The 300(ish) metre klingon bird of prey

[m52nickerson]

Evidence?

If anything a lack of supporting evidance. While you and other what to come up with a different classes of ships based off single instances other do not. Just a fudimental difference.

The OP refered specifically to the classes of BoP, and the strength of the B'rel class given on DITL - that's an IU approach, and therefore falls under SoD.

I was mainly speaking about future threads.

As Mikey said, DS9 and the Defiant are specific examples of a hull form. Since the Feds can't change the size of their ships at random, they must be the same size at all times.

The BOP is a pretty specific hull form.

Why would we need to ignore that? It remains canon that it was stated several times that Data can't use contractions. That doesn't mean those characters were correct (especially as we have evidence that they're wrong).

So they just never noticed that Data did use them?

If documentary footage contains images that we "know" to be wrong then we have several options:

1) Our knowlege is flawed.

2) We're misinterpreting the footage.

3) There isn't any footage of a given event, so the documentary maker has substituted something else (this has happened several times with footage of HMS Barham sinking being used as generic footage of a ship blowing up).

We do not simply pretend that the footage actually occured in a completely different manner.

Klingon ships appearing behind Romulan ships but a larger size then they really were is not exactly a competely diferent manner.

To nitpick, the B'rel and K'vort are the same size.

I did not think they were based on the DS9 tech guide. Yes I know that is not cannon and really don't see a need to debate this specific belief because I realize that there is not much to support it in canon. Mainly it does come from non-canon sources, games and such. I just like it because smaller BOPs can be considarded B'rels while larger ones can be placed in the K'vort class.

[Sionnach Glic]

I was mainly speaking about future threads.

Unless otherwise stated, or the thread in question is about something clearly OOU, assume by default that the thread will be using SoD.

[Captain Seafort]

If anything a lack of supporting evidance. While you and other what to come up with a different classes of ships based off single instances other do not. Just a fudimental difference.

Tough. Unless you have evidence that the appearence of the ships on screen was somehow deceptive, then that's how big they were.

The BOP is a pretty specific hull form.

I said "specific examples" of a hull form.

So they just never noticed that Data did use them?

Never noticed, forgot, who knows. The fact is that he can and does use them.

Klingon ships appearing behind Romulan ships but a larger size then they really were is not exactly a competely diferent manner.

Correct - therefore the ships were the size they appeared to be - several hundred metres across.

I did not think they were based on the DS9 tech guide. Yes I know that is not cannon and really don't see a need to debate this specific belief because I realize that there is not much to support it in canon. Mainly it does come from non-canon sources, games and such. I just like it because smaller BOPs can be considarded B'rels while larger ones can be placed in the K'vort class.

It comes entirely from non-canon sources. In universe, the K'vorts from Yesterday's Enterprise and the B'rels from Rascals are indistinguishable from each other - they must either be very closely related classes, or different internal configurations of the same hull.

The OOU reason for this is that the shots of the B'rels were stock footage from YE.

[m52nickerson]

Tough. Unless you have evidence that the appearance of the ships on screen was somehow deceptive, then that's how big they were.

Yup some very rare class never seen again! Makes perfect sense!

I said "specific examples" of a hull form.

Ok, The BOP is a pretty specific example of a hull form.

Never noticed, forgot, who knows. The fact is that he can and does use them.

Again that make perfect sense that the crew just never noticed ever when it was pointed out repeatedly. (Please not the sarcasm)

Correct - therefore the ships were the size they appeared to be - several hundred meters across.

Or the footage was poorly put together because the size really did not matter to the overall documentation of that incident.

It comes entirely from non-canon sources. In universe, the K'vorts from Yesterday's Enterprise and the B'rels from Rascals are indistinguishable from each other - they must either be very closely related classes, or different internal configurations of the same hull.

The OOU reason for this is that the shots of the B'rels were stock footage from YE.

Which is the reason I'm not going to try and prove it. I like it, it works for me...........in other words "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

[Captain Seafort]

Yup some very rare class never seen again! Makes perfect sense!

Exactly. It's not as if ships of the week are a rare breed in Trek.

Ok, The BOP is a pretty specific example of a hull form.

No - the BoP is a hull form. The Bounty is a specific example of a BoP. The Bounty randomly changing size is a problem. BoPs of unknown classes turning up at different sizes to the Bounty are not problems because they're different ships.

Again that make perfect sense that the crew just never noticed ever when it was pointed out repeatedly.

It doesn't make sense, but it's what was shown.

(Please not the sarcasm)

What have you got against sarcasm?

Or the footage was poorly put together because the size really did not matter to the overall documentation of that incident.

Or that's original footage. This is the prefered solution under the Razor, as we have no evidence that refutes the visual evidence (for example an explicit statement regarding the size of the BoPs in that incident).

[Tsukiyumi]

Well, I for one am glad Seafort found something to do.

[m52nickerson]

Exactly. It's not as if ships of the week are a rare breed in Trek.

Not so much for galactic powers.

No - the BoP is a hull form. The Bounty is a specific example of a BoP. The Bounty randomly changing size is a problem. BoPs of unknown classes turning up at different sizes to the Bounty are not problems because they're different ships.

In your opinion. Were else is a single peace of footage accepted as fact.

It doesn't make sense, but it's what was shown.

....it does not make sense but we should go with it? Fascinating!

What have you got against sarcasm?

Sorry my "e" was stolen, it should have been "Please note the sarcasm".

Or that's original footage. This is the preferred solution under the Razor, as we have no evidence that refutes the visual evidence (for example an explicit statement regarding the size of the BoPs in that incident).

Just because it is easier to state does not make it the simplier explanation. You have to make sure it makes sense, in this case the Klingons having four or so ships of the same design, just different scales makes litte.

.....and Occam's razor was only ever intended to streamline theories not judge competing ones.

[Captain Seafort]

Not so much for galactic powers.

And? The fundamental facts of the case are that we saw ships that could be easilly scaled to several hundred metres across in one case, and a couple of dozen metres in another, as well as the common 100m and 350m designs. Unless you have solid evidence that these ships did not exist, then we go by what we saw.

In your opinion. Were else is a single peace of footage accepted as fact.

Why should it not be?

it does not make sense but we should go with it?

Correct - because it fits all the evidence available. Whether or not it makes sense that the crew should disbelieve the evidence of their own ears is by the by.

Just because it is easier to state does not make it the simplier explanation. You have to make sure it makes sense, in this case the Klingons having four or so ships of the same design, just different scales makes litte.

Theory 1) We can measure the Defector BoPs as being several hundred metres across, therefore they're several hundred metres across.

Theory 2) We can measure the Defector BoPs as being several hundred metres across, but because of alien spacebats/pink elephants/quantum, they're actually much smaller.

Guess which adds unnecessary entities, and therefore violates Occam's Razor.

Occam's razor was only ever intended to streamline theories not judge competing ones.

Wrong, wrong, WRONG. Judging competing theories against each other is precisely what Occam's Razor was and is intended for.

[m52nickerson]

And? The fundamental facts of the case are that we saw ships that could be easilly scaled to several hundred metres across in one case, and a couple of dozen metres in another, as well as the common 100m and 350m designs. Unless you have solid evidence that these ships did not exist, then we go by what we saw.

You are making the claim that they did exist based on a single piece of footage. We never see BOP of that size any other time. This combined with the fact that other ships in the footage tend to change size indicates the footage is flawed.

Why should it not be?

Why should we not believe the Federation has the power to change the size of there ships at any time, we see it with the Defiant? It it becasue it makes less sense then saying the footage is flawed.

Correct - because it fits all the evidence available. Whether or not it makes sense that the crew should disbelieve the evidence of their own ears is by the by.

Just because it fits does not mean it is right.

Theory 1) We can measure the Defector BoPs as being several hundred metres across, therefore they're several hundred metres across.

We never see those ships again because of some pink bunny/quantum.......

Theory 2 - The footage is wrong based on the fact it make little sense.

Guess which adds unnecessary entities, and therefore violates Occam's Razor.

Hay I can do it to!

Wrong, wrong, WRONG. Judging competing theories against each other is precisely what Occam's Razor was and is intended for.

Really? You base this on what? Occam's Razor states "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." That is not the simplest answer is better. It merely means that within a given hypothesis steps or processes that are not necessary should be removed. The only way it is rightly used to pick between to hypothesis is if both are equally good at explaining a phenomenon, and thus most likely very similar. If one is even slightly better it is preferred regardless of its complexity.

You may be right that your hypothesis that the BOP of that large size exist is simpler if we had only that footage and nothing else. That is not the case, for your hypothesis needs to also address other questions, why we never see those types of ships again, why we don't see other Klingon ships of that size with no nacelles exposed?

[Captain Seafort]

You are making the claim that they did exist based on a single piece of footage. We never see BOP of that size any other time. This combined with the fact that other ships in the footage tend to change size indicates the footage is flawed.

Then prove that the footage is flawed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, one image is all that's necessary

Why should we not believe the Federation has the power to change the size of there ships at any time, we see it with the Defiant? It it becasue it makes less sense then saying the footage is flawed.

And we have evidence that they can't vary the size of their ships because they spent an entire episode investigating a phenomenon that could, with a view to developing it as a weapon against the Dominion.

Just because it fits does not mean it is right.

By that logic, just because the E-D doesn't look like a giant green slug doesn't mean it isn't one.

We never see those ships again because of some pink bunny/quantum

We never see those ships again. No evidence is required to explain this, as the fact stands on its own. We can speculate as to why this is so, but an explanaion is not necessary for the evidence of their size to stand.

Theory 2 - The footage is wrong based on the fact it make little sense.

Translation: "I don't like it, therefore it's wrong".

You may be right that your hypothesis that the BOP of that large size exist is simpler if we had only that footage and nothing else. That is not the case, for your hypothesis needs to also address other questions, why we never see those types of ships again, why we don't see other Klingon ships of that size with no nacelles exposed?

Those are all interesting questions, but answering them is not necessary to answer the question of "how big are the Defector Birds of Prey". Your approach introduces the unnecessary additional entity of the footage being somehow distorted, with no evidence to support it.

[Lazar]

Those are all interesting questions, but answering them is not necessary to answer the question of "how big are the Defector Birds of Prey". Your approach introduces the unnecessary additional entity of the footage being somehow distorted, with no evidence to support it.

But if we treat the footage as perfect, then you have to accept all other instances of eratic or mistaken scaling as perfect. I suppose you would argue that this case is different because it's a case of different vessels, as opposed to a single vessel being scaled eratically, but I think this is just a silly loophole that would allow for an endless proliferation of identical-looking ships of wildly varying sizes. I fail to see any essential difference between "Oops, we made DS9 too big next to that GCS" and "Oops, we made those BOPs too big next to that GCS". It's the same hull being used by the same race, and we'd better have a damn good reason (i.e. more than some lazy exterior shots) to believe that it's not the same kind of ship. And again, they have never once contrasted different BOP sizes in the same scene. So which explanation is simpler: that the Klingons made no fewer than five different classes of ship, at 50 m, 110 m, 230 m, 350 m and 700 m, with the exact same hull shape, and absolutely identical in external appearance (from all the angles and distances from which we've been able to observe), with all the engineering absurdities that that entails, although some of them have only appeared once, and they never ever appear alongside one another in the same scene; or that they just messed up the scaling of the model? I would say the latter.

Then prove that the footage is flawed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, one image is all that's necessary

You're applying an evidentiary standard that far exceeds the level of care or consistency that we've seen from the people in charge of the show. When a single ship or station is scaled in a silly way, you've got no problem disregarding the footage, but when the same thing is done to identical-looking alien vessels, then footage is god.

And we have evidence that they can't vary the size of their ships because they spent an entire episode investigating a phenomenon that could, with a view to developing it as a weapon against the Dominion.

But before that episode, would you have argued that ships possessed size-mutator devices that caused them to change size, rather than admit that the makers of the show just got lazy when they tossed together some exterior shots?

[Tsukiyumi]

Seafort knows those are just FX screwups; we all do. Some people just like to discuss these things exclusively from an in-universe standpoint.

[Granitehewer]

i think that the opening thread was strongly implicitly implied to be in-universe and thus requiring suspension of disbelief, rather than needing to be further explictly stated. Have enjoyed reading this, all be it as rare opportunities i get to come online

[Sionnach Glic]

Regarding Occam's Razor, it is designed to judge which of two (or more) possible explainations is best. It's what the creator of it explicitly intended to do when he created the Razor.

Occam's Razor was created by a monk named (surprise surprise) Occam. He made it to prove that the existance of a god could not be proven logicaly.
In that situation, the question was "What created the universe?", and the possible answers were "God did it" or "it happened through natural means". Because God is a complete unknown, the Razor discredited it immediately, and instead chose the Natural Causes answer, despite it being less simple than the God Did It answer by a good deal.

The situation here is the same. The difference is that the question is "Why is it that there are ships of a nearly identical design portrayed at radicaly different sizes?", and the answers are either "FX screwup, and they're all actualy the same thing", or "They're different classes, based on a similar exterior design".

From an in-universe point of view, the possibility of FX errors are only accepted if the error contradicts a well known fact. A good example of this is the Defiant's size. We've seen in countless shots that it's size X, yet in one shot we see that it is size Y. The possible answers here are "The Defiant class has a built in shrink ray" or "someone fucked up". In this instance, the idea that the Defiant class has a srhink ray is absurd, and so we must accept it as an FX error. We do this by assuming it was a mistake on behalf of the director of the "documentary" we're watching. For example, perhaps he took some footage of a Defiant flying through empty space, and edited some other ships into the background to make the scene more exciting for the viewers to watch. Unfortunately, he fucked up the scaling, resulting in the Defiant appearing a lot larger than it really is.

In the instance of the BoP size discrepency, however, we have numerous shots of the different sized ships. As it's a bit of a stretch to assume the director of the documentary fucked with the footage that many times, the logical answer is that they're different classes, based on a scaled-up BoP design.

Which is the reason I'm not going to try and prove it. I like it, it works for me...........in other words "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

And you're perfectly entitled to view the scenes in whatever way you wish and come to whatever conclusions you wish.
When dealing with debates, however, you must adhere to SoD.

[Granitehewer]

.....and even with suspension of disbelief, you shouldn't see large birds of prey onscreen and imagine them to be k'tingas, as i am sure i read earlier.
Although i think the cardassian hideki is one ugly mofo,so always try to concentrate on the surrounding space and hope that they go away.