be in Egypt or Turkey or Greece, rather than in Rome or even Spain.

In a wedge-shaped Republic, then, with Separatist worlds and hyperspace lanes cut off, 6500 light-years could represent any shape of route from almost any starting point.

Meanwhile, the inflationist view, of course, would be that the galaxy is huge, basically fully-covered by the Republic, and that 6500 light-years is mere hopscotch for hyperdrive. (And of course the whole episode occurred in minutes, and so on.)   Except that's silly, too, because then we're stuck with the peculiar value of one fleet (generally shown to be a mere handful of ships) per an area of 6500 light-years diameter. At EU galaxy sizes and if that was the norm, that would imply just 85 different little flotillas, or a few hundred ships. And, of course, there are severe range limitations indicated . . . the Republic fleet at Ryloth is out of fuel after getting there and fighting for some time, and the relief ships have some sort of severe range limitations when carrying food and medical supplies, limitations that seem to be alleviated if they fly empty and refuel at Toydaria.

In other words, we have a plausible and consistent notion versus one that leads to contradictions.

But still, we do have upward pressure in regards to hyperdrive velocities. Even at 20000c, you're only traveling 384 light-years per week. Thus, a 6500 light-year trip would take 17 weeks . . . that's four months. While not completely implausible given the suffering that supposedly occurs on Ryloth over an extended period, not to mention issues like Anakin and Obi-Wan being gone from Coruscant for months at a time on Outer Rim campaigns as per the RotS surprise-I'm-very-preggers conversation, it seems a stretch that it would've taken that long for Anakin's fleet to get there.

On the other hand, Anakin's relief fleet arrives after the Hutt hyperlanes become usable, meaning that Ryloth may no longer have been 6500 light-years distant at that time.

Either way, the 2000 parsecs don't really mean much to us without more data.

Flashlights Again

In case you hadn't noticed, one of my interests is flashlights and other lighting technology, and this is something that sci-fi usually gets very, very wrong.

In fairness, it's hard to get it right.  After all, unless you actually have uber-flashlights, then you have to engage in a lot of expensive fakery to make it look like you have them.  Well, really, that's only true in live-action scenarios . . . you'll note that in TCW, a CGI show, flashlights and weaponlights still suck.

What should sci-fi flashlights look like?

Well, this "tiny monster" would be a good start . . . handheld and 3500 lumens.   Of course, in the not-terribly-distant future, we would expect the whole thing to be truly pocket-size, or even a pen-light with that output.   (At some point they'll be regulating them.)

Bear in mind, though, that there are caveats.   Remember from my recent posts that sometimes we have to consider valid reasons for things not to be quite as awesome as we might expect?   Well, this is especially true of flashlights.  Just because a flashlight seems a little dim in certain scenarios doesn't mean it actually sucks.

For instance, if I'm breaking into your house and it's dark, I don't actually want to have a super-bright light on my weapon, because as soon as I hit a bright or reflective surface my capacity to see just went to crap because I've virtually flash-blinded myself.   And one must also consider that if for whatever reason the light goes out or is knocked away or something, I don't want to be completely blind . . . that is to say, if the ambient lighting is dim, I might only want a flashlight bright enough to allow a bit of extra visibility but not so much that everything's pitch dark to me as soon as my light goes away.

This is part of why some weaponlights feature diffuser attachments, too . . . the basic idea being that instead of a concentrated beam of light, you want to aim for more of an area light.  This is very good kit.   Consider the image from TCW 122 where the Senate's gone dark and an assassin droid and a Weequay are skulking about.   The image shows the droid's headlight on the left and the weaponlight of the Weequay on the right.

This is horrible.   Were it not for ambient light, it doesn't look like they could even see if someone was standing on the table with a gun.  And note how the weaponlight's beam center virtually whites out the wall?  That's not so good, either.   They'd have done a lot better to put panty-hose on their lights or something.

However, they are consistent with R2-D2's little searchlight from AotC when he was guarding Padme's room.   At least then we could suppose that he was aiming for a dim and conical light to avoid waking Padme by emitting THE SUN at her, but in this case we have no such excuse.

Star Trek has a ton of similar examples, some of which are equally inexcusable.  Some of the best lights come from Enterprise, actually, but even there with their big 1950's-looking metal flashlights we still don't see the output of something like the "tiny monster" even when it would be helpful.

Put simply, it's just a fact of science fiction, and indeed the rigors of television in general.   There's an awful lot of thought put into myriad details (such as the contents of that room, the color of the emergency lighting, et cetera), but often not as much as we, the fans, put into all the other details that don't get the same amount of thought.

(And with Star Wars now going with a unified canon where even short stories from Insider that aren't spell-checked are to be canon, this is only going to get worse.)

Smoking Pots and The Holy Grate

Just a quick note . . . I'm working on a full big long page on the topic, but in case you were not aware, there's "The Holy Grate" issue.  Basically, when Leia shoots the grate that leads down to the trash compactor on the Death Star in ANH, everyone in the universe just rolled with it . . . except inflationists, who have argued . . . and I kid you not . . . that the grate was cast iron because:

a.  It's black.
b.  Iron is common.
c.  It has an orange peel texture like cast iron.
d.  It was in a jail
e.  It's metallic because . . . uh . . . um . . . .SILENCE, INFIDEL!

There's a lot more to the Holy Grate arguments, but that'll do for the moment.  But, suffice it to say that they wank it out in every conceivable fashion in an effort to give Star Wars hand weapons greater firepower (in raw power and in effect) than Star Trek people-pooc'ers.  (Who cares?  It isn't like they're gonna hit anything with them anyway.)

So on to the quick note:

I wasn't there to witness it, but I'm told a PC under a desk started smoking and, within just a few seconds after the smell produced worry, a six-foot wide column of haze was created from floor to ceiling, leading to someone quickly unplugging things.  The fire department was even called, I'm told.

What was the cause?   Well, it seems a SATA power cable and an optical drive had some sort of disagreement.   Not to worry you, but if you have an even slightly recent computer, you have a SATA power cable in it.   I later got a chance to examine the PC and take some pictures.

That's the SATA power connector.   Bear in mind that the width of this thing is like an inch or so.  What seems to have happened . . . which per Googling is not as uncommon as one might wish . . . is that the assorted little skinny contacts for the 12v power somehow had an issue, whether due to the optical drive having a problem or just because the little wires are too skinny for the amperages available.

As you can see above, those little contacts are missing.  Below is the damage to the optical drive itself . . . deadly to the drive, but minimal, and there was no internal damage that could be seen:

It occurred to me just a few moments ago after seeing what oddball antics Brian Young was up to this week . . . yet another video on the Holy Grate entitled "Pots and Kettles" . . . that this event was a teachable moment for Vs. Debate purposes.

Note that the SATA connector is black.  Note also that plastic is common (and weight-saving, which we know to be important in Star Wars vessel construction).  Note also that the connector has a mottled texture.  And, note that  . . . aw crap, it wasn't in a jail.  Nevermind.   I concede that point.

Still, though, the inflationist religion requires us to believe that a bunch of Leia-wrist-thick bars were considered necessary to secure a hole leading to a trash compactor.  That's odd since we don't even make prison bars wrist-thick, but whatever.  And then there's the whole magic of how molten iron is supposed to cool enough in ten seconds not to ignite Chewbacca's hair, but whatever.

More importantly, a tiny pencil-eraser-width of vaporized and melted metal and plastic was sufficient to produce a column of hazy smoke six feet wide in real life . . . and the smoke produced by the grate was similar, lazily rising next to Han and no different than any of the other blaster hits that made big puffs of smoke against everything from people to cameras to walls.

Think about that . . . the inflationists would have you believe that the Holy Grate represents the vaporization of several liters of metal . . . and yet it produces no more smoke than maybe an entire milliliter of plastic.

Y'know, solids are solids because there's a helluva lot of stuff there.  Indeed, if you want to figure the expansion of a solid into a gas, you usually have to assume expansion of hundreds of times the prior volume, because solids . . . unlike gases . . . are dense stuff.   Dude, where the hell is all the stuff?    I mean, even 500 times the volume times "several liters" is, assuming seven liters like they claim elsewhere, at least 3500 liters.   That's 3.5 cubic meters (123 cubic feet) of gas to suddenly and explosively deal with.  

No, that's not "an area of smoke rising in the air" we're talking about.  This is a huge volume of extra air.  We would normally call this blast . . . where the hell is it?  We're talking about a sudden presence of an area of gas the size of Leia * Leia * Leia in length and width and height, in addition to the existing air.   I don't see it.  Do you?

Fear not, the inflationists have wished it away!   It all flies down the chute, silly-billy, even though we can just watch some of the smoke go lazily down the chute and it isn't thousands of liters worth.

There's also the fact that the top parts of the grate wobble when Han jumps through, which I would go so far as to say is a decidedly-un-wrist-thick-cast-iron thing to do.

I guess his foot must be made of neutronium.

Anyway, the way I figure, at best this thick grate was made of carbon, if we're gonna play the "black and common" game.  But really, I don't even think that's a logical necessity.  I'm perfectly content with it being any old thing . . . after all, it isn't like it really vaporized.  The bar fragments are clearly seen on a trajectory down the chute.

So, inflationists, make it whatever you like . . . I'm fond of hydrofoamed permacrete myself . . . just don't try to wank it anymore.  Much as I enjoy a good debate where I hold all the cards, I'd really love to not have to finish the big-ass page right now.   It does, after all, take time to do things properly, as someday I hope you guys find out.

In the Year 2889

For at least a decade I've been pointing out that the Vs. Debate has only a limited lifespan . . . or, as I put it elsewhere:

Another potential pitfall is that, even today, there are many elements of even the most recently-produced Trek and Wars which seem almost anachronistic . . . as if societies hundreds of years more advanced had suffered technological regressions somehow.  Of course, the truth is that there were often simply technological breakthroughs which were not known to the writers or else were ignored for "dramatic necessity".  However, for the most part we can simply assume that both Trek and Wars technological history would include Earth-level technologies of the present-day (though I rather doubt that this sort of rationale can be maintained with a straight face much beyond circa 2025).   Suffice it to say that in fifty years the Trek and Wars produced in the 20th Century will, for the most part, look as backwards to mankind as 30's-era Buck Rogers looks to us now.

But really, I'm not sure that's the best way of viewing the situation.

Consider the work attributed to Jules Verne called In the Year 2889.   It's a short story, so feel free to go read it . . . I'll wait.

 . . .

Right, so if you noticed, there are more than a few things that might seem entirely silly to us now.   The concept of a mean lifespan of 52 years is presented as a wondrous achievement, newspapers have been replaced since 2869 by people physically reading the news to them (and even then only that which is of interest) owing to the enormous development of telephony since 2789, solar power is only a couple of centuries old, and a large planet a ways beyond Neptune has had its orbit located.  Moreover, space travel seems entirely absent from the picture, as determination of whether there's life on the moon seems still to be a question and, moreover, ascertaining if there's any on the back side is completely challenging!

Some of these bits are insightful insofar as being predictors of future developments beyond 1889, when the work was written, but much of it had already happened a mere 100 years later, not 1000.

So if we take this story as the canon of this universe, what are we to do with such absurdities and evidence of slow development?

Well, we have to accept them, that's what.

So, let's say there's a prequel set in that universe in the year 2600 or so when, evidently, a lot of the high technology that had only been developed after 2689 or so wasn't around.

Sure, this was what might be called a "mature civilization", to borrow the inflationist phrase, but clearly we could not apply our modern technological understanding to it . . . they didn't have solar power, for crying out loud, and apparently don't know what's on the back side of the moon!   You can hardly assume that NASA can send a space probe there in your prequel story.

Put simply, we have a glimpse of the rules of the universe, as it has presented to us through its canon.

As soon as you start assuming extra things based on the development and culture of modern Earth, you move away from discussing that universe and into making up your own universe.

(And of course, here we dovetail into another recent post about the dangers of making up your own universe and calling it Star Wars, as our inflationist friends are so inclined to do.)

So, what to do with Star Trek and Star Wars now, when we know that even today some of what we see is so anachronistic?   Well, we have to accept them as they are, that's what.  

Sure, we can still work toward some rationale as to why a certain seeming failing could be a strength, and that's fine . . . I've referenced the whited-out model windows and carrying of padds to deliver reports as an example of eavesdropping-prevention, for instance . . . but there are certain things that scarcely make sense now, and will make even less sense in the not-too-distant future, and even the best inflationist-level mental gymnastics aren't going to allow you to divine a way to have them make sense.

Even now, for instance, snipers can use remarkable computer technology to assist in making their shots.  It wouldn't be surprising to see snipers using heavily computerized, almost self-aiming weapons in the future, and for this technology to eventually drop down to the normal troops.   It might take 200 years . . . it might take 20.  But either way, battle droids and stormtroopers that can't hit the broad side of a barn already don't make much sense, and will make even less soon enough.

Sure, we can try to make up things about jamming and other ECM that somehow prevent advanced systems from working, but it's obvious that the battle droids can still *see*, and see well enough to walk, so it isn't like we can claim they're blind.   They're just bad shots, as they themselves will admit.

Are we to ignore the bad aim in the canon, or simply accept that this is the world they live in (oh-OH-oh) and that those are the poorly-aiming hands they're given?

I think we have to do the latter.   Some prefer the former . . . especially inflationists if they think they can use it to wank out Star Wars.

Avoid that mentality . . . it's a disaster of illogic.

Flak

I've never understood why most inflationists have always sought to reject the existence of flak bursts in Star Wars.   Whenever I've brought it up they've flamed me, called me names, et cetera.  Perhaps the nicest thing they've said is that it is a "hasty generalization" on my part.  It was so rare that seeing it mentioned by an inflationist was itself cause for a thread at StarfleetJedi.

It's strange because some folks accepted them and rolled on.  Michael January, for instance, whose pages are contained in the Obsidian Order section of ST-v-SW.Net, notes that a turbolaser bolt is not a laser beam, because it "travels slower than light, is visible in a vacuum, even from the side, and can detonate in spectacular flak-bursts."

But for many, even getting them to accept the word "flak" was like pulling teeth.

I hadn't seen the topic come up much in a long while, but recently I've seen the topic come up again from inflationists like "Captain Seafort", along with implicit rejections of flak bursts by Brian Young in his Star Wars shield videos where no flak bursts are ever acknowledged . . . every flash is a shield interaction or hull strike.

It's always been strange to me because, other than the fact that it gives them the option of claiming shield interaction, invisible asteroid hits, and so on, rejecting flak bursts does so little for the inflationist cause that I just don't see why it's worth the embarrassment.

What embarrassment, you ask?   Well, it's the embarrassment of rejecting so many flak references from the canon.  Let's start with the scripts:

 A New Hope - Script 

(7)

INTERIOR: LUKE'S X-WING FIGHTER -- COCKPIT.
        Luke adjusts his controls and breathes a sigh of relief. Flak
        bursts outside the cockpit window.
LUKE: I got a little cooked, but I'm okay.

INTERIOR: READ LEADER'S X-WING FIGHTER -- COCKPIT -- TRAVELING.
        Red Leader flies through a heavy hail of flak.
RED LEADER: Luke, let me know when you're going in.

INTERIOR: LUKE'S X-WING -- COCKPIT -- TRAVELING.
        The blurry Death Star surface races past the cockpit window as
        a big smile sweeps across Luke's face at the success of his
        run. Flak thunders on all sides of him. 

INTERIOR: RED LEADER'S X-WING -- COCKPIT -- TRAVELING.
        The Death Star's surface sweeps past as Red Leader searches
        the sky for the Imperial fighters. Flak pounds at his ship.
RED LEADER: Keep up your visual scanning. With all this jamming,
they'll be on top of you before your scope can pick them up.

INTERIOR: GOLD FIVE'S Y-WING -- COCKPIT -- TRAVELING.
        Gold Five is a pilot in his early fifties with a very battered
        helmet that looks like it's been through many battles. He
        looks around to see if enemy ships are near. His fighter is
        buffeted by Imperial flak.

INTERIOR: LUKE'S COCKPIT.
        Flak and laserbolts flash outside Luke's cockpit window.
WEDGE: (over headset) My scope shows the tower, but I can't see the
exhaust port! Are you sure the computer can hit it?

LUKE: Artoo, try and increase the power!
EXTERIOR: LUKE'S X-WING FIGHTER.
        Ignoring the bumpy ride, flak, and lasers, a beeping
        Artoo-Detoo struggles to increase the power, his dome turning
        from side to side. 

The Empire Strikes Back - Script

(13)

DACK: Luke, we've got a malfunction in fire control. I'll have to cut
in the auxiliary.
LUKE: Just hang on. Hang on, Dack. Get ready to fire that tow cable.
           Barely keeping his seat in the tumbling ship, Dack struggles
        to set up his harpoon gun.
           Luke swings his speeder around and heads toward an oncoming
        walker. Laser bolts and flak fill the air, creating a deadly
        obstacle course for the tiny craft.

EXTERIOR: HOTH -- BATTLEFIELD
           Luke's speeder and Rogue Two fly in formation, banking from
        right to left and flying above the erupting battlefield. Flak
        bursts all around them.
INTERIOR: LUKE'S SNOWSPEEDER, ROGUE LEADER -- COCKPIT
           Luke, glancing over, sees Rogue Two on his left. His ship
        shudders as flak bursts nearby.

INTERIOR: LUKE'S SNOWSPEEDER, ROUGE LEADER -- COCKPIT
           Desperately, Luke works the controls of his flak-buffeted
        ship. Suddenly, the speeder is rocked by a huge explosion.
        Luke struggles with the controls with a look of terror on his
        face. The speeder fills with smoke, and electrical sparks jump
        about the cockpit.
LUKE: (into comlink) Hobbie, I've been hit!

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT
           Inside the cockpit, Chewie lets out a loud howl. Han checks
        as the ship is buffeted by exploding flak. He appears to be
        doing six things at once.
HAN: (harried) I saw them! I saw them!

EXTERIOR: SPACE -- MILLENNIUM FALCON -- TIE FIGHTERS -- STAR DESTROYER
           The Falcon races into the starry vastness, followed by the
        four Imperial TIE fighters and an Imperial Star Destroyer.
INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT
           Stars race by as flak bursts outside the Falcon's window.

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT
           The ship shudders as flak explodes near the cockpit window.
        Threepio checks a tracking scope an the side control panel
        while Leia watches tensely out the window.
THREEPIO: Oh, thank goodness we're coming out of the asteroid field.

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT
           Han corrects the angle of his ship.
HAN: Let's get out of here. Ready for light-speed? One...two...three!
           Han pulls back on the hyperspace throttle and -- nothing
        happens. Flak bursts continue to rock the ship.

EXTERIOR: SPACE -- MILLENNIUM FALCON -- ASTEROID FIELD
           The Falcon banks, makes a steep, twisting turn. In the
        next moment it is racing toward the Star Destroyer, looking
        very small against the massive surface of the Imperial ship.
        As it moves across the surface of the Star Destroyer, the
        Falcon bobs and weaves to avoid the numerous flak bursts.
INTERIOR: STAR DESTROYER, AVENGER -- BRIDGE
           The tiny Falcon heads directly for the Avenger's bridge.
        The Imperials stationed there are stunned to see the small
        spaceship racing low across the hull, headed directly at the
        huge windows of the bridge area. Alarms go off everywhere. The
        Destroyer's commander, Captain Needa, can scarcely believe his
        eyes.

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT
           One of the cloud cars opens fire on the Falcon, its flak
        rocking the ship. Chewie barks his concern.
HAN: (into transmitter) No, I don't have a landing permit. I'm trying
to reach Lando Calrissian.
           More flak bursts outside the cockpit window and rattles the
        ship's interior. Leia looks worried.
HAN: (into transmitter) Whoa! Wait a minute! Let me explain.

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- HATCH
           The hatch pops open with a hiss of pressure. Lando reaches
        out to help the battered warrior inside the ship.
INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- COCKPIT
           Flak bursts all around it as the Falcon banks away from the
        city. Leia and Chewie struggle with the controls.

LANDO: Punch it!
           The Wookiee shrugs and pulls back on the light-speed
        throttle. The sound of the ion engine changes...it is winding
        up. Faces are tense, expectant. But nothing happens, and the
        engine goes off. Chewie lets out a frustrated howl. The flak
        still violently rocks the ship.
LANDO: They told me they fixed it. I trusted them to fix it. It's not
my fault!

Revenge of the Sith - Script

(4)

PAN DOWN to reveal a REPUBLIC ATTACK CRUISER. Continue to PAN with the Cruiser as TWO JEDI STARFIGHTERS enter and head toward an enemy Battle Cruiser. TRUCK with the Jedi Fighters as they maneuver in unison, dodging flack and enemy laser fire. R2-D2 is on Anakin's ship. R4-P17 is on Obi-Wan's ship. A giant space battle is revealed as the tiny Jedi ships continue their assault in a synchronous ballet.
2 INT. OBI-WAN'S STARFIGHTER COCKPIT-SPACE
OBI-WAN bounces through the flack with a frown. His ship rocks violently.

OBI-WAN dives toward the surface of one of the larger TRADE FEDERATION BATTLESHIPS and is forced to fly through a maelstrom of laser flack. He skims the surface, followed by the DROID DROP FIGHTER, which is followed by ANAKIN.

ANAKIN swoops low and skims across a TRADE FEDERATION BATTLESHIP, dodging flack as ARTOO bounces along, trying to get out a sentence.

That's just the scripts, but they're also ignoring references in the novelizations . . . 

A New Hope - Novelization

(1)

Ch. 12:  "Blue Leader, this is Red Leader," he announced into his mike.  "We're starting our attack run. The exhaust port is located and marked. No flak, no enemy fighters up here-yet. Looks like we'll get at least one smooth run at it."

The Empire Strikes Back - Novelization

(9)

Ch. 5:   Luke saw the explosion of his squadron's first casualty as he looked from his cockpit window. Angrily, Luke fired his ship's guns at a walker, only to receive a hail of Imperial fire power that shook his speeder in a barrage of flak.

Ch. 5:  Explosions rocked Luke's ship, tossing it about violently in the enveloping flak. Through the window he could see another walker that appeared to be unaffected by the full fire power of the Rebel attack speeders. This lumbering machine now became Luke's target as he flew, moving in a descending arc. The walker was firing directly at him, creating a wall of laser bolts and flak.

Ch. 5:   Luke and Zev could see the destruction of the walker as they flew overhead, banking from right to left to avoid the flak bursting around them.

Ch. 6:   Chewbacca howled over the roar of the Falcon's engines. The ship was beginning to lurch with the buffeting flak blasted at it by the fighters.
 'I know, I know, I see them,' Han shouted. It was taking everything he had to maintain control of the ship.

Ch. 7:  Solo raced down to the ship's hold and began to work frantically on repairing the malfunctioning hyperdrive unit. It was all but impossible to carry out the delicate repair work necessary while the Falcon shook with each blast of flak from the fighters.

Ch. 10:  Solo concentrated intently on his flying. It was all he could do to avoid the barrage of flak bursts rocketing toward the Falcon from the Imperial ship. The freighter bobbed and weaved as Han, still heading directly for the Star Destroyer, steered to avoid the bolts.
No one on his tiny ship had the slightest idea what his plan might be.

Ch. 13:  The Millennium Falcon veered away from Cloud City and soared through the thick billowing cloud cover. Swerving to avoid the blinding flak from the TIE fighters, Princess Leia and the Wookiee pilot struggled to keep their ship skyborne.

Ch. 13:  'Ben,' he whispered in utter despair, 'why didn't you tell me?' Lando tried to adjust some controls, and Chewbacca leaped from his chair to race to the hold. Leia took Chewbacca's seat and helped Lando as they flew the Falcon through the exploding flak.

Return of the Jedi - Novelization

(2)

Ch. 8:  'You won't get a second chance at this, Admiral. Han will have that shield down - we've got to give him more time. Head for those Star Destroyers.'
Ackbar looked around him. A huge charge of flak rumbled the ship, painting a brief, waxen light over the window. Calrissian was right: there would be no second chance. It was now, or it was the end.

Ch. 8:  In the Millennium Falcon, Lando steered like a maniac through an obstacle course of the giant, floating Imperial Star Destroyers -trading laser bolts with them, dodging flak, outracing TIE fighters.

Revenge of the Sith - Novelization

(5)

Ch. 1:   Antifighter flak flashed on all sides. Even louder than the clatter  of shrapnel and the snarl of his sublight drives, his cockpit hummed  and  rang with near hits from the turbolaser fire of the capital ships crowding  space around him. Sometimes his whirling spinning dive through the cloud of battle skimmed bursts so closely that the energy-scatter would slam his starfighter hard enough to bounce his head off the supports of his pilot's chair.
Right now Obi-Wan Kenobi envied the clones: at least they had helmets.
"Arfour," he said on internal comm, "can't you do something with the inertials?"
The droid ganged into the socket  on his starflghter's left wing whistled something that sounded suspiciously like a human apology. Obi-Wan's frown deepened. R4-P17  had  been spending too much time with Anakin's eccentric astromech; it was picking up R2-D2's bad habits.
New bursts of flak bracketed his path.  He reached into the Force, feeling for a safe channel through the swarms of shrapnel and sizzling  nets of particle beams.

Ch. 1:  Obi-Wan's starfighter streaked along the curve of the Separatist cruiser's dorsal hull. Antifighter flak burst on all sides as the cruiser's guns tried to pick him up.

Ch. 1:  They flashed through the battle, dodging flak and turbolaser bolts, slipping around cruisers to eclipse themselves from the sensors of droid fighters. They were only a few dozen kilometers from the command cruiser when a pair of tri-fighters whipped across their path, firing on the deflection.

Ch. 3:  Anakin slid along the bank of chairs on one side of the immense situation table that dominated the center of the General's Quarters' main room; Obi-Wan mirrored him on the opposite side.  Silent lightning flashed and flared: the room's sole illumination came from the huge curving view wall at its far end, a storm of turbolaser blasts and flak bursts and the miniature supernovae that were the deaths of entire ships.

Now, you might've noticed those little numbers after the headings.   Those are counters for my ease.   From the scripts we have 24 examples.   From the novelizations we have 17.

That's 41 descriptions of flak in the canon (or flack from cannons, whatever).   Now, not all of these are from space battles, but the vast majority are.

And that's not even talking about the flak in The Clone Wars, such as in "Landing at Point Rain" where a Jedi notes that the flak during their landing attempt is too heavy.   Even if it was an inflationist who couldn't read, at least having flak described audibly should've been a wake-up call.

And there's also the new canon's first entry "Blade Squadron" in which, in issue 150 on p. 34,  the Devastator is said to have a defensive "flak envelope", which sounds very much like what we saw at times on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica in the form of a veritable shaped shield of explosion and debris surrounding a ship at a standoff distance from its hull.

Put simply, I don't think the existence of flak is even a debatable topic in regards to Star Wars.

=== Flak: Bolt Detonation ===

So, flak exists one way or another.   But, the nature of the flak is often disputed.  Even when I've successfully twisted proverbial arms before to get folks to acknowledge that flak exists in Star Wars, they'll usually try to evade with a claim of special flak guns or something rather than accepting that the bolts can detonate, as obviated by the "laser flack" above and a number of visual references.  I'll never understand that  . . . we can watch it happen throughout the films and TCW, but they insist there are invisible things being hit.

Of course, these invisible things are also being vaporized, they claim, which is why they're invisible after being hit.  Their invisibility beforehand?  Oh, um, well, that's simply to be ignored, or else they'll flame you.

 Note that bolt detonation is a very specific thing . . . this is actually where we see a bolt explode without apparent contact.

Only some of the references above point specifically to bolts exploding into flak.  Others could be construed (or misconstrued) as suggesting flak is a separate weapon altogether.

But, when we actually see bolts blow up . . . why even act like there's a separate flak gun?  Where are these special flak guns?    I don't think there's any evidence of them.  Be it the cruiser's guns trying to track Obi-Wan's fighter or the TIE fighter guns causing flak bursts around the Falcon, there is no indication, and certainly not in that latter case, of additional weaponry.   Good lord, where would you even hide a worthwhile flak cannon on a TIE?

Put simply, I don't think we need them.  Regarding the visual media, we have instances of turbolaser/blaster bolts exploding in mid-flight, usually creating a big flash or other explosion-y effect.  Similarly, the high-atmosphere combat in RotS and most battles in TCW feature a number of smoky-looking explosions, so smoke is no indicator.

===Flak: Dude, Where's My Bolt?===

Now, it is notable that there are a number of occasions where there is no visible bolt to associate to an explosion.   For instance, the flak bursts used against the escape pods in "Ambush"[TCW1] don't always seem to relate to bolts, though they are generally near them.   However, when the battlecruisers are firing on the Republic frigate, almost every space explosion observed (save for some very distant flashes) is tied to a bolt in some way.

(I have a lot more detail on this on the NoLettersHome wiki, but since it's not public yet we'll save all that for later.)

Even when we don't see a bolt, however, that simply does not mean one was not there.   Even in TCW, which being a CGI series really doesn't have any need to skimp on the bolts flying about, we have instances where smaller shots are simply invisible at even minor ranges of a handful of kilometers or less.   Take, for instance, "Downfall of a Droid"[TCW1] in which the battle between the fleets only seems to feature the two biggest forward-facing guns of the Separatist battlecruisers being fired.  And yet, when we zoom in on the Republic fighters, the sky is lousy with small fighter-killing bolts . . . one even hits Anakin's fighter and bounces off.

Surely we are not expected to believe that Anakin's fighter miniaturized and shrugged off the massive bolts of a battlecruiser!   So where are these bolts in the even-slightly-wider shots?   Well, we can't see them.

Still, this concept of a separate origin for at least some flak explosions (other than the "laser flack" variety) seems to also have some basis in the text references above, and even with the text referring to "shrapnel".   While we can presume this term could be re-applied to energy effects (a la the "energy scatter" note), that's a bit messy without more proof.

This is not to suggest that it is always separate, as some have, but that sometimes, seemingly especially in reference to anti-fighter flak, there is a separate explosion-producing thing in use.  Indeed, just watching "Ambush"[TCW1], there are no flak bursts when the Separatist battlecruisers are firing on the Republic frigate or vice versa . . . the only flak bursts occur when the escape pods are being targeted, suggesting that it is the "anti-fighter flak" effect in use.

One tantalizing possibility comes from that episode, however . . . if one watches carefully, the close-ups of the turrets during the firing on the escape pods shows that the two-gun turrets generally fire in unison.   However, when we then observe Yoda's escape pod with bolts and explosions around it, the bolts are invariably alone.  

It is not inconceivable that the same guns could be used to fire bolts that detonate, like normal flak-bursting bolts, but that for whatever reason the bolts themselves lose their luminosity in transit . . . not a misfire, per se, but just a normal effect of some kind . . . perhaps a leak in the galvening or some other such phrasing.

This, I think, would be the best union of both arguments, one that could at least theoretically satisfy the anti-flak crowd.   In concert (if needed) with the fact of smaller bolts simply not being visible at even short ranges, I think the situation should be satisfactory to all.

Inside Baseball

I'm a simple man with simple desires, but boy are they hard to satisfy.

(This post has very little to do with the debate topic, but instead is about the tools of the presentation.)

See, as it stands, I have something like 200 pages on this site plus around 400 blog posts.   That's a good bit of content, even if most of it is ancient at the moment.

I've obviously dabbled in websites and web design for awhile.  ST-v-SW.Net started as rough HTML pages hand-written and hand-coded in the Pico editor via a telnet session into the server, or on Windows Notepad (preferably the former since uploading was a bit of a chore).  Later, I used Frontpage, a WYSIWYG editor (meaning I didn't have to just save and see what the page looked like from the browser).  In recent years I've tried to use Kompozer but it does weird things that slow down my machine, meaning that it isn't really usable in the WYSIWYG way . . . that's depressing, since it's probably the best option out there short of something obnoxious like Dreamweaver (which, when I tried it several years ago, was completely ridiculous).   And almost all of them screw with the HTML you typed whether you want them to or not.

For some other work I've messed around with assorted "content management systems", or CMS's like Joomla, Drupal, CMSimple, and so on.   Generally speaking, these are database-driven (usually MySQL), though some like CMSimple are flat-file and databaseless.   Most have an online editor meaning you go in to your browser and into the administrative area of your site and get WYSIWYG (or nearly so) action.  They are generally considered dynamic (forums being a prime example of a dynamic site), though few really do that part well.  Either way, there are limitations on what you can do with them.

By analogy, the old way was like DOS . . . you could do whatever you wanted, within certain limitations.  It wasn't at all like these iPhone-esque CMS things where you only get one button on your one-trick-pony app.  They are, to quote an ex's apt t-shirt, "cute but dumb".

I much prefer the idea of a static website, because there are a ton of advantages.   There's nothing to screw up, you can set things up however you want, and it's way more secure than some freaky .php-and-SQL-driven gobbledygook.   If I need to back up, or pick up and move web hosts, I can do so almost effortlessly.  And if someone needs to come in behind me for any reason, it's a ton easier on them.   The issues were basically made most plain by this fellow who passed away in 2011.

Oh, and one more thing . . . I always hated the fact that Bob Brown's long-defunct (but now not) website, though generally available in the Wayback Machine, had all sorts of special gobbledygook on it that prevented it from working properly in Wayback form.  The old Obsidian Order pages, which were true dynamic pages by design, were also completely unusable for such a purpose.

In short, then, I really would prefer to avoid having any junk running in the background serving files, because that immediately means the site is not static.

However, there are some things that CMS software allows that I also like, such as automatic generation of certain pieces like RSS or even menus in some cases, or dynamic inclusion of other bits of other pages, et cetera.   The new NoLettersHome.Info requires dynamic content as part of the design.  Indeed, that Twitter and Facebook feed you see on the main page is dynamic content, albeit not from a CMS . . . but I figure that's extraneous and not necessary for the main site anyway, so it's good.

I have looked around from time to time for the next stage of ST-v-SW.Net.  Around 2007 I fiddled around with a Xoops site, then later a Joomla version.   A few years ago I had a Drupal version up and running, but the image handling at the time was so poor that the idea of actually converting the existing 200 pages over to it was a nightmare, and it never went any further.   The new logo was kinda neat, though . . . maybe at some point I can even find it and show it to you.

Amusingly, I would keep checking out Drupal from time to time but they have this silly thing where they're always advertising the as-yet-unreleased next-integer version.  So, when at one point I was looking at Drupal 6 seriously, they were advertising 7 as the next great thing, and-oh-by-the-way-upgrading-is-hard.   Even now with 7 out they're advertising 8 as the next great thing, and oh by the way we're only making an upgrade path from 6.   What the hell?  I appreciate the active development if I'm pondering locking myself into a CMS, but c'mon . . . give a little space.   Let a version be a positive thing and not always feel like a stopgap till the next one, and that I'm settling.  Geez.

And while Drupal is the software powering a lot of major sites, the fact is that they have IT staff.   I need to be able to walk away from this for months at a time unattended and know it won't explode.

Anyway, I never considered Wordpress for this, though I've built a site in it before . . . it's perfectly usable as a CMS, but given the vitriolic hatred my site engendered I wanted to be sure I had maximum security.  Any CMS is a problem in that regard, but some more than others.

Long story short, ST-v-SW.Net has seen several new versions come and go.   Invariably I would come up against something basic I wanted to do that the software didn't support, meaning I either had to go all psycho  codemonkey on it or else give up.   This is a hobby, so giving up was usually the better option.

But this time, I'm pretty serious about finding a solution that works.

I looked around at assorted things and eventually came across the notion of "static site generators".   This sounded delightful at first, though I quickly realized that, for the most part, these are completely useless.

First, most involve writing in Markdown or some similar "lightweight" markup language.   If HTML is like doing a document in Word or Libre/OpenOffice where you can control every little thing, Markdown is like Windows Write . . . OpenOffice produces real .doc documents, the latter is only really good for .rtf "rich text" crap.

You've probably used a lightweight markup language before.  BBCode is ubiquitous on forums, and all it is is a light markup.

Now, most of my pages are written with rather ancient HTML . . . newer HTML is far more ridiculous and heavy, yes, but old-school basic HTML is not that bad as a markup language.  Just remember the "a href" and "img src" stuff and you're golden.   And while Markdown claims to use normal e-mail and text file conventions, this is not actually true.  If I *want* you to read something I might *do this*, which to *my mind* is like bold, but in Markdown it's italics.  Heaven forbid if you want to _underline_ something properly . . . that's italics, too.  And tables?   Those are usually done in HTML anyway.   What?

So basically, you're stuck learning another language into which you must type, learning Markdown's particular idiosyncracies.

Second, most static site generators are meant to run on your computer, producing files which you then upload manually.   The hell?   What year is this, 1998?   Oh, sure, folks have found workarounds such as hosting their own servers or using Dropbox or other techniques, but that's pretty silly.

After continued searching I came across . . . I don't even know what they're called.  Online static site editors?  I actually paid money to the guys at Veolay, but got completely annoyed when it didn't work at all out of the box.   Like, you do everything it says (and I'm a smart cookie) and nothing works . . . that's annoying.  And there's approximately zero support unless you call them out on their Facebook page.  The utility of Veolay would've been that I could've left the site as-is and live-edited the pages.  But, it was a heaping failure.  I half-suspected it was a scam and if I don't see the promised refund soon I may go back to that idea.

I'm not going to pursue that option further because those sorts of not-a-CMS things are just messy.  For one, you have to go in and add div tags to all your content . . . meaning your site already has to be up to recent HTML standards.   In my day, you didn't need div tags.   Another issue is that most don't allow you to make a new page, which is completely weird to me.

After that fiasco I gave up and went back to my proverbial database-abusive spouse and set up a damnably non-static Drupal version of the site, and even brought the blog over to it via the same import mechanisms I'd had to use years ago (so much for advancement).  But, I discovered it didn't come with any of the handy-dandy sub-indexes (e.g. all posts from 2007 or all posts from March 2010).   This means that it is very pretty, but a giant mess and kinda useless.

Still not satisfied, I went looking around elsewhere, with the plan to use Drupal as a fallback position.

I was still intrigued by static site generators, but the fact is it's basically the exact same workflow I used almost 15 years ago except instead of writing HTML you're writing Markdown, which seems and extraneous step.

But I kept researching and found reference to AsciiDoc.   AsciiDoc is a similar concept to Markdown but twenty times better, even if its loudest online proponent Dan Allen strikes me as a total douche in several ways.  The problem is that Markdown, though fractured by numerous different versions, is well-supported . . . AsciiDoc is not.  That is to say, there are a ton of other tools that can do Markdown . . . even Android apps . . . but there's no such thing for AsciiDoc.  (Dan needs to turn down the douche and rally the troops.)

Even AsciiDoc has its annoyances, yes.  For instance, I might "quote" something or 'paraphrase' something, but the latter will become italics.  If I want to paraphrase, I have to use a leading `backtick' way over by the 1 key.  That's a needless screw-up of normal usage.  The backtick should be the coding key.   Granted, I don't use that sort of thing terribly often, but still.

AsciiDoc's main strength is that it can support markup for internal linking, a la a table of contents.  That's awesome.

In any case, that led me to finding the Pandoc program, which is totally amazeballs.   It is software that will readily convert numerous types of input into about a zillion types of output . . . meaning if you feed it text written in something like HTML or even MediaWiki markup, you can output MediaWiki, PDF, ODT, AsciiDoc, Markdown, et cetera.   It'll even dump to BBCode for easy quoting.  Of course, it won't accept AsciiDoc input yet, but I'm hopeful that will change.

So what I really want to be able to do is to convert the site as it stands now over into a standardized lightweight markup (preferably AsciiDoc but I could be coerced elsewhere) and then use that as source code (and write new material in that source).   That would mean I could quite readily convert the entire site into PDF files if I were so inclined, or have MediaWiki markup ready to go.

Of course, I am doing the NoLettersHome project right now which is MediaWiki based, so the best idea might be to aim for all-MediaWiki and use that as my source code until AsciiDoc gets better.   One advantage to this approach is that Pandoc eats MediaWiki right now.   However, I'd have to check further to see if MediaWiki will do things like I want.  The answer, I'm afraid, is probably a no when I consider things like the Volumetrics table.   Even doing it in .ODT as the source, while not implausible, is probably not desirable.

What I realized I really wanted was:

1.  A static site

I'd lose comment capability, but since I'm not using it now anyway except on the blog . . . well, that's what Twitter and Facebook and e-mail can be for.

2.  A server-side static site generator usable on a normal webserver

That is to say, something that would allow me to modify the "source" easily but the public pages would be static.   And a generator would allow for some dynamicism . . . such as repeatable blocks and such.   And it has to be able to live on any old server . . . I don't need an S3 bucket for this sort of thing.

3.  AsciiDoc input.

From what I can tell, AsciiDoc input is sufficient markup to achieve anything one wishes to achieve insofar as typographic prettiness and readability.   It can do internal linking (such as on my assorted tables of content, or the Volumetrics page notes, et cetera).  I think it even accepts two spaces after periods . . . so there.

3A.  WYSIWYG, whether client-side or server-side

It's nice to be able to see a picture in the document and not have to imagine it.

4.  Mobile-friendly workflow

I don't want to have to sit in front of a real computer . . . or even a Mac . . . if I see a typo that needs fixing.   I should be able to fix it using an old iPaq running Windows Mobile 2003 (which is *still* more useful than an iPhone).   If that means an online editor or merely the capacity to fix the source file and then regenerate the page, I don't care so long as I can get it done.

5.  RSS

RSS is considered a dying technology, but only by people with no sex life.

Yeah, I said it.

Also desirable:

6.  Draft

I may have a long-term edit of a page to do . . . I don't necessarily want it sitting out there in the wild while I create or fix it.   Some options that allow Markdown stuff don't have draft capability so you basically have to simply try to hide the page somewhere.   That's kinda silly.

7.  Math support

I don't really want to get into LaTeX, but I do need some way to attractively present calculations.   The text-only stuff I do now is pretty ghetto-tastic.   But, I can live with it if needed.

8.  Free

I don't put a lot of money into this and I plan to keep it that way.   Hell, most of the reason I know what I know about technology and whatnot is because, being a cheapskate, I'd always keep looking for a free way to do things.

Searching further, I finally found Pico CMS, which seemed to be the closest thing I was going to find.  It didn't support AsciiDoc, but it satisfied most of the requirements.  I thought it was completely wonderful until I started trying to do this newfangled Twig theming that it requires.   Also, the developer who made it seems to hate it and doesn't act like he wants anything more to do with it.

There was a fork of it to Phile CMS, and there's also the seemingly-unnamed-as-such fork called Morfy (which is funny since the guy who made it is all persnickety about folks wanting to white-label his other CMS).   But, between the reliance on flimsy Markdown, as well as the issues of plugin incompatibility, make these iffy choices as well.   And, of course, there's the fact that Pico and its brethren aren't really server-side static site generators, but seem instead to be software that live-renders your Markdown, which isn't quite what I'm going for.

Put simply, it doesn't look like it has occurred to anyone to have a server-side static site generator, which is quite disappointing really.

So I kept looking, and allowed my search to expand to flat-file CMS software that would at least accept Markdown, and came across Monstra.   Monstra seems quite interesting, despite being made by the Morfy guy, but has like zero useful documentation and very little works out of the box other than the basic CMS itself.  It does a lot better in that regard than competitors GetSimple CMS or some others that can only create Error 500 messages, but it's still pretty annoying.  (I have come to like to think the Ukrainian who made it is pro-Putin, which would of course make it okay to dislike him.)

So really, the search goes on for now . . . but expect a change at some point soon.