History, Politics And Current Affairs

OK, so we had a somewhat OK thread on this meme before the last iteration of this board died.

Stuart had a number of nervous tics in his writing -- patterns that reoccurred such as typoes, etc.

You don't see that kind of stuff in Suphi's writing; of which there are samples preserved in these thread essays:

https://tboverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=106
https://tboverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=52
https://tboverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=63

If Stuart really was impersonating Suphi, you would see slipups in his impersonation -- like the use of "teh"; and misspelt words such as this sentence by Stuart:

We could very well argue that Russia's behavior under Putin for the last seven years has been exactly that startegy, withdraw to the heartland, regroup.

Suphi didn't make typoes.

EDIT: While looking at that long essay, I did notice something:

If any low official up to 400 grade captures a prince he shall be rewarded with a l00,000 gold coins

Please note the use of l00 (lower case l letter) instead of 1 digit; this is a common OCR error, which also occurred in Discrediting the Leutchter Report.

Well, I always thought Suphi was real but also realized that the possibility existed that she was an alter ego of Stuart’s

I always enjoyed the perspective and conversation in any case.

The other side of the evidence in the first post is the writing style appearing to mimic/emulate an Asian speaking English in certain syntax and word choice. The idiolect of Supatra was unlike any Asian that many have come across online previously, being aligned to a significant degree with the type of verbal mistakes that a person of Asian extraction would make speaking English; I knew a Thai lady for a good 10 years, being the wife of one of my friends, and her speech had a structural and stylistic similarity to the aforementioned idiolect.

There was one area of crossover with Stuart's style/idiolect - the use of particular foreign courtesy titles. This happened particularly in his writing, where he tended towards overuse of the likes of 'Jongmens', 'Bratishka' and other variants in TBOverse stories, but also in some posts where he would address an individual by a courtesy title; I'm remembering a Russian of some sort where Gospodin was used three times in succession before being corrected: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... &start=100 http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... &start=200 Here we also see multiple uses of 'Grazhdanin', which is uncommon enough to stick out like the proverbial. Supatra, from my memory of 2006 and 2007, would often use 'Khun' in her posts when answering individual posters. It must be said that Khun is apparently an oft used courteous form of address in Thai, so it isn't anything approaching a smoking gun.

However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there wasn't a widespread habit or incidence on HPCA in the 15 years I've been here of many posters using courtesy titles in any language. Overall, this factor to me doesn't amount to a definite piece of evidence, but it does make for consideration.

The issue of ascending to a general's rank or close approximation makes actually accounting for every female Thai general not too difficult; whilst the thread on the most recent board is gone, there was some indication that female generals were very few and almost entirely drawn from the Thai military medical services, based on available open source information (https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewconte ... ntext=jvbl ). We do know that the first female promotions to the rank of general occurred as early as 1996: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os ... story.html There is also the matter of deployment to Iraq, purportedly with the rank of a colonel. There might very well be records or accounts of that, given that the deployment of Task Force 976 Thai-Iraq lasted for a year (September 03 to September 04) and was of a small strength of a reinforced engineer battalion. We have Supatra being described as a Major General in 2007, so if there is evidence out there of a promotion, then it would be from the 2004/05-07 period in some form, either in a Royal Thai Army press release, some form of Thai news website archive, a newspaper or otherwise.

To play devil's advocate, the incidence of Supatra's posting started to fade away in the mid to late 2000s. That is a period when the Internet was hitting its second or third wind in terms of penetration and level of connection, itself coming before the advent of the smartphone and social media which put such exposure into turbo drive. This is simply a correlation and there isn't enough evidence to draw any strong conclusions from it, but it is one further piece that, in concert with others, could be used to support a particular argument.

On the basis of that and what was discussed before the last board went down, I wouldn't go so far as to characterise the matter as a conspiracy theory, but rather an unsolved situation with differing points of view. On balance, I've got to say I lean towards the 'fake' hypothesis on the evidence available, but would certainly change my view if something persuasive came up to the contrary.

What swayed me were a few simple things…

Scale. Stuart “got” scale, he could talk at the level of strategy and operations easily, but he did not get tactics. The Supatra “character” did, could talk convincingly and easily about small unit operations and tactics. Stuart couldn’t, his action scenes reflected that.

Logistics. Stuart didn’t “get” logistics. I mean, he knew that resupply needed trucks, trains etc and the size and scale of them, but things like the number of drivers, water and fuel points, tempo of resupply operations, size of yards, turning circles etc. passed him by. I’d had a number of conversations with him on this topic, mainly on 19th century logistics- but identical principles- and it was clear that he didn’t follow, just took the end numbers. The Supatra “character” however did understand logistics at a fundamental level, like someone who had been there and done that. It was clearly evident from years of that character’s posts.

I’d also add, I deal with Thailand on a regular basis and I checked the “Khun” thing out. The answer was, “well thank you for being polite, it’s mainly the older generation who speak like that now. Call me Tim please.” Also, the Thais I work with both speak and write in a structure very similar to the Supatra “character”.

So I call Occam’s Razor; the most likely explanation is that they’re two different people.

I’m not in any way qualified to talk about tactics or any of that stuff.

The use of Khun does correspond to being from an older generation, similar to the use of ‘Bey’ as an honorific in the former Ottoman Empire into the middle and late 20th century. However, it isn’t just the *use* of the word, but the frequency and circumstances of it. As an English/language nerd who wasted close to two decades on it, certain patterns stick out for me and this was certainly one of them; when combined with an eidetic memory on the weirdest/most obscure stuff, it gives a bit of an interesting perspective. The exemplars linked to above to “Gospodin Stas” and “Grazhdanin Stas” are very familiar and specific and to my recollection, quite akin to Supatra’s usage.

It is quite interesting that the Thais of your professional acquaintance write in the manner that they speak; that is something quite different to my experience.

Looking back at the first link Mark posted above, there are certain inconsistencies. In some sections, relatively complex sentences are used, involving correct use of commas and clauses that many native English speakers/writers would struggle to replicate:

“In the evening, so long as danger was not imminent, there were entertainments and music in the camp, especially on an aggressive expedition.”
“From the old Sukothai pictures cavalry were nearly always represented, but both their strength and mode of employment are obscure.”
“ The battle array, into which a Sukothai army (consisting of main army, wings, van, and rearguards) was arranged, is of great interest because it was the custom for an army to march and camp, as well as fight, in battle array, at least when in enemy country or wherever there was a chance of being attacked.”

Note that verb use is quite ‘normal’ to what would be considered a fairly proficient standard. The final sentence does tend towards a ‘run-on’ character that is quite different to some of the fractured exemplars below.

In other sections we have much more ‘broken English’:

“Please to note Burmans not Burmese two different peoples.”
“So please to look at Sukothai Army going to war”
“Think this is old belief? Have one such amulet around my neck now.”

Large parts of the post are extracts from a secondary source, the Treatise on the Art of War. Excluding them, we have a large part of quite proficient and well written English and then a minority of some broken sentences, particularly towards the end.

If I were looking for evidence of this being a natural piece that came from one author, then those errors would occur more frequently and naturally, rather than in the current distribution. What we have at the moment, again excluding the large proportion of extracts from the source, is something that looks like the combination of

A.) A quite literate and clear discussion of some parts of Siamese fighting practice that would very likely come from a native English speaker. Some of the patterns and sentence structures could be further interpreted as coming from an older English person, as grammatically sound but run-on sentences with multiple clauses stuck around in UK English much longer than US English, but generally started to decline from the 1970s onwards.

B.) Some broken sentences that occur with a distribution that doesn’t quite seem natural; call it the uncanny valley of ESL.

Now, this could potentially be due to one non-English person writing notes or recording something and then it being ‘cleaned up’ by a different writer, but then the errors wouldn’t be there and they would be posted from a different account.

It is quite curious.

To throw a further spanner in the works, I would think very strongly that the authorship of the first link and the second and third seems different on this basis. The latter posts seem to be a far more stilted and ‘cliched Asian speech style’, with none of the admixture of the first. It almost seems like a more developed or deliberate style than that of the first link, but I can’t go that far on the evidence available and it may simply be apophenia.

So, for me, the linguistic part certainly doesn’t lean towards use of William of Occam’s cheap disposable safety razor. It is more complex and curious.

I have an alter Ego. The me I really wish I was. The type of me who intrigues me. The type of me who represents my ideal of professional competence and humanity.

Captain Francis Thompson

OSCSSW wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:32 pm I have an alter Ego. The me I really wish I was. The type of me who intrigues me. The type of me who represents my ideal of professional competence and humanity.

Captain Francis Thompson

Lucky there is only one of you Senior Chief, do not think we can handle two of you.

Lordroel wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:57 pm

OSCSSW wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:32 pm I have an alter Ego. The me I really wish I was. The type of me who intrigues me. The type of me who represents my ideal of professional competence and humanity.

Captain Francis Thompson

Lucky there is only one of you Senior Chief, do not think we can handle two of you.

I take that as a sincere compliment my friend!

Back about 2002 or so I had some long conversations with Suphi about logistics. I learned a lot and it found its way into my "1910" trilogy. I certainly enjoyed the conversations with whoever was on the other end.

My take:

1) The answer to this question is unknowable unless we find definitive proof that there is or is not a a "General Supatra." Spanner in the works: There is a real person with a real name, but it is not "Supatra" which is said person's internet user name. How do we find that?

2) I hope Fiddler's Green is well supplied with beer and popcorn. No matter what the answer to the question is, I suspect we're entertaining Stu.

The process would involve checking all female Thai senior colonels who were promoted to general in 2004 and cross referencing that with any female MP colonels who deployed to Iraq in the period September 2003-September 2004.

Surely the former category would not be appallingly long, nor indeed would the latter.

The process would involve checking all female Thai senior colonels who were promoted to general in 2004 and cross referencing that with any female MP colonels who deployed to Iraq in the period September 2003-September 2004.

Surely the former category would not be appallingly long, nor indeed would the latter.

I agree with that assessment but it it would only tell you if a female who was in the right places at the right times. But if "Suphi" is an internet screen name it wouldn't show up on those lists, you'd have to find something to tie the name to the person. Doable, maybe with just a phone call or two. Personally I don't want to start calling military personnel in foreign countries and asking them if they ever use an internet screen name.

Upon an initial search, there was a Colonel Boonchu Kerdchot in command of the initial Thai contingent in Iraq. Boonchu is a male name in Thai.

Whilst I might be wrong, I would surmise that in a task force comprising an ‘engineer battalion, six medical teams, a force security platoon, and a support platoon’ and a strength of 866 personnel, there would not be so many colonels as to breed anonymity. Where a female senior colonel (equivalent to a brigadier) fits into the picture of such a unit when the possible MP/force security unit is of platoon strength is not clear.

I similarly don’t propose calling up retired military personnel in another country to ask after anything that went on 18 to 19 years ago; simply not worth it without getting paid for it.

I simply observe that the alleged facts as to the circumstances of 2003, 2004 and 2005 don’t seem to line up on the balance of probabilities. This is further compounded by the writing style issues outlined above at some length. The conclusion that I’d draw from the combination of these two issues, as well as the timing of the cessation of posting by Supatra is that a strong argument points towards being a sock puppet of some description.

This is without taking into account any of the hearsay on the matter on Tanknet, Spacebattles or Stardestroyer, which can’t really be ‘admitted’ to consideration on account of being incomplete or unverified. Fair is fair.

The use of Occam’s razor to conclude that she was in fact real seems to me to be a selective consideration of evidence; to characterise the issue as a conspiracy theory is to do a serious disservice to those who have doubts about her existence and provenance.

I’ll note that the issue does not at all impact on my view of Stuart as a nice chap or my view of those who have drawn other conclusions; the fact I’ve spent time on the issue speaks more to the fact that I’ve got literally nothing else in my life to spend my time/exercise my mind on between work, study and waiting for death than it does any particular personal umbrage.

I've come across the sock puppet theory before when reading some of Stuart's critics. I was not part of the community back in the day, so I have no dog in the fight or strong opinions on the matter. But there is one possibility which seems to be overlooked here, which is that Supatra was a fantasy character with a fictitious biography - but that Stuart wasn't the author. That somebody could indeed be from Thailand - but not exactly who they claimed to be. Maybe or maybe not a high-ranking military officer, maybe or maybe not female, but almost certainly not a high-ranking female officer. My own guess would be a man playing a female alter ego to enjoy the attention that comes with that, particularly in an overwhelmingly male circle of the internet. That's not an uncommon occurrence at all online. I don't necessarily think this is the most likely answer (it raises a lot of other questions), but it is a possibility that would account for both the doubtful elements of her personal biography and the argument that Su seemed to know things that Stu didn't.

The other problem with the man playing woman theory is that Stuart very clearly said he met her. He said that to me himself in person.

David Newton wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:47 pm The other problem with the man playing woman theory is that Stuart very clearly said he met her. He said that to me himself in person.

I recall that as well.

That certainly weighs on one side, in addition to Mark's point on typos and Craig's observation on logistical scale.

On the other, we have:
- The lack of any evidence of Thai female MP generals being promoted around the cited time
- The lack of evidence of any female Thai senior colonels being deployed to Iraq in the time in question; there was some extraneous discussion on another forum on this issue being chased up by others around the time, but there is no record of that discussion, so it is neither here nor there
- The timing of the cessation of posting due to the ostensible promotion
- The particular use of honorifics that was also present in Stuart's writing, both fictional and OOC; additional to previous points, it could be argued that someone approaching middle age as of ~2004 would not fall into the precise generation that employ 'Khun', but the kicker for me is the coincidence of the same patterns of usage in two nominally distinct individuals
- The written evidence not seeming to conform to any natural pattern of written English, ESL or otherwise. The variation between what could be described as broken English (characteristic of verbal speech by South East Asians rather than the written form) and highly literate and sophisticated sentences that could very easily come from someone of a similar period and background to Stuart
- The writing in certain sections coming across as a close copy of spoken Asian English, with an absence of pronouns and the peculiar use of verb forms on multiple occasions

David Newton wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:47 pm The other problem with the man playing woman theory is that Stuart very clearly said he met her. He said that to me himself in person.

Maskirovka?

Jotun wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 6:25 am

David Newton wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:47 pm The other problem with the man playing woman theory is that Stuart very clearly said he met her. He said that to me himself in person.

Maskirovka?

If so, to do so in person goes rather beyond an internet prank and points to some form of deep delusion/ mental illness. And Stuart never struck me as mentally ill.

Two Desert Eagles puzzled me. I vaguely remember she was described as slight of build, I'd have thought an officer on jungle patrol could think of something a bit handier than a gun that would break your wrists if you looked at it funny. And two?

warshipadmin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 8:00 am Two Desert Eagles puzzled me. I vaguely remember she was described as slight of build, I'd have thought an officer on jungle patrol could think of something a bit handier than a gun that would break your wrists if you looked at it funny. And two?

Depends what they were chambered in. I fired one in .357 Magnum when I was 12 (this was before the pistol ban in the U.K.; it was a simpler time…) and I recall that the recoil was no worse than my father’s M1911 .45 ACP.

Also, nineties into noughties, Desert Eagles were very much status symbols. They also jammed far too frequently too!