Movie Argument 8 (Was: Discussion of The...)

Haesslich said:
We know there are three Concordias - fact.

We know when three of them began operation: 2633, 2645, 2661 - fact.

We know when two of them died: 2634 for the first Concordia seen in the books, 2669 in WC3. The second one was either killed or decomissioned before 2661, to allow the one destroyed in 2669 to be comissioned with the name - fact.

We know that it takes five years to build a carrier, from End Run - fact.

We also have transfer docs from the Kilrathi Saga manual for around 2656 in the KS manual - fact.

Given that we know there's a Concordia which was built in 2645 and was active in 2654, and that another Concordia was comissioned in 2661... that Concordia has at least 11 years to be active in. It's a conjecture that the one we see in the docs for Kilrathi Saga is the same Concordia that was in the movie, but it's a strong one which is backed up by the above facts to a decent extent. If they built another Concordia-class supercruiser, it would take years to construct, and if they built another carrier, that would take almost as long to build (assuming they started a new contract for it) as it would to get the Confederation-class dreadnought into service. There's no reason to assume that it's not the movie Concordia in this case, unless you're stating that this was referring to a Concordia Base somewhere.

We've got a simple interpretation and a hard one. Personally, I'll go for the one which requires the fewest extra factors to work.

I agree its the best interpretation, but if stated in a formal context it needs to be supported by the evidence it is derived from. And when not in a formal context, as a good practice, I would asterisk it and then note that the asterisk means speculatively. For instance, you used even more speculation in your evidence. To my knowledge, we know there at AT LEAST three Concordia's, not that there were only three. Additionally, on several levels I would question the 5 years to build a carrier statement. First of all, you assume that any interim Concordia would be another carrier, this need not be true. Secondly, and I really can't get into any debate about this at this time cause I don't have access to my books right now and as a result I will be grossly ignorant on this point, I would question the assertion that it always takes 5 years to build a carrier. I really wish I had the quote from End Run establishing this, but is it true of all time periods and all classes of carriers or just a single class of the present day in End Run? It seems quite silly to me that the prototype of a class would take the same as the production run of the class, that production times wouldn't be reduced as workers became more adept, that changes in technology used in a class and used in the production of the class wouldn't cause any fluctuation in production times. And, if this is a blanket statement for all carriers, it just seems silly that no matter the size of the class of carrier or complexity of the technology that production time would be the same. Now, of course silliness wouldn't prevent something from being canon if it is indeed stated, its just a matter of how far reaching the statement from End Run is. For all I know, it says all TCN carrier production has always taken exactly 5 years.

Once again, I agree with the interpretation. My only points are that a) it is indeed an interpretation and b) that I am very anal and would like interpretations noted so I don't get confused between what is known and what people think they know due to interpretation.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yeah - I mean, there's no *conclusive* evidence that the Concordia in the WC3 intro is the Concordia in WC2 -- we're pretty sure it is, though.

Very good point that I am probably asking for way too much here. Although implied through the conversation in WC3 it isn't explicitly stated. This one doesn't really bother me because the implication seems pretty clear. And, as you pointed out before, so many things can be speculation in a fictional universe so it's really subjective what is and what is not speculation.
 
Considering that it takes several years to build a carrier or a cruiser, that doesn't leave much time for the movie Concordia to blow up and a new one to be built in its place, before being blown up so the Confederation-class dreadnought with the same name can take the name after it's sunk or retired.

They could always pull the Star Trek explaination and say "This ship's ready to go, oh what's that? The Concordia's been destroyed? Let's rename this new ship Concordia then before we send it out."
 
Eh, I don't know - I certainly appreciate the disdain for 'soft' facts (things like the 'F-107' designation for the Lance, even), but I think this may be a case of going overboard. It just seems like being the Supercruiser is a logical assumption in any situation: we know of three Concordias, and we know it's impossible for the KS manual to be referring to the first or the third...

Yes, it's possible that there's a fourth Concordia that is also Tolwyn's flagship and that also exists at roughly the same time as the third... but it's one of those stretching the boundries of reason for no necessary gain possibilities.

And when does our real world timeline diverge from the fictional WC timeline?

Well, our Bob Hope died... :)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Eh, I don't know - I certainly appreciate the disdain for 'soft' facts (things like the 'F-107' designation for the Lance, even), but I think this may be a case of going overboard. It just seems like being the Supercruiser is a logical assumption in any situation: we know of three Concordias, and we know it's impossible for the KS manual to be referring to the first or the third...

Yes, it's possible that there's a fourth Concordia that is also Tolwyn's flagship and that also exists at roughly the same time as the third... but it's one of those stretching the boundries of reason for no necessary gain possibilities.



Well, our Bob Hope died... :)

Yeah, this was a pretty poor example here. It's not that I think there is an alternate explanation that is very plausible or that the assumption should be withdrawn. I think this is a good and valid interpretation and trying to poke holes in it that would lead to it being rejected would be pointless. I only care about the principle of it being an interpretation. Essentially, I care nothing about the case with which we are discussing and everything about the principle of noting "soft" facts so they don't get confused with the "hard" ones. I would say in this case, this would definetly belong in an encyclopedia entry, but the rationale for it should be explained as a footnote. Now, with the Lance I would personally be more careful, not mentioning F-107 in the entry and as a footnote providing the speculative F-107 designation and the rationale for it.

Maybe Bob Hope was cryogenically frozen in secret.
 
KillerWave said:
In the case of the lord of the rings and spiderman, you're missing great movies. I just consider them adaptations, they dont change the idea i have of a fictional universe.

The only problem with using Spidey as an example is that his history has been rewritten so many times in so many official sources that now there's just an overall understanding of what happened. So while someone can say "well what happens in the movies might conflict with what I already know from reading the comics" it's kind of a weak argument since the comics don't even agree with themselves. They tend to just change minor details, although there are some larger changes that people get huffy about.

And yes, you are missing out on some good movies.
 
My understanding is that comic books 'build in' this sort of thing to their backgrounds, anyway - with routine storylines about alternate universes and 'resetting' timelines to account for the fact that characters haven't aged in fifty years. Wing Commander hasn't yet done anything like that - so to apply the same 'comic book rules' on it doesn't make sense.
 
No, I wasn't talking about anything like that. I'm talking about how in the newer comics where they're basically going over Spidey's origins again, instead of being a science nerd he's a webmaster. There's no Gwen Stacy in the new comics as well as the movies. There are also several explanations as to how Venom came into being.

I'm not talking about how they explain away Nick Fury drinking some serum to slow down his aging or anything like that.

And yes, applying comic book rules doesn't work.
 
Spien said:
They could always pull the Star Trek explaination and say "This ship's ready to go, oh what's that? The Concordia's been destroyed? Let's rename this new ship Concordia then before we send it out."

It's a fairly common practice in Real Life (tm) for big military ships to be named only just after they've been completed, or for their planned name to be changed while still under construction--the only example that I can of is two of Germany's battlecruisers having their names changed during WWII after the suprisingly easy defeat of another of their class (one had been named the "Deutchland," and Hitler wasn't too keen on having a ship named after the Fatherland gettin' blowed up). But you get the idea.
 
Nappydman said:
I've never seen the movie, and I probably never will, since I don't feel like getting angry.

hahaha i don't blame you... i saw it on tv once... meh... it was bad but it was raining out so it filled the gap
 
dextorboot said:
No, I wasn't talking about anything like that. I'm talking about how in the newer comics where they're basically going over Spidey's origins again, instead of being a science nerd he's a webmaster. There's no Gwen Stacy in the new comics as well as the movies. There are also several explanations as to how Venom came into being.

I'm not talking about how they explain away Nick Fury drinking some serum to slow down his aging or anything like that.

And yes, applying comic book rules doesn't work.

Spider-Man is a bad example in any case since he's been done and redone in different comics with different titles so many millions of times, and the newest Spider-Man belongs to the "Ultimates" universe which was created to modernize the super heroes of the sixties. The Ultimate universe however does indeed run parallel to the normal Marvel universe. It's a "reimagining" of the Marvel universe, like the new Battlestar Galactica.

DC did something similar with their "Crisis on Infinate Earths" or whatever it was called and "year one" comics were made where their heroes histories were rewritten to modernize them and erase some of their more campy backstories, only in DC's case there's no parallel timeline, their heroes were actually changed and many retcons ensued.

It goes without saying that comic book timelines are twisted and distorted considering how old comics are, how many comics there are, and how many writers different comics have had over the years.
 
Indeed.

I'd like to just leave it at that but I know how 1 word posts (especially that word) tend to annoy people on this board so I decided to write this sentence to compliment it. :D
 
Its true or even when they decomission a ship now the next new ship off the assembly line takes the name of the retired vessel most often especially ships that have some measure of fame
 
True they usually are but same rule kind of applies to vessels lost to enemy or mishap. The big factor in these things is what???? Public opinion. IE. TSC Tarawa following her mission in End Run

((I realize thats not a prime example but the navy typically does whats good for PR))
 
dextorboot said:
No, I wasn't talking about anything like that. I'm talking about how in the newer comics where they're basically going over Spidey's origins again, instead of being a science nerd he's a webmaster. There's no Gwen Stacy in the new comics as well as the movies. There are also several explanations as to how Venom came into being.

Gwen Stacey has been in Ultimate Spider-Man for quite a number of issues now. Probably for a little bit more than a year now. Where've you been?
 
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