As some of you may already be aware, I am a member of the SD.net forums, posting as darth_timon. Prior to that, I posted as Sothis, before leaving the forums for a while. I’m hardly the most active member of that community, but I still feel like I am part of that community, and that’s what SD.net has become – a community.
The original purpose of the site (and forums) was to present a case for why the Empire from Star Wars would defeat the Federation from Star Trek in a war (it was a versus site). Anyone who has been involved with this debate down the years will be aware that the site’s author, Mike Wong, took a bullish, no-nonsense approach to it. He was at times aggressive, calling out those who made unscientific or pseudo-scientific arguments and he wasn’t afraid to name and shame people who he felt were being idiots.
Mike’s chief approach to these debates was that honesty trumped nicety. One thing I would dare say about Mike is that what you see is what you get – he doesn’t sugarcoat things and he doesn’t (if you’ll pardon the term) bullshit people. His style of discussion has certainly earned him detractors, but I dare say supporters too.
After all, honesty is a trait that seems rarer and rarer these days. It’s far easier it would seem, to paint over problems or issues with lies and deception. Sometimes you do need to be careful with what you say (little white lies to spare someone’s feelings are not, in my view, harmful), and certainly how you phrase something can have a big impact on how it’s taken by the other person, but substance is better than style (at least when it comes to this sort of discussion).
Now, this is not to say I agree wholeheartedly with Mike’s approach. It is possible to be honest without being aggressive. The two are not mutually exclusive positions, but that is a different discussion.
Mike has also written a few essays on Star Trek.(regarding things such as racism, communism and philosophy). For the record, I don’t necessarily agree with Mike’s Star Trek essays, but disagreeing is one thing – Mike is entitled to his views, and he is entitled to express those views, and anyone is entitled to write a rebuttal of those views (a few of these exist), but nothing alters that Mike is free to post his views. I do not like censorship (which is why I tend not to block comments, even when they passionately disagree with me). It’s an ugly road to start down.
Back to Star Trek vs Star Wars
Is too late to aware all. Like khoe knew his detected High Iccrediatable Value diseases he also angry , wondering , attempted to end his life but looks at his parent and family. He is giving up the thought. Think about this , should him tracking back who do this to him ? If no going out date for sex then no one will get this disease.
What are you on about?
He unironically thinks the Galactic Empire were the good guys and flat-out randomly came up to a woman on the street whose story he does NOT know and said, “Nice place to park, bitch.” He also says being immature is healthy. He’s just an asshole.
He’s never claimed the Empire were good guys. Whatever his other behaviour, and I’m not defending it, he is uncompromisingly honest.
Didn’t he also claim the Empire could beat the Vorlons? He seems very biased in favor of Star Wars in ways past what I’d listed. Like nerfing the Vorlon planet killer by using the line Ivanova gave about “needing atmospheric shuttles to lift people off the ground” to claim the planets weren’t totally blown up, however… WE SEE THE DAMN IMAGES. They reduced each planet to multiple chunks of planetary debris that could never sustain life again, and others elsewhere have claimed the FX team botched it and it was meant to be an asteroid field (unverified, though). That line was meant for something dealing with the crisis elsewhere. He is not a hardcore Fiver, and I don’t doubt he’d be thrilled to think the Empire could beat them, which I would contend. Probably using the same arguments made to Species 8472. He’d probably claim the planet killer was on the same level as the Eclipse, and that Imperial planetary shields could just shrug off such blasts, but by the same token, we never see if the Vorlon planet killers require a recharge period as the Death Stars do, so one could make the case they would not need to, and just blast away at the shields even in such a hypothetical scenario till they fell. The Yuuzhan Vong decimated them with organic technology. Yet I can’t help but feel to his mind, Vong > Vorlons.
It’s been ages since I’ve seen Babylon 5 and I can’t speak for Mike’s arguments, especially when he made them so long ago. You’d be better off asking Mike directly for how he reached his conclusions about the Vorlons, however this doesn’t invalidate his arguments RE Federation vs Empire.
The vorlons stand no chance against the Empire. Nothing in B5. This topic has been blown out of the water so often already. Even if we go with the first world being scattered(asteroid showing), the rest clearly weren’t, since refugees were being picked up and calls for atmosphere capable ships were made[ “….we are in need of atmospheric capable shuttles to evacuate survivors from the ground”]. Survivors on the ground of a blown up world? Lyta’s statement implies the first world was wiped but other statements obviously imply some worlds weren’t. I simply say depending on the size of the world, the VPK could probably do it to some. Yes at best it is probably Eclipse level. it’s more of a continental level vessel than PK. to many instances of survivors on-world.