Trek Space Combat Ranges

[Sonic Glitch]

1. For some things we do have other evidance, statements, ect.

Statements are only evidence of a character's stated viewpoint. Other evidence, as I mentioned above, could as easily be dismissed as you dismiss VFX.
"

So, if, if a character categorically states "enemy ship is 30,000km away" based on scans, looking at their sensors or what have you, and the visual doesn't look like it is 30,000KM away, the character merely thinks the ship is 30,000km away?

[Mikey]

That's a commonplace example of a rather more esoteric phenomenon, but yes. In effect, a line from dialogue is canon insofar as being evidentiary of what the character says. In the majority of cases, it seems safe to assume that dialogue is a correct characterization of actual events, but it isn't necessarily so. If Data said, "The moon is made of cheese," then it is canon that Data said such a thing. It is not canon, however, that the moon is in fact made of cheese.

[Sonic Glitch]

That's a commonplace example of a rather more esoteric phenomenon, but yes. In effect, a line from dialogue is canon insofar as being evidentiary of what the character says. In the majority of cases, it seems safe to assume that dialogue is a correct characterization of actual events, but it isn't necessarily so. If Data said, "The moon is made of cheese," then it is canon that Data said such a thing. It is not canon, however, that the moon is in fact made of cheese.

So we have to assume that these trained professionals, who spent years at the Academy, and then further time on active duty, including an Android containing the sum total of human knowledge to that point, are incompetent when it comes to simple things as reading maps or sensors? I know the "starfleet is stupid" discussion has been hashed, and re-hashed, and re-fried on here and OOU, yes they do make dumb decisions, IU they are some of the most intelligent people in the galaxy (leave it go, I know it's not saying much ).

[Mikey]

That was patently not the intent of my statement. The fact of the matter remains that a line spoken by a character is indicative of, well, what was spoken by the character; and does not innately possess some quality which makes the content of that line an undeniable truth. Has no character in 'Trek ever lied or dissembled, ever? Do you believe Chang's comment that Shakespeare was a Klingon?

The point is that if we adopt a SoD point of view then when dialogue contradicts other evidence, the natural thing to assume is that the dialogue indicates that there is some discrepancy; mistake, lie, error in translation, quantum blip, whatever.

[Sonic Glitch]

That was patently not the intent of my statement. The fact of the matter remains that a line spoken by a character is indicative of, well, what was spoken by the character; and does not innately possess some quality which makes the content of that line an undeniable truth. Has no character in 'Trek ever lied or dissembled, ever? Do you believe Chang's comment that Shakespeare was a Klingon?

Well.. there do seem to be some resemblance between Shakespearean English and Klingonese But we also know, or can

The point is that if we adopt a SoD point of view then when dialogue contradicts other evidence, the natural thing to assume is that the dialogue indicates that there is some discrepancy; mistake, lie, error in translation, quantum blip, whatever.

Ah -- I guess I'm just odd then. My natural tendency is to assume that the person in the situation is correct, and that the visuals which are created so we, watching the "documentary" can somewhat comprehend what's going on. Much like WWII documentaries using stock footage to create the oo.. what's the word i'm searching for?... the illusion/feeling of what actually happened. For myself I don't know how many naval documentaries i've seen where the footage of the sinking warship is actually the explosion of the HMS Barham.

[Mikey]

That's fine - once again, let me say that it is not my purpose or intent to tell anyone what the "right" or "wrong" way to watch a show is. Here's a hypothetical example of what I'm talking about.

VFX shows a ship under fire getting her navigational deflector blown off, but no other signifcant damage. Cut to the bridge, where random officer "X" says, "We just lost the port nacelle!" If we adopt an SoD point of view (which we must to discuss IU events) then we are forced to believe that "X" is mistaken, lying, using malfunctioning sensors, or somesuch. It is not canon that the port nacelle was blown off. It is canon, however, that "X" said that the port nacelle was blown off.

[Sonic Glitch]

That's fine - once again, let me say that it is not my purpose or intent to tell anyone what the "right" or "wrong" way to watch a show is. Here's a hypothetical example of what I'm talking about.

VFX shows a ship under fire getting her navigational deflector blown off, but no other signifcant damage. Cut to the bridge, where random officer "X" says, "We just lost the port nacelle!" If we adopt an SoD point of view (which we must to discuss IU events) then we are forced to believe that "X" is mistaken, lying, using malfunctioning sensors, or somesuch. It is not canon that the port nacelle was blown off. It is canon, however, that "X" said that the port nacelle was blown off.

Fair enough. Now say, for the sake of argument of course (this is after all ) that the port nacelle was indeed blown off, just not in the frame? If it is mentioned again in dialogue at the end of the episode or when the ship is being repaired in the next episode, is it still canon?

[Mikey]

Well, I did mention specifically in my example that there was no other significant damage but to be fair:

Yes, if the ship were later shown with the port nacelle missing, or having the nacelle being replaced/repaired, etc., then I would consider it canon that the nacelle was indeed damaged.

As far as "just not in the frame" - if we saw visuals of the battle, and no other damage other than what I had mentioned was shown, I guess I would have to rely on other criteria on a subjective and case-by-case basis. If it were later mentioned that the ship was limited in speed due to battle damage, or somesuch, then I would easily attribute it to the mentioned but unseen damage. If we saw the ship being damaged only in the deflector, and there was no mention or depiction of any sort of nacelle damage other than the dialogue which was contradicted by the concurrent visuals, then my assessment would be as I originally mentioned.

[m52nickerson]

You're opening a family-sized can of worms here. This statement basically opens the door for "I reject everything I disagree with." That idea, of course, leads to the result that nobody can discuss anything... at all.

Not at all. No if someone tries to say that a Galor can beat a GCS or that ships really work on hamster powered generators they would have nothing at all to back that up. So there still can be discussion. Some topics will just have no definite answers.

You "understand" that visuals are inaccurate, because the VFX contradicts your belief. The "other information in universe" to which you refer may counterindicate an opposing viewpoint, so someone who has a position at variance with yours may just as easily reject that "other information," and be as justified in doing so as you are. The final result: there is no evidence at all to ever indicate anything one way or another.

More then me. Most others, including the official site take what is said or known facts above visuals. Plus as stated there is good reason to be skeptical of any visuals.

Statements are only evidence of a character's stated viewpoint. Other evidence, as I mentioned above, could as easily be dismissed as you dismiss VFX.

Most don't see it that way. Plus we can expect a normal amount of mistakes from crew members, and we see that. To claim that a character misreads distance in a combat situation by orders of magnitude and does not correct his statement or is not questioned by other crew is far less likely then visuals being incorrect.

This is dangerously close to saying, "I don't care for the available evidence, so we can't talk about it.

No I'm saying that if you are basing something on nothing but visual evidence you can't be sure it is correct.

[m52nickerson]

So what does a GCS look like? Or a phaser pistol? Or planets? By this logic, I could correctly argue that the E-D was 482 miles long and pink with purple polka-dots; that Captain Picard had a full, luxurious head of wavy brown hair; or that the Borg resembled, in fact, 4-foot long furry rodents. The only evidence to contrary was visual evidence, and since we're rejecting that out of hand, what do we know?

Again not what I'm arguing. No one is trying to say the every single visual of the E-D is totally incorrect, including diagrams we see in the ship. I'm saying that visuals do not hold up against any type of intense analysis. We see the saucer section of the E-D change over the seasons. Does that mean there was a change in the ship? Or that the E-D really did fire a phaser from its torpedo tube? Is there sound in space? Was every other alien ship in TOS just a ball of light? Most people will answer no to those. Why, because it is far easier to throw those out then explain them. Especially since ignoring them does not change a large amount of how we thing of Trek.

[m52nickerson]

I do not, however, use it as part of my analysis - merely to define the source material.

It should also be used to measure the quality of that material.

Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, yes.

Wow, let me show this Bigfoot footage I have.

We treat visuals as accurate unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. If such evidence exists then we must explain why - fuckups on the part of our imaginary cameraman for example. Note that we only resort to this when there is evidence of a flaw.

How does an imaginary cameraman make it appear that a phaser came from the E-D torpedo tube, or from the defiants disruptor dish. How do we know that this cameraman has not made mistake in other part of the footage? Or how we are sure there is not a unintentional trick of the camera like we see when it appears on film that wheels are spinning backwards?

I pointed out that any differences between the two due to circumstances would make the Galor weaker, not stronger as your theory would require.

....and still have not addressed the issue of them being among the variables that we can be sure of.

Canonically false - the larger type is named as the B'Rel in "Rascals".

Yet is so widely accepted, including on the official site, it might as well be.

Is I've pointed out many times, this approach violates the burden of proof. If you believe their are flaws in any particular piece of footage you must prove it.

I believe that all the visuals should be looked at as potentials flawed. I have given my reasons. You have not yet provided anything that would indicate that we should in fact take the visuals as absolute fact even under in analysis.

[Aaron]

Visuals have errors, yes. However the dialogue method requires us to believe that the characters are virtually infallible, do we have to trot out the example of Troi not knowing what a hydrogen atom was, Data mixing up units etc?

We can at least explain away some of the VFX inconsistencies as an off screen refit *cough*Voyager*cough* but it's a lot harder to explain away errors in dialogue, which leads to the "SF members are idiots" meme that's out there.

[m52nickerson]

Visuals have errors, yes. However the dialogue method requires us to believe that the characters are virtually infallible, do we have to trot out the example of Troi not knowing what a hydrogen atom was, Data mixing up units etc?

We can at least explain away some of the VFX inconsistencies as an off screen refit *cough*Voyager*cough* but it's a lot harder to explain away errors in dialogue, which leads to the "SF members are idiots" meme that's out there.

No one is saying that dialogue is infallible. It is hard to explain how an officer an mistake 100,000 Km with 1,000 Km and then not soon after correct himself.

[Aaron]

No one is saying that dialogue is infallible. It is hard to explain how an officer an mistake 100,000 Km with 1,000 Km and then not soon after correct himself.

I don't have a problem with that bit but what I'm getting at here is that all that's happening is we're swapping a set of problems for the same set. All the visuals problems exist in dialogue as well, except they are harder to explain because when a character makes an obvious mistake and no one corrects him/her then...what?

Edit: Let's use Jellico's four shifts as an example. He wants the ship on four because it's more efficient, yet no one bothers to ask where their going to get the extra men for another shift. So, do we believe that the ship had an extra full shifts worth of personnel floating around that was unused before? Do we believe that he's going to strip folks from the A, B and C shifts, thereby making all the shifts less efficient.

[m52nickerson]

I don't have a problem with that bit but what I'm getting at here is that all that's happening is we're swapping a set of problems for the same set. All the visuals problems exist in dialogue as well, except they are harder to explain because when a character makes an obvious mistake and no one corrects him/her then...what?

Edit: Let's use Jellico's four shifts as an example. He wants the ship on four because it's more efficient, yet no one bothers to ask where their going to get the extra men for another shift. So, do we believe that the ship had an extra full shifts worth of personnel floating around that was unused before? Do we believe that he's going to strip folks from the A, B and C shifts, thereby making all the shifts less efficient.

Any way we look at things there will be problems. Some issues will have just as many problems no matter how we look at them. So it just turns out that there is not real truth floating out there. Everyone can analyzes Trek how they want. It is arguable if some methods are better then others.

I would hope that in a crew of close to 1000 you could find more competent officers to fill a bridge shift.