Hate Mail
Adarx Page 7
His fourth reply
Anyway, unless you can show evidence that this
fighter did take previous damage, then your idea is speculation, not mine.
I described exactly what happened in the episode. You are speculating
that since there were so many other ships present, this ship is likely
to have been hit before this event. At least, that is what you claimed
over at Spacebattles.
This is an "Appeal to Ignorance" fallacy.
It is like saying "Since we aren't sure that it didn't, it must have!"
Or "Mom didn't say we couldn't go, so it must
be okay!"
Try that in real life. "I forgot if I paid
my bills or not. I'm not sure I didn't, so I must have!"
You also mentioned a comic book that indicated
that the Vorlons had 10,000 ships present, the Shadows had 10,000, and
the young races had 8,000. So, following your train of thought, the
Earth fighter also took previous damage! This damage had to be from
either a Vorlon or Shadow vessel, since that is who they were combatting.
It survived, was in working order, and
had enough power to destroy a Vorlon fighter,
damaged or not! Those Thunderbolts must be the toughest thing in
the series! :)
In fact, since the Vorlons were in combat with
18,000 enemy vessels, and the young races were in combat with 20,000 vessels,
it is 10% more likely that the Earth fighter took a prior hit than the
Vorlon fighter.
This is not evidence, Adarx. It is speculation. You know, that stuff you are accusing me of.
My theory is that the Earth fighter destroyed
the Vorlon fighter, thus Vorlon fighters are less resilient than large
Vorlon warships.
The first part of that (above) sentence is completely
supported. See the video. This is exactly what happened.
The second part of the sentence should be common
sense. If you need proof, all I need to do is find a clip where a
Vorlon warship larger than a fighter took hits from an Earth fighter without
blowing up. Or one that took a hit from something more powerful than
an Earth fighter.
Your theory appears to be that since the Vorlon fighter was destroyed, it must have taken previous damage. Your supporting "evidence" appears to be the fact that there were a lot of ships around shooting.
Occam's Razor tells us that my theory is superior.
In addition to that,
*your theory contains speculation on previous
damage
*that possible previous damage is not quantifiable
*the number of ships present may decrease the
chances of the fighter being hit.
I can't prove that no previous damage was inflicted,
but there is nothing that indicates there was. Thus, a statement
that previous damage was inflicted is "unsupported speculation," as you
call it.
Idea without evidence = unsupported speculation.
Unless you can show that *this individual fighter* sustained damage prior to this event, you have no case. All you have is an "Appeal to Ignorance" fallacy.
Yes, those would be the words. I am prepared
to do this. Among my reasons are Babylon 5 wars makes a note as to
how durable it is presumably to other fighters (other wise it would be
to ships in general) when we consistantly see less damage done to other
fighters struck by its gun, a complete lack of debris when we see others
hit by far heavier weapons leave debris, its
failure to take any evasive action, the failure
to fire back, the fact that it continued to move in a strait line the whole
time, the failure of its shields to raise when hit, the fact that using
B5wars game statistics (which are non-canon I admit, as oppose dot the
fluff which is.) it is absolutely impossible to destroy an undamged vorlon
fighter from the front with even a perfect hit from a thunderbolt.
HOw is that for a start? I will elaborate on all of these once the
debate begins tomorrow.
As for the bit about my trying to say that it took damage because we never see it not take damage, this is plain untrue. My contention the entire time was that it took an unknown, not zero, not eight hits from a battlecrab, an unknown amount of damage. I am not saying that it conclusivly did, I am not saying it didn't. I am saying that we don't know. I am sure I have posted this at least 5 or 6 times at spacebattles and at least in one e-mail. Keep in mind that zero can be the unknown value too. So my statement that it took an unknown amount of damage before being destroyed is true.
Then show evidence to that effect.
Note the statement that it "likely" took damage
is, as you say, unsupported speculation.
No evidence = unsupported speculation.
No evidence = no valid theory.
I even offered to give you any clip you want from the episode to find that evidence. I won't charge you one of your 5 posts to ask for it.
And your statement that it had not taken damage is specualtion. You have no evidence that it didn't take damage other than we didn't see it on screen. When a post is lacking conclusive proof it is still specualtion. Specualtion is a valid tool to disprove other specualtion when someone contends the first speculation is the only valid solution to the scene.
I don't need the clips. I ahve them on video. I have gone through the entire episode scene by scene twice today and any evidence I give from the episode will be easily verifiable as I will post where in the episode it was.
In the interest of fairness, I'll make the video
clip in question available to you to examine and extract images from *for
this debate.*
http://www.babtech-onthe.net/quicktime/eashootvfighter.mov
I bet you don't have Quicktime 6, do you?
I didn't think about that.
No problem,
http://www.babtech-onthe.net/adarx/adarx1.mov
http://www.babtech-onthe.net/adarx/adarx2.avi
An older Quicktime codec, and a Divx 5.0.2 video. Both are under 500k.
Thank you.
I figure I will be ready to go this weekend.
I think we have the preliminaries pretty much wrapped up except for the
name issue.
Then I'll look forward to your first post in 48-72 hours.
Won't be much longer now.