Thank you all for your support. It means a lot to me that you all enjoyed my work, and support me personally. I am also surprised a bit.
This site has always been more popular, and TC has become one of the most talented CGI modelers I know of. My piddly screenshots and vanilla-html-skills could never compete with these gorgeous CGI images, frames, java, etc. I simply don't know how to do those things. I'm not a computer expert, after all.
Never will be - I just know how to use them a little.
My methods and the methods used here, spacebattles, and in newsgroups will never be the same.
In my mind, the scientific method is like this:
1. Identify the problem (how fast is the Whitestar?, for example).
2. Gather relevant data (make measurements from scenes in the show, or identify relevant quotes).
3. Formulate a hypothesis (set upper and lower limits on the technology in question).
4. Test the hypothesis (do these limits hold up against other evidence from the show?).
Other B5 analysts have always preferred to start with step #3, and ignore step #4, IMO.
For example, the respected mr Adam Warlock has some impressive calculations on Minbari Warcruiser weapons, which I could
never reproduce. He starts with a theory on their nature, and calculates that they release several gigatons per blast.
The math involved is way over my head!
But, by my methods, that's backwards. With my methods, you start with information given or shown in the show, make calculations, and THEN, maybe make a hypothesis on their nature. I would never make a hypothesis on how a weapon works (turbolasers, for example), and decide how much firepower they have based on that. I make measurements on size, time, etc., from on-screen information, and make calculations that can be reproduced by anyone who cares.
By my methods, if I found that a weapon may have firepower in the gigaton range per shot, I'd test that against other evidence from the show. If Minbari Warcruisers put out gigatons per blast, why didn't Ivonova laugh at G'Kar's puny 500 megaton bombs? Why was G'Kar so confident about them? Why was Sheridan so confident about them? Why were the Shadows and Vorlons "pissed," as opposed to amused? Why didn't Sheridan just reorient the Whitestar and fire the weapons, instead of crashing it into the ground (easier than navigating to a particular point through an atmosphere), removing his only possible means of escape??? Why was the SPK so scary, when it's firepower (thousands of megatons times tousands of missiles, delivered over 12 hours) is comperable to a few dozen Minbari ships???
I would then decide that I did something wrong in the calculation that produced a gigaton-range weapon, as it doesn't hold up to other evidence in the show.
But that is why I was almost daily criticised, insulted on a personal level, issued death threats, which frightened my fiance' (now my wife), etc.
In all that time, my Star Wars pages were largely ignored, except that militant B5 fans somehow felt that I had intentions to make the Empire appear stronger than Earthforce (as if someone would have to twist facts for that, whatever...).
I hope everyne enjoys the new movie. I think it starts this week, doesn't it?
Brian