Seek and Destroy: Thoughts from "Zero Dark Thirty"

The other weekend I was able to finally see Zero Dark Thirty, and I was overall very pleased with it. It found a good balance between action, political thriller, and psychological drama, and I definitely understood the critical acclaim it had been accumulating. However, between the critical reviews, Oscar nominations, and all the like, I don't see much of a point in offering up a detailed review of the film. Instead, I'd like to focus on some of the controversy surrounding the film.

Specifically, I was somewhat surprised to find when reading about the film on Wikipedia after I viewed it that it had ignited a fierce debate in the media as to whether the film directly supported the idea that torture was essential to finding Vin Laden. I suppose I missed the controversy since I was in Europe and my following of the news, especially American issues, is limited to important events, but it was weird to read about that kind of contention after viewing the film.

For those of you who haven't seen it, in particular the movie features a very explicit scene of a detainee being waterboarded for information. It's implicit that information gained from this torture scene did help in some way lead to other bits of intel that eventually led to bin Laden. Opponent of the film claim that this essentially praises such tactics, whereas the filmmakers and its supporters claim it's merely attempting to show the truth behind the decade-long search. Whether it was moral or not, helpful or not, the facts stand that US intelligence operatives used such methods: that is the stance they stand behind. 

I can definitely see both sides of the issue, but can only offer my personal reaction to the movie. I definitely did have a moment earlier on after the scene where I went "well, this guy clearly deserves it, and the torture is bringing results." So yes, for that brief moment you could say I was a proponent of torture. However, as the movie progressed and I analyzed my own thoughts further, I came to the (I think obvious) conclusions: how do you know any answers given are reliable, and how do you determine who "deserves" such treatment? Even in cases where it might be blindingly obvious, by allowing it in certain circumstances, you open up the possibility of it occurring in more ambiguous cases. Essentially it comes back to the cornerstone of our judicial system, the idea of "innocent until proven guilty."

A Clash of Media: Perspectives on Intrinsic Value

Dear readers, the blog will once again continue on the philosophical track; I got some good answers to my last post, so I'm hoping to hear some more on this note.

As my forewarning: as many of you probably know, I'm a pretty big reader. I always have been since I was young. I was that kid staying up late reading with a flashlight under covers, the one who took a book with him where ever he went, the one who belongs to the probably minority of our generation whose parents actually had to tell him to stop reading so much. I'm one of those people who rarely think a movie/tv adaptation is better than the source book, one of those who doesn't have "lol i h8 books" written on my "About me" section of Facebook. Thus I feel I have a pretty balanced perspective on the following discussion.

As all of you are sure I'm aware, The Hunger Games has been making a big splash as being the current hit book for children/young adults. This follows on the trail of the Twilight and Harry Potter series, the latter of which is often referred to as the series that "got a whole generation of children reading again."

I find this an interesting claim, because it highlights an underlying theme in modern American society. That is, specifically, that children aren't reading anymore, and this is a Bad Thing. Authors like Collins and Rowling are doing important work in getting children engaged in reading again.

This is a line of thought I sort of bought absentmindedly. Of course people should be reading, I thought, it's something I enjoy. It's always painted as a slightly more intellectual and satisfying past-time than, say, watching TV.

Subtle Distinctions: The Blog gets a bit philosophical

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change. "


-Frank Lloyd Wright

Haha, Google makes it easy to find quotes for any occasion :-P

I recently (for science?) took a personality test and it spat out the result that, among other things, measure quite a bit on the arrogant side. This proceeded to set off a serious of thoughts on my head, that for whatever reason I feel compelled to write about. Normally this isn't the kind of thing I'd discuss publicly, but since this blog isn't searchable and as far as statistics indicate only a select few of you even read this, I'm going ahead and writing it.

Retcon To The Future: Thoughts on Expanding Universes

So the other day I was playing through the Gears of War 3 DLC "Raam's Shadow," which in a very cool move by Epic is technically a prequel to Gears 1, detailing the fall of one COG-controlled city a couple of weeks post-E-Day. It's a very interesting idea and makes a very stark contrast to the ruin that is the Gears 3 present.

However, one thing I noticed is something that has bothered me in the past that I decided to finally write about: retcons, for lack of a better term. In this case, weapons and enemy types that were not in Gears 1 that are suddenly appearing in this DLC.

In some cases, it makes perfect sense. The retro lancer being in the campaign makes sense, because they would have been around and were only not used till Gears 3 because the Lancer 2.0 was still in abundance/in production. It kind of makes sense a Scorcher would be around, since perhaps Delta Squad would not have used it since it's a speciality weapon.

However, it becomes a problem with other things. For instance, the One-Shot makes an appearance, in Locust hands no less. If either side had access to such a powerful weapon, why did it not make an appearance in Gears 1 or 2? Similarly, Grinders and Bloodmounts show up, and I question why they weren't walking around in Gears 1. Additionally, the Command Center upgrade was added to Gears 3, which allows you to remotely call down Hammer strikes. They decided to add this in to the DLC campaign, and you use it multiple times. If this technology existed, why in Gears 1 and 2 were there all those times when a Hammer strike would have been invaluable but wasn't sure because of a lack of a targeting device? Why wouldn't they just use this apparently common remote targeting system?

"Out of character," as it were, I totally understand why Epic did this. They didn't want to scale back things to only stuff that was available to Gears 1, since that would limit gameplay options, but from a universe perspective for me personally this is the equivalent of breaking the 4th wall. I know it's a relatively minor issue, but it bugs me all the same.

Other series have done things similarly. I was annoyed in Starcraft 2 when it was revealed that the Protoss had a ton of giant, robot death walkers they waited until after the destruction of their homeworld to release. Sure, it made sense to give background to a new unit, but from my in-universe perspective it seemed unrealistic and bugged me.

Similarly, Star Wars EU post-prequels is a huge offender. After the release of Episode 1, seeing Gungans in cantina and just around in general suddenly because very common. In a general rule, it seemed like just because something had been shown in the prequels, it suddenly became essential to include as much prequel races, items, etc in the books and comics, including Luke stumbling across a ship of the type Obi-wan and Anakin fly in episode 2. Again, I understand the intent, but to me it just seems incredibly shoe-horned, especially in a setting that is as widely expanded and defined as the SW EU. Especially irking is the idea of the Clone Wars: prior to the prequels, people never talked about them in detail and it was mostly hushed up. This idea made sense to me, since no one wanted to be heard slandering the Empire, most participants in the Wars were either dead or clones, and even many modern wars aren't talked about much anymore in most circles. However, post prequels all the mystery is shed, and suddenly everyone knows everything about the events and it's a complete atmosphere shift in every way. I know why they did it, and why there's a shift, but it ends up feeling very inconsistent overall.

Overall, although I realize the temptation of adding in new stuff to maintain overall consistency, stuff like this just really tends to bother me, although I couldn't necessarily explain why. I realize the occasional necessity, but I think it's oftentimes overused. As usual, I welcome your feedback (as if I could stop you :-P)

-HTMC

Everything is Noise: Thoughts on Fluency

Academic post ahead, you've been warned.

So since the all of the applications I've been making on things to do for next year revolve around being abroad, I've naturally been thinking a lot about foreign languages recently. In addition to this, I received Goethe-Institut certification as being fluent in German (German version of the TOEFL).

It's an interesting point because, I guess, it was nice to receive official confirmation of my ability to speak the language. Having studied the language for almost 8 years now in addition to spending a language-intensive 6 months in Vienna, I had already felt pretty confident at calling myself at least "conversationally fluent" although I had always hesitated at calling myself fully fluent.

Balancing Game Design: A Case Analysis of Gears 3's Sawed-off Shotgun

Gears of War 3's multiplayer is fantastic. There, I said it. In fact, I sit here almost a month after the game's been out and I have yet to complete the main story campaign because the multiplayer is that good; perhaps a first in my entire gaming career. The modes are varied and well-balanced, flaws with the previous iterations have been fixed (ranged weapons are viable, less latency issues, etc), and it's obvious that they actually took the feedback from the beta and implemented intelligent changes. One of the most obvious examples is the Retro Lancer, which before seemed remarkably overpowered but now serves as a solid choice among 2 other solid choices in the ranged primary category. There is, however, one lingering issue that anybody who's been around me while playing is intimitely familiar with that has yet to be truly addressed, and I feel like I now have enough experience to truly comment on it.

The Human Condition: My Experience with Humans Vs. Zombies

Anyone following my status updates on Facebook are probably aware that I finally partook in the Claremont Humans vs Zombies game. This post is somewhat a combination of my review of my experience of the game, and some commentary of things I observed whilst playing the game. 

Logic vs. Precedent: Overlapping Languages

So this weekend I had the excellent experience of 4 of my friends from my study abroad semester come visit California, and I was able to meet up with them for two days in San Francisco and theoretically act like a tour guide. It was quite a fun experience, since in addition to them I was able to meet up with two high school friends, a college friend, and another (American) girl from my study abroad program. This meant that I was around many different people whose native language differed, which led me over the course of the trip to think more about languages.

As most of you know (but I've never stated on the blog, I think) I'm pretty fully conversationally fluent in German, and mostly fluent in most other respects (I feel mostly safe saying this). Thus, while in Austria, I spoke only German with my German and Austrian friends, and so it feels very natural to default to that language when I speak with them. While I was abroad, this obviously made a lot of sense and felt pretty natural at the time.

With that said, I shall attempt to examine several situations. Bold font indicates native tongue.

Example 1: English/German speaking to English/Spanish

Naturally, since this pair speaks the same native language, they'll speak in that. No problem.

Example 2: German/English speaking to French/English

Again, since they only share one language, they'll speak in English. Likewise no problem.

Example 3: German/English speaking to English/German

This is where it starts to get tricky. In some cases, like mine, the answer is obvious: I wanted to work on my  German, so we spoke German. In other cases, perhaps it can be determined by location: if you're in Germany, you might try to speak German to fit it, or you might choose to speak in English so passersby have a harder time understanding you. If nothing else, it's nice to have options.

Example 4: English/German speaking to German/English & English/Spanish

Theoretically this one is simple: three people with only one language in common, you'll speak that language, right?

...right?

However, I found out that sometimes logic doesn't trump natural instinct. I had 6 months of speaking to my Austrian friends in only German, and when it came to being in America, it felt... odd... to speak in English. It similarly seemed really weird when I heard them speaking English to me, and overall it just felt really odd despite not being any logical reason why it should. This was fine in situations like Example 3, where it was just me and them; however, when a non-German speaking person was added a lá Example 4, this became weird since I had to really focus to speak English, and fight the odd urge that I was doing something wrong.

I just found this experience to be puzzling, since as Example 3 indicates, there's not reason why one language should be preferable over the other. However, I know it wasn't just me; the Austrians were also feeling very odd to be speaking to me in English as opposed to the German they were used to. It made me wonder if there's some psychological reason where you're set to speak a certain language to someone; again, it makes sense for situations like Example 1, but not so much for Example 3. I wonder if I had spent my time in Austria speaking half German and half English if that feeling would persist, or if it would have been difficult to be switching languages like that.

Anyway, I don't have any grand statements to make, but whenever I really sit down and think about the concept of "language" I find it incredibly fascinating, and this seems another facet of it.

The Cycle of Fate: Equipment or Lack Thereof

For the past month or so (I actually realize I have no idea what number tomorrow's session will be) I've been GMing a campaign of Deathwatch. Because of issues relating to plot and design choices, I've actually been refraining from analyzing the game from a GM perspective thus far, but now that the campaign will be over in one or two more sessions, it's probably safe to start talking about certain aspects of the game, and how it went.

One of the key ideas that was the genesis for this campaign was the Space Marine Kill-team crash-landing on a primitive planet, and having to go some time without their treasured equipment. Most of the players probably did not realize to what extent this would be true. The idea was to hopefully prompt an experience that was different from the previous 40k RPG campaigns, and also give a chance to use the talents and skills that weren't directly associated with combat. Did it work? Let's look.

I Put On My Robe and Wizard Hat: Sexuality and Morals in Harry Potter

I've definitely written some very geeky/nerdy posts in the past, but I actually don't think this one is quite as bad as the title sounds (I swear!).

Since the last movie has came out and there's a ton of talk of Harry Potter flying around, I figured now would be as good of a time to write down concretely some thoughts I've shared in the past but never fully articulated, namely on the topic of Albus Dumbledore's sexuality, and what it means for the series (I sweaaaarrrrr).

Some of you may remember way back in October 2007 when there was the very out-of-the-blue announcement from Rowling that Dumbledore was, in fact, gay. The reactions were predictably mixed, with some people outraged, others perfectly fine with it, and hundreds of posts going back and looking for clues; the media had a field hour. Personally I was a bit confused when I first heard the news, but gradually it began to bug me, and I wasn't quite sure why for the longest time.

Beegu News Des!: An Announcement of Sorts

Today I spent a large majority of my day reading a blog (something I intend to return to at some point), and this naturally led me to think about the current state of this, my own blog. After some considerable thought, I've come to a decision that I hope to keep: I'm going to start blogging more.

Specifically, a quota for myself: once every two days. I feel like daily might be a bit too much, whereas every other day gives me a bit more breathing room and even time for editing.

There are actually a number of reasons for this, which follow below in no particular order.

- I enjoy writing. I don't think I'm even one of the best in my group of acquaintances, and I usually at least somewhat question how much/little other people enjoy the writing, but I like doing it, so I'm going to. I don't think I work up the energy enough for it enough, and by setting a deadline I hope to propel myself into doing it more.

- I need something else to do over the summer. I'm starting to get annoyed at how often I'm sitting there wondering what to do, and this gives me one more option.

- I have a large stack of ideas, some of which have been sitting around for probably close to 8 months now, and which I have not acted on probably due to just pure laziness or inertia or whatever. I should probably set a better precedent.

- It provides an outlet for thoughts, in a way. Not just for reviews, which I do enjoy writing, but perhaps more serious topics of discussion. I think I've been focusing on reviews because they've been easy (I watched something, now write down what you think!) but there have been other thoughts I've been having that I'd be interested to see responses to, like the e-sports post, and this seems a much more viable platform than IM or Facebook status updates, for instance.

- On the theme of reviews, I really should start writing longer ones. In looking over the last 3 Mini-Review Rampages, I noticed that the individual reviews kept getting longer and longer over the trilogy, which probably means I have a lot more to say about these pieces than I'm allowing myself. And at least one person has expressed interest in reading them, so that's enough for me :-P

- This last reason is probably the biggest one, in retrospect. Recently an epilogue was completed for last year's Dark Heresy campaign that I ran, which brought back a lot of fond memories. I ended up going back through Mister Flask's blog to reread the various hijinks the group got up to, and looking through the content and comments, it kind of struck home how our little circle of blogging has kind of died off.

I obviously can't make that come back by myself, despite how much I enjoyed the content of everyone's various blogs. What I can do is at least force myself to start contributing more regularly, and in a perfect world this might inspire the rest of you to follow, or at least compete :-P. I don't know how many of you actually regularly check any of these anymore, though.

I guess what it comes down to is I'm privileged to have a large number of very talented, very creative friends who are willing to express themselves via electronic medium, and while I feel my own material is never quite up to par, I'm happy to be a part of it. Whether it's Aaron's impressive ability to condense humor into unlikely places, Max's impressive analysis, Rome's excellent reviews, Jesse's expressiveness, or Matt and Kory's immersive fiction, I always enjoy reading all of your works and end up wishing there was more. So on that note, thank you.

So maybe this will have the desired effect, and maybe it won't. But regardless, after today you'll be a seeing a new post every two days on this blog, at least until summer's end (hopefully further, but I have no idea how hectic my semester might end up being). If I don't, I ask you to publicly harangue me in whatever fashion you feel appropriate. I do hope you enjoy though!

And to end with something completely unrelated but awesome...

-HTMC

Mind Games, Son, Mind Games: Viewing Traditional Vs. E-Sports

Anyone who has been hanging out with me in the last couple months has probably had me bring up the Starcraft 2 competitive scene, something I've been following rather closely for many weeks now. Indeed, I'm not alone in this; although places such have South Korea have commonly had video games streamed live to audiences of hundreds of thousands, it is only recently becoming more popular in the Western scene.  With that said, now that it's catching on, it's growing incredibly rapidly: for instance, MLG Columbus' 3 day tournament had a 16,000 member live audience and served over 1.3 petabytes of livestream data. Impressive numbers, and they only seem to be growing.

When I first started seriously watching the games and began getting really into it, I figured it was another kind of phase; I would get really into it for a few weeks, and then I would lose interest and move onto another hobby. However, here I find myself almost 6 months later still firmly entrenched in this world, and even watching a game while I'm typing this.

I had never really considered myself as someone into sports; I'll watch the Super Bowl, and the rare sports game when it's on TV and others are watching, but in general I couldn't name most sports team or major athletes, and I would never go out of my way to watch a game, especially alone. Despite this, I find myself staying up regularly till 4am to watch GSL and devoting many hours to watch VoDs and Youtube videos from major tournaments. Because of this sudden shift, I began wondering what makes the SC2 competitive scene different than any traditional sports scene that most of my other peers are fascinated with.

Music, Guitars, and Subspace Transportation: FLCL & Scott Pilgrim

I recently watched a show that started by having a mysterious girl from another land show up, and the main character (somewhat immature) fell about in love with but took a while to realize it. The girl was pretty shy about her origins, had the strange ability to pull things from seemingly another dimension, and the ability to engage enemies enemies in close combat with an unconventional melee weapon.

Metalearning: As I realize things almost too late in my academic career

So for whatever reason, this semester I've begun to become more conscious of what I can and can't do well in an academic setting, although I probably couldn't tell you exactly why (hey, it's not my focus in Psych, don't blame me!).

Fun New Web Apps: A Trial

During dinner today I got in a slightly heated argument about the SC2 story with Max, which resulted in me claiming the SC2 story is bad and the prequel trilogy isn't, while he was arguing the opposite. He told me to try googling it, so I decided to and display my story using the newly discovered Rage Comic Generator!

Because Max apparently enjoyed it, I share it here with you all.

-HTMC

Tech Trumps All: A Comparison of Eldar and Tau

Somehow, our group had ignored the Eldar for a long time; I was naturally a little familiar with the lore and idea beyond the Space-Elves, and I had glanced through their codex, but been put off with their standard troop choice wielding S4 AP5 18" weapons (coming as a Tau player, this seems inexcusably bad for a shooty army).

However, it had been quite a while since I had tried out a new army, and a discussion with Max reminded me how they were supposed to be a shooty army, and thus I decided to give the Elfdar another chance and give the codex a full and close reading. As you can suspect from me writing an entire blog post on this, I was happily surprised.

Sweet Victory and Sour Loss: The Nature of Competitive Games

First of all, credit where credit is due. Thanks twicefold to Rome, once for helping me brainstorm a new, more descriptive (Ed: Debatable) title for this Blog, and second for writing the post that inspired this one. If you click the linky link, you'll find some thoughts on his relationship with competitive gaming, so I thought I'd follow up with mine.

I've also had a gradual growth to competitive gaming. First of all, the majority of my gaming career has been spent offline-- the first real online game I played wasn't till something like Battlefield 2142, which was all of 4 years ago. Likewise it wasn't till I got my 360 that I had a dedicated online gaming platform that I played with consistency.

Blame & Stolen Praise: The Nature of Team-Based Games

My two current games of choice of late have been the online components of Starcraft 2 & Gears of War 2, both of which I enjoy very much. SC2 tends to be when I have friends on, while GoW2 tends to consume my private time. Interestingly enough, neither of these are single-player, and both are team-based multiplayer. The two are pretty different though.

I read an interesting post on the SC2 forums about why people tend to shy away from 1v1 in SC2. It basically boiled down to risk/reward. He hypothesizes that like in a team FPS, with 3v3 and 4v4 SC2 matches you can always take the credit for a win, and blame the others for a loss. 1v1 means you have to face the fact that you have no one to blame but yourself for the loss, which most people can't handle.

I actually think the poster's probably right for the majority of gamers; I've definitely seen a lot of "if my teammates hadn't sucked I would have totally owned you" type comments after my team winning a 3v3. However, I like to think I don't fall under this category. I usually acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses, or comment when I didn't really help in a match, etc. I think it's actually my awareness of my strengths and weaknesses that drives me towards SC2 multiplayer.

I know I'm not great at early game, especially scouting & early harass. I could devote more time to improving these, but since as I stated I tend to play SC2 with friends, it's easier to just play on a team with someone like Aaron who complements my weaknesses with his strengths and come out all the better for it. Naturally I'll want to improve eventually, but it's easier to focus on improvement when you have a reliable ally to fall back on.

Which leads me to my next point: SC2 is actually far, far harder to tell who's pulling the team, anyway. Numbers often will show overall who was "doing" the most, but let me present a game from today.
Rome, Aaron and I played a ranked 3v3, and decided before the match started to do a (late) early T1 rush. We were going along, and suddenly Aaron got attacked. We managed to fight it off, but Aaron lost the majority of his base. However, we counterattacked (since Aaron had taken down a good chunk of the forces) and Rome and my combined force managed to take out the 3 enemy bases, one by one*, while Aaron rebuilt his base and lent a bit of support towards the end.

Looking at the numbers and graphs afterwards, it would seem Rome and I carried the game and Aaron didn't help. What that ignores is the fact that if Aaron hadn't defended the rush well enough, had he just been steamrolled, Rome and I couldn't have gone on the offensive like we did. While the game gives us credit numbers-wise, without Aaron being the excellent player he is, we probably would have lost. And that's why SC2 is hard to boil down in terms of team gameplay; it's often a combination of, say, Aaron's expansion harassment, Rome's raiding, and my heavy support that will win a game, and even if I destroy the most buildings or whatnot, our success is very interlinked, and we are all pretty dependent on one another (assuming the other players aren't completely incompetent)

I want to contrast this with Gears. It's also a very team-driven game; for instance, whenever a player drops and it turns into 4v5 instead of 5v5, the team with 5 has always won in my experience. There are rare exceptions will I will see the last player on a team beat the other 3 players, but those are just that: rare exceptions. This is a game, however, where it's very obvious who's helping the team, and numbers are quite relevant. I often seen organized teams (i.e. people obviously talking to one another) annihilate the opposing team, as often if not more often than one player carrying everyone else.

This is why it bugs me when so often good players will split off and do their own thing, and then be faced 4v1 because the other team is working together, and then complain that the other players aren't helping out. Sure, they usually kill 1 or 2 of the other opponents, but they get upset that apparently they're the only "good player." The simple fact is if they stuck with other teammates and used their skills instead of essentially hiding, we'd probably BE winning. In fact, if my team is losing, I usually end up following someone else, and more often than not it means we end up winning the round. It's a team tactical game, yet some people still think it's Halo or MW2. Master Chiefing it may earn you the kills and the points associated with it, but it won't always win you the round. In fact, my most memorable win recently was me killing the entire 5 members of the opposing team in one round, and that was only possible because they weren't watching their back because the rest of my team was firing on them.

What's my point with all this? Good question. I guess I'm lucky to have such a good group of gamer friends, ones who I can play a game of SC2 with and not be blamed for being the sole reason our team loses, or never get credit for us winning. One aspect of gaming I absolutely hate is the amount of idiots on multiplayer games, and I suspect that if I had been playing SC2 online alone I would have ceased playing it weeks ago. While it's nice to be the top player in a winning team of Gears, it's far more satisfying to congratulate known teammates after a SC2 win, or even to analyze a loss to improve next time. I think this sense of camaraderie is the real reason I haven't played much 1v1 in SC2; I get that experience from Gears, and I get my "real" team based game with friends on SC2.

-HTMC

*Funny story from that, regarding stupid end game complaints. As we were killing the last base, the guy complained that "no one builds base defenses." Rome and I asked if he meant his teammates, since we had just blown up their bases, and they had defenses. Enemy guy responds "no you guys," meaning Aaron had no defenses. I respond "...but it didn't matter," since we had obviously just won. He keeps repeating that no one builds defenses, which would make sense if Aaron not building defenses had meant we had lost the game... but we hadn't. We're still not sure why he brought it up, but I guess it supports the point that most people will blame anyone else but themselves for winning or losing a team game... even if that other person is on the other team :-P

There's No Good Title for This: Star Wars Vs. 40k

So to finish off this trifecta of Star Wars related post, I'm going to increase my nerd factor by a significant factor and do a comparison that's been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Note this comparison will be more in a spiritual form than completely grounded in fact: unlike some people who analyze the impact of the Death Star's destruction on Endor, or argue over what would happen if the same fired on the Enterprise, I feel like with both the 40k and the SW universe it's important to focus more on the fiction than the science. I'll attempt to break this down into several subsections, going from most general to most specific, and deciding who has an edge.

Assumptions
The first big assumption would be location. The first problem is that the 40k universe is far larger than the SW one. 40k's Imperium of Man numbers around a million planets at a given time, while SW's listed planets number less than a hundred, and in total can't be more than in the hundreds. Therefore to get even  a balanced fight you'd have to assume the Imperium is launching an rather sizable expeditionary force against the SW's universe; so a new extragalactic invasion, but a different force. Timewise, we'll assume directly after NJO SW and "modern" 40k.

Structure & Organization
In general, 40k has the big advantage in that all the human planets are pretty much under one government, with one religion, one tongue, etc. Obviously it's not completely uniform, and many changes exist, but it's fundamentally far more unified than the SW universe is. Even the simple fact that the Galactic Alliance is still an alliance with a senate puts it at a disadvantage; there were beings arguing for peace with the Yuuzhan Vong even after the conquest of Coruscant. In comparison, while sometimes faulty, the Imperium benefits from a clear, unquestionable command structure and a fervent ideological belief, so is rather comparable to the Yuuzhan Vong in this respect, and would cause similar problems, and be similarly useless to negotiate with. On the flip side, individual commanders in the SW universe are given far more freedom and initiative, giving the GA far more flexibility and ease of response. This can obviously still work against them, since the GA is a bit more weak to infighting and clash of opinion than the Imperium, but it still is a nice benefit on a micro side of things. Despite this, though, the Imperium wins pretty easily in this category.
Imperium: 1
Alliance: 0

Technology
This section is where SW has a pretty big advantage. While the Imperium has some pretty awesome technology, and a lot of cool things, there aren't a ton of things that the Imperium has that the Alliance doesn't have something comparable. The other big advantage is the stagnation the the Imperium. Whatever they bring to the battle is often all they'll ever have, and often thing they lose are irreplaceable. The Alliance however is easily adjustable and is always evolving, and this gives a huge advantage. If they can get around YV black holes, I'm sure they can adjust to void shields, and if they can deal with amphistaffs I doubt chainswords will be problematic for long. Another nice touch is the Alliance's ability to use droids, especially things like the YV Hunter droids Lando develops, which would help balance out the sheer numbers of the Imperium and things like Sentinels and Dreadnaughts. Both the Tau and the Tyranids have used adaptability to overcome the Imperium, and I suspect the SW universe would also benefit from this. Technology can often vary widely through Imperial Worlds, to the point where you can sometimes (rarely) get IG regiments who use stubbers because they don't have lasgun technology. SW planets are pretty well distributed technology wise, with the exceptions of real backwaters, which is rarer than in the Imperium.
Imperium: 1
Alliance: 1


Standard Infantry
The standard lasgun and the standard blaster seem pretty similar in function and effectiveness, and the same for standard armor (I feel like Stormtrooper armor [in lore if not in the movies] is about the same as Carapace armor). Numbers-wise the Imperial Guard probably has an advantage, since the Alliance doesn't seem super hot on infantry combat, although 1v1 a Guardsman and an Alliance trooper are probably about evenly matched, again trading pure doctrinarian and standards for a bit more freedom and flexibility. Assuming even numbers, it'd be an even battle, but assuming respective norms the Imperium would probably have an advantage.
Imperium: 1.5
Alliance: 2

Ground Vehicles
While the movies showcase a lot of ground vehicles, in the EU and especially NJO they tend to have a very minor role, making them a bit harder to judge. SW is usually all about air and space superiority, and ground troops if you /have/ to take on ground targets. That being said, even assuming the technological adjustment I mentioned above, changing the whole way of making war would be time consuming and a bit difficult, so the Imperium would likely have a large advantage in mechanized combat and would enjoy it. (Not to even mention titans).
Imperium: 2.5
Alliance: 2

Starfighters
As far as I'm given to understand, Lightnings and Marauders and the like are simply more modern versions of our current fighter jets, in that they're simply armor and ballistics. SW has the advantage of true advanced fighters, with shields, lasers, missiles, etc. Fighters in the Imperium seem there mostly to engage other starfighters and harry smaller ships, whereas a concentrated starfighter strike will often take down capital ships given the right circumstances in SW. 40k fighters seem best suited to air support on planets, where SW ones have a complete superiority role often unless they're super specialized like B-wings. All in all, SW fighters would almost certainly outclass Imperial ships, giving the Alliance a huge advantage in space combat.
Imperium: 2.5
Alliance: 3

Capital Ships
The Imperium has an advantage in having bigger capital ships, while the Alliance has an advantage in them being much more numerous and much more easily produced. This is where things get a little tricky, given relative differences in fire power and weaponry, but it seems like the Alliance would have the pure advantage in terms of small and medium ships (both in terms of them being more common and usually packing more firepower and defenses). In terms of actual capital class ships, Imperial ones probably would easily come off the better in 1v1, but this is one case where SW has a big advantage, since the average fleet contains a number of Star Destroyers, Mon Calamari Cruisers, etc while it's a giant Imperial fleet that contains an equal number of large ships. They also seem far superior in terms of maneuverability and bringing fire to bear; Imperial ships seem like giant sea ships in terms of using broadsides, whereas SW ships are more like "true" space ships, giving them another advantage. The short story is that the SW universe is centered around space combat for the most part, whereas 40k is often more focused on ground combat. Nevertheless, it would still be a definite fight, even if SW has an advantage.
Imperium: 2.5
Alliance: 3.5

Elites
What you've all been waiting for this entire time, I'm sure: the question of Jedi vs. Space Marines. In a 1v1 setting, I'm going to say that an average Jedi will beat an average Space Marine every time. Jedi are notoriously hard to kill in ranged combat, and will close to CC range. The average Space Marine does not have a power weapon, whereas every Jedi does: this means that with anything up to and sometimes including a Sergeant the Jedi will win through pure weapon advantage (even a well-trained swordsman with a power sword in 40k lore will always beat a normal Space Marine, so I don't think this is at all a reach). When you throw power weapons into the mix, it gets a little closer. The Space Marine will have a lot of experience (oftentimes in the scale of hundreds of years) and the power weapon would theoretically the same as a lightsaber in terms of blocking and hitting, but the Jedi's Force ability usually means battle senses: no matter how much experience, the ability to foresee an opponent's move will usually be the deciding factor. Jedi are also faster and stronger than normal humans, albeit not as much as Space Marines, which is why I'll say that Jedi will probably often, if not always, beat a power-equipped SM. When you get to Librarians or Chapter Masters it gets interesting, since the Warp is way different than the Force. I suspect that one of the above versus a highly experienced Jedi Knight or Jedi Master would be a very close thing. If we get to named characters it's anyone's guess.
However, the key point is that Space Marines rarely work along, and are usually in squads of at least 5. Jedi often work in teams of 2 or 1, and it's a special occasion when you get more than that. So really the question comes down to statistically likely what size group would be fighting what other size. I was forced to do something I've prior to this been trying to avoid, that of looking up statistics.
In the SW univese, there's at the end of NJO around 200 Jedi left. According to Wookiepedia, there's about about 20 million planets with sentient life; a rather unhelpful figure, to be honest. The Galactic Alliance page puts the planets at about 1.2 million.
The galaxy pages states that the total population of the galaxy is 100 quadrillion lifeforms over 20 million planets, meaning an average of 5 billion per planet. I think these numbers are fishy, but let's run with it. That means that the Jedi:People ratio is about 1:3.6^13.
The averages for the Imperium are much much harder to come by, since they can vary from billions and billions on a hive world to mere hundreds on a frontier colony. However, the planets is an easy one million. To make thngs easy, let's also assume 5 billion per planet, giving the population roughly equal to the Alliances. Instead of 200 Jedi, though, you have roughly 1,000 chapters of 1,000, or a million marines, giving a much favorable ratio.
Even assuming the SW numbers of stupidly inflated (which it probably is, I don't think most SW writers would agree that the average planet has 5 billion lifeforms, or that the Alliance is composed of 1.2 million planets) 200 Jedi is still a tiny, tiny number, so the Space Marines would likely steamroll A LOT. I'm sure they could be taken down, but like everything else they fight, it would cost a lot.
Imperium: 3.5
Alliance: 3.5

Conclusion
I actually didn't have numbers or anything planned out while writing this, it all came kind of naturally, so I'm actually surprised the score came out even. Regardless, it seems the general gist is that SW holds the natural front on space combat, whereas the Imperium would dominate on the ground (although the space combat advantage would also likely turn into air superiority on the ground, which might change things; I doubt even hydras would do much vs. strafing X-Wings). It would probably be simply a race to make sure the Imperium never won a space battle to the point they could launch a ground invasion: in some ways, it would be very similar to the Yuuzhan Vong war in that respect, meaning the Alliance has some good experience fighting them off.
Again, I think the key point would be the technological one mentioned above. Much as the Yuuzhan Vong were a mostly static race, the Imperium would probably win a number of smashing victories out the gate, but as the Alliance adjusted that momentum would quickly peter out, and eventually the Alliance would have the upper hand. How much loss would occur before that is up for debate, but I feel an invasion of the SW universe by the Imperium would eventually end badly.
Of course, the big question is again the numbers. I assumed that 40k had a huge advantage, given the lore I've read in both, but apparently the technical facts on Wookipedia speak differently (I'm compelled to call bulls***, but who knows). Assuming the current wars-on-all-fronts of the Imperium, they wouldn't be able to devote as much resources as necessary; if they had somehow secured their galaxy, then they'd also be at an advantage. That would also mean you'd assume the SW galaxy was equally peaceful, but even at their worst they're never as war-torn as the 40k universe is.

Anyway, I've very curious to hear what you all think; what points you think I missed, what points you think I got wrong, etc. If I get enough interesting comments I might write a follow-up, since as I said this wasn't /that/ planned out. Other than that though, this'll probably be the last SW post for a while, so expect other things next time.

-HTMC

So Bad It's Bad: Grimdark & Star Wars

Since I ended up writing that post on the canonicity of videogames, and Star Wars in particular, I figure now is as good of time as any to write that pair of Star Wars posts I've been meaning to write, and make it into a trilogy (My enthusiasm for which has already been seen). Thus I again present you with two things I "like" and why they do not at all go together: The idea of "grimdark" and, again, Star Wars.

My interest in the grimdark has been more recent, stemming from things like Gears of Wars, various zombie things, war movies, and most particularly all the 40k stuff. Obviously there's a limit, and it has to be handled well, but a certain level of this works extraordinarily well in certain circumstances. Lots of examples exist, and while I don't think the majority of the media I consume could be labeled "grimdark," I definitely enjoy the genre (style?).

I've been a fan of the universe for as long as I can remember, although my actual count of watching the movies is relatively low; I've always been much more focused on the Expanded Universe, particularly the novels and short stories, and to a lesser extent things like video games, comics, the original Clone Wars shorts, etc. I devoured things like the X-Wing series and everything Timothy Zahn wrote, and supplemented it with anything I could find. If my memory serves me correctly, releases were fairly small while I was growing up, and there weren't so many spin-offs as there are now. I could be wrong.

However, all this changed with New Jedi Order. Although the writing team didn't use the word "grimdark," they specifically stated the goal was to make the Star Wars universe darker/grittier, which is why the series opens with the still controversial death of Chewbacca.

My opinion of the series is actually on the whole positive. Some of the stories are better than others. Some moments are treated amazingly, like Anakin's martyrdom, while others don't get nearly what they deserver, like the death of Tsavong Lah. Some of the stories, particularly the early ones, are forgettable to a large extent, while others (such as Traitor and the two by Aaron Allstone) are still worth rereading even out of order.

So yes, I think they achieved what they wanted. They wanted to get away from the predictable, the "Han/Leia/Luke get in trouble but everyone knows they'll barely make it out because we can't kill off those characters." I can understand some frustration from a writer's standpoint, wanting to do something different in a universe so many people love. And as I said, I think they handled it extremely well, for the most part. It was a good series, I don't regret reading it, and it definitely made for a different feel than the other works.

What I object strongly to is that now, since the NJO series sold so well, the writers seem to think that the rest of the books need to be grimdark in order to sell well. I read the Dark Nest Trilogy, which is the immediate sequel to the NJO series, and it basically said "let's take everything they resolved, destroy it, and have 3 of the strongest people in the entire SW universe fall victim to bugs... after defeating Force-blank extradimensional aliens."

Ya. That makes a lot of sense.

I honestly can barely remember anything from the series, because it was so bad both in terms of content, character believability, and actual writing style. I only finished the trilogy because I have some Completionist in me. I almost started reading the Legacy of the Force, only to read some of the plot summaries online, and then declare the entire series Excommunicatus Hereticus and thus non-canon (I would have burned all copies too, if I had the resources).

To give a summary of why I hate this book so much, I refer back to a book I referenced earlier, namely Traitor. It may be, in my mind, the best book of the series. It focuses on Jacen on occupied Coruscant, and his journey to come to terms with the Yuuzhan Vong, their alienness, and their lack of the Force. His descent into madness, confusion, and eventual reemergence as perhaps the wisest of the Jedi is one of the best stories I've read, period. It's philosophy and introspection through a Star Wars lens, and confronts the grimdarkness of the Yuuzhan Vong and takes from it something positive. Alien, but positive.

Jacen's key discovery is that the idea of the Light and Dark side of the Force is a farce. The Force is living energy; energy cannot be good or bad. What the Jedi refer to the Dark side is merely the evil within Force users themselves. Not only is such labeling detrimental, but by doing so the Jedi have blinded themselves to the full spectrum of the Force and cannot reach their whole potential.
Jacen solves the problem of the Vong Force-nakedness. He uses a Vong symbiot to fix his lightsaber, and becomes deeply in tune with it as as a result (as well as a symbiote implanted within him). He then becomes able to dimly, but still somewhat, sense the Vong in the Force. It's a huge breakthrough, and Jacen spends the rest of the series (although this book is 20/26, so towards the end) contemplating the Force and trying to learn as many of the non-Jedi Force-user cults as he can (such as the Dathomir witches).

Cool idea, right? Like I said, it's really well executed, an amazing character development and motivation for Jacen (who'd prior to that been Animal Boy, i.e. Pretty Boring). So what did Legacy of the Force do?

"Olololol I troll you! He's gonna become a Sith because he needs to learn ALL kinds of Force!"

"But wait, didn't he learn that the Dark side of the Force didn't really exist? What kind of motivation could he possibly have for this?!" you say in confusion and betrayal.

"I TROLL YOU" shouts Karen Traviss and Troy Denning.

So yes, Legacy of the Force (and everything else post NJO) is stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. You'd think that the fact that pretty much every SW novel, no matter how grimdark or whatever, is a bestseller would clue the writers off that it doesn't NEED to be grimdark. In fact, while NJO was a nice change, I prefer the traditional type. Star Wars was ABOUT the heroic, the traditional happy ending story; Han may be frozen in carbonite, all may seem lost, but they'll come through eventually. It's a good feeling to know that. And if you really want to kill people? Be like Aaron Allstone or Michael Stackpole, or Timothy Zahn, and make some compelling characters that sometimes become more popular than the movie characters (I'm looking at you, Mara Jade and Corran Horn) and then you can kill them off.

Also, in that vein, Karen Traviss, you f***ing leave Timothy Zahn's characters alone. He writes infinitely better and more interesting stories than you do.

Anyway, sorry for the long and rambling post, but I've been bottling this up for a long time. Grimdarkness is good, and it has its place, but that place is not Star Wars. I'll get that fix elsewhere, and meanwhile I can go to Star Wars getting what I'm expecting. I mean, I'd be upset if I read a 40k novel where every character lived; likewise I'd be upset if I read a SW novel where EVERYONE DIED. So get back to your roots. Side stories featuring none of the movie characters can be awesome (again, see the Rogue Squadron series). Write more of those or something. If nothing else, it's getting silly that Han and Luke are the only two people in the entire galaxy who can handle some things (didn't Luke make that Jedi Academy for this reason?)

I welcome your thoughts, and thanks for bearing with me through all this.

-HTMC