Forum:SH Archive/Heyo! 13,000,000,000 BBY and the black dwarf

Hey guys and gals. I was stopping by and I noticed that the AC decided to remove a paragraph from 13,000,000,000 BBY during Meeting 57 on grounds summed up well by Toprawa with "It's really just a long-winded explanation of trying to apply real-world physics to Star Wars, which is always a mistake." Also, from the Meeting page, "the relevance/importance of the new information is disputed." I'd just like to put in my two cents here, since I wrote it. (You guys know I have a Facebook, right? I can be called for comment if something I might know something about crops up and I'll visit gladly.)

First off, that paragraph covers a topic that could warrant far more than one paragraph. However, the physics of the matter would not be of interest to someone looking up information on Star Wars, let alone a specific year, so they were never considered for inclusion. The paragraph is instead one obligatory sentence saying an inconsistency exists, three sentences explaining in simple English what scientific terms used by Star Wars authors meant, one sentence on why black dwarves in the galaxy is odd because its established year of birth makes it too young, and then one optional sentence on the end answering a question I thought might be fairly common. It was worded simply so that someone unfamiliar with the terms would understand and that, considering the scientific papers I went through, was not a simple task. At 206 words, it was not "long-winded;" it was economical, using the fewest amount of words possible to describe things in a way that would actually make sense to readers.

Secondly, applying real-world physics to Star Wars "is always a mistake." I'm inclined to agree with this. But I was not the one who tried to apply real-world science terms to Star Wars. It was the authors of the sources, who used the real-world term. And they used it incorrectly. We consider the slightest deviation from canon mandatory for inclusion in the BTS whether it is a serious retcon or a slip of the pen by an author, as in that mess with Vaapad's mention in Path of Destruction. How is an author using a real-world term incorrectly not relevant behind the scenes information? This is not a call to stick variations of "the Force is impossible" in every Jedi's BTS. It is simply taking note of a mistake authors make while writing books using words that have actual meanings, not just taking note of mistakes with the ones that have made up definitions. This is fair, considering the standard we hold authors to when it comes to minutiae from sourcebooks released ten years ago that they could not have just been Googled and could not necessarily have found easily through Wookieepedia. Another thing I should point out is that the paragraph says that the galaxy is not old enough for the described process that makes a black dwarf to have happened. It never once says that a black dwarf in the Star Wars galaxy is "impossible." Because applying real-world physics to Star Wars is a mistake. Consider if an author decides to write a story explaining why there is a black dwarf. That would be something. Just like a story explaining away a continuity problem is always something.

So that's my two points. The paragraph should be put back in. Cheers! NaruHina Talk  08:58, April 30, 2013 (UTC)