The above infographic (http://walyou.com/nerd-geek-infographic/) while funny is fairly useless when it comes to answering the question: Am I a Geek or Nerd? There is an assumption in the infographic that geeks love Star Wars and nerds love Star Trek. Well what about people like me who love both? My intra-universe likes and dislikes are of greater importance to me than my inter-universe likes and dislikes. I think the Star Wars prequel crap is ok while considering the original Star Wars to be mythic. I like all incarnations of Star Trek except Enterprise. I hate Enterprise far more than I hate the Star Wars prequels which I really don’t hate but just think the prequels are not as good as the original movies. You cannot say I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars but that I like some incarnations of Star Trek more or less and some incarnations of Star Wars more or less.
I do prefer the expanded Star Wars universe that includes novels, game sourcebooks and comic books as being part of the Star Wars universe versus the more narrow movie canon view. However, I do like the Star Trek reboot which makes continuity a problem in Star Trek and probably means there will never be as detailed a Star Trek future history as the Star Wars future history. What I really like is wars between imaginary sci-fi universes rather than any particular sci-fi universe.
I am the sort of guy who posted the following comment at my Star Trek vs. Warhammer 40K post the other day in response to a comment from a reader about the Titans of the Imperium and how powerful they would be in ground warfare:
“The Star Trek universe doesn’t really deal with ground forces very much unlike Warhammer 40k whose sourcebooks go into this aspect of war in loving detail. The Classic Trek show kind of suggested that the Federation pretty much handled ground situations with orbital bombardment. The Enterprise was shown stunning gangsters (Season 2 Episode 17) from space with incredible accuracy so the natural argument that air power alone doesn’t win wars could be brushed aside to some extent. Maybe super sophisticated air power would work and you might have some brass in the USAF that buy into this idea. A qualitative edge will ultimately surmount the historical limits of air power supremacy.
However, pg. 47 of the more recent The Dominion War Sourcebook: The Fires of Armageddon (DS9) states that Federation mechanized forces have assault skimmers, phaser tanks and other ground vehicles. This section also mentions special-forces such as the Starfleet Rangers and 3rd Andorian Battalion. The same sourcebook also provides a lot of detail about Romulan (pg. 58), Klingon (pg. 54) and Dominion (pg. 66) ground forces.
The big point made is the sourcebook is that the Federation is basically behind other aliens in the Star Trek universe when it comes to ground force equipment. I mention this because there is a paupacity of stuff about ground forces in the Star Trek universe. There are literally over a dozen sourcebooks with detailed descriptions of the star ships but nothing about ground forces. This contrasts with the Star Wars universe as well! Orbital bombardment will be ineffective against sophisticated foes like Klingons, Romulans and the Dominion since they will have counters to such a tactic including ground force shielding and driving out Star Fleet from the air leaving their superior ground forces to win the day. I think the lack of ground force description in the Star Trek universe is basically due to a lack of cheap CGI when the universe was created. Space battles between two to three ships was relatively easy to show with models but imagine trying to show a futuristic ground war way back in the sixties! A ground battle with one or two tanks would not be believable. Star Wars; The Clone Wars clearly shows that current technology is up to the task and maybe this is a natural extension of the Star Trek Universe.”
A far more useful diagram to deciding the issue of whether I am a geek or a nerd is provided at Great White Snark (http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2010/03/25/difference-between-nerd-dork-and-geek-explained-in-a-venn-diagram/) below:
Based on the above Venn Diagram I am clearly a nerd not a geek. I have strange obsessions. I do have a doctorate from a top university so that is probably some indicator of intelligence. My verbal percentile rank on the GRE was in the 92nd percentile. My quantitative score was far lower and a secret. I have created and run educational programs which demonstrates social aptitude. Actually getting a doctorate does require a great deal of Machiavellian skill which is why dorks and dweebs don’t generally get doctorates!
WereVerse Universe Baby!
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