Star Wars vs Star Trek - no flame wars please

[Reverent-One]

Only if you insist on a making the whole thing basically Battledome.

No, that's just what a VS thread is, a comparison between X and Y. The Federation of the future was not a defined participant, saying that they could save the present Federation and beat the Empire is saying that the present Federation would lose and adds nothing to the actual discussion.

[factotum]

Only if you insist on a making the whole thing basically Battledome.

No, it just starts getting silly if you allow everything that ever appeared to be included. Should we therefore have the Yuuzhan Vong invade the Federation rather than the Empire? After all, they appear in the Star Wars EU, so seems they ought to be fair game if we're also allowing the Borg or the Future Federation in the game.

[Citrakayah]

No, it just starts getting silly if you allow everything that ever appeared to be included. Should we therefore have the Yuuzhan Vong invade the Federation rather than the Empire? After all, they appear in the Star Wars EU, so seems they ought to be fair game if we're also allowing the Borg or the Future Federation in the game.

Only if they would plausibly ally with the Empire. They would not, so they don't get to be included.

[Chen]

Who cares about the future federation? If you're allowing time travel you only need one ship to survive any encounter to just pull a redo on it. I just re-watched Star Trek 4. The immediately solution to "but humpback whales are extinct" was for Kirk to casually tell Spock "start the necessary calculations for time warp". They managed to time warp a stolen ship they weren't even that familiar with, with extremely little effort. If casual time travel is allowed there's no contest.

[Renegade Paladin]

They've beamed weapons on Borg ships before, and it's safe to say that shields are probably designed specifically to block transporters. As far as dirt... again, power of plot.

The transporters have many defined technical limitations that we can't just wave away. We know they're jammed by energy fields such as a starship's deflector shield array (and have no reason to believe that Imperial shields wouldn't similarly jam them). We know they're jammed by a magnetic field the strength of a planet's if sufficiently near the pole thanks to TNG season 4 Ep#83 Final Mission (and we also know that the Death Star had a magnetic field so strong it actually posed an inconvenience to fighters attacking it). We know that they're jammed by electricity (a nearby electrical substation prevented transport in TNG season 4 Ep#80 Legacy, and a lightning storm did the same thing in TNG season 3 Ep#55 The Enemy). We also know that a Star Destroyer's main reactor generates an insane amount of power, on the order of a small star (they don't call it a solar ionization reactor for nothing) and is extremely likely to exhibit magnetism and electric outputs that would almost certainly screw with a transporter trying to beam it somewhere. We also know that a Star Destroyer is heavily armored, particularly in the engine spaces, and that their hull is likely dense enough to interfere with transporters on its own, given that being in a granite cave is sufficient to do the same thing (again, TNG season 4 Ep#80 Legacy), not to mention the fact that we know heavy metals block their sensors to begin with (TNG season 4 Ep#82 Future Imperfect) so they couldn't lock onto the reactor in any case.

After the Reman coup and the destruction of Romulus, you can bet the Federation is in a better position to break that treaty strictly for the purposes of fighting the extragalactic intruders.

They turned out a lot of new ships for the Dominion War and didn't get to slap cloaking devices on all of them. Here they wouldn't get time to even ask.

Probably the same sort of process that results in an asteroid with a survivable pressure. Or 1 gee of gravity without being a damn planet. Or Asteroids that suddenly change directions without actually colliding The scene was conceived without regard for physics, and was filmed via special effects with little regard for physics.

We still have to deal with what we saw, and what we saw was the vaporization of what certainly appear to be nickel-iron asteroids (I calculated for silicate composition to be conservative) in fractions of a second each by a Star Destroyer's secondary weapons. The light on impact is easily accounted for by work heating; deforming material causes it to heat up. Smash something large enough hard and fast enough and it'll do something like what we saw.

One: the entire visible spectrum was completely unjammed. Two: that shot was explicitly not using the computers, but was using space wizard magic. I mean made using the force. And yes the Force is pretty amazing. Seriously its more powerful than the Death Star. Three: 1km/sec would be 16 exhaust ports/frame. (1000m/s*1s/30frames*1exhaust port/2m = 16ish exhaust ports/frame.) We can see they aren't going near that speed, the biggest give away is that they appear for more than one frame when heading into the exhaust port.

If they were moving much slower than that speed, the X-wings would overtake their own torpedoes. There are several possible explanations for this, including slow-motion capture to allow for showing the torpedoes. We already know there are cuts in the scene since it goes to the torpedoes going down the exhaust port immediately after Luke fires, while when Red Leader took his shot they traveled for a bit before striking.

Yeah exactly my point. They seem to be unable to pull off things we manage without making it a full-fledged AI.

We know they have targeting computers; quite a big deal was made of it during the Battle of Yavin.

@Citrakayah: Yeah it really depends on what Era of Star Trek we use. And it also depends on how many rules the Federation breaks when fighting this war. (Spoiler Alert: As of DS9 they are complete bastards when need be.) In particular as far as I've seen from the movies Star Wars has no answer to Time Travel. Getting across the galaxy in an hour is pretty cool. Getting across the galaxy before you left and having 70 years to breed shuttles, upgrade your tech, and generally be an jerk-face is better.

The power disparity is so great that it wouldn't even matter. About the only thing they could conceivably do with time travel that could save them is go back in time and assassinate Palpatine, and good luck with that.

Of course they cannot beam people and warp cores out, in a setting where everyone has transporters and part of shield tech is blocking them. Also in a setting where shields have to constantly fluctuate somewhat to keep your enemy from firing a weapon at the shield's frequency to bypass them because their sensors are that good. And to keep them from locking onto your ship with a transporter and beaming through them. It is in universe they cannot do those things. SW shields have never shown such flexibility.

Transporters are blocked by electromagnetism, as I covered above; we have zero reason to believe that shield fluctuation is necessary to block transporters.

You would be wrong about saying none. I did not say cloak the ship entirely, even from sight. I said sensors. Check the Voyager episode about the transwarp coil. They managed to keep from being detected. They do that all the time. Call it jamming, whatever, but they routinely get in an out against people with far better sensors than the Empire has. Now also, they get fooled by people doing the same thing, but again those people are using stuff above the Empire.

How do you know? Demonstrate this. What makes you believe the Empire has bad sensors, or even that their sensors work on the same principle such that techniques that would block Federation or Borg sensors would be effective against them?

Spoilers: Echo Base and Death Squadron were able to detect each other before the latter had entered the Hoth system, so your argument is already dead on arrival.

As for the reactor being that huge. Why then have an ejection system in case of critical reactor? If is it that big they still would not survive an explosion. As for being able to scan the Empire ships, they could detect a Borg ship at 31 hours travel time at warp 7 out. Detailed scanning of ships outside their firing range should easily be possible.

Okay, back up. Where does it say that Star Destroyers have a reactor ejection mechanism?

@RP, 8 million megatons is 8 teratons. The Chicxulub asteroid did knock things into space and it was strong enough to destroy life 12,429 miles away from it's point of impact. The orbiting fleet doesn't have to worry about that, it just fires closer to the target(s).

I know what it is, since a teraton is a million megatons. Base Delta Zero as described must wipe out all life and destroy all natural resources. Covering all land surfaces of Earth (which is less than 30% of its total surface) with the fireballs of 1Mt nuclear blasts would take roughly 30 million bombs. (According to NukeMap, at any rate. Incidentally, I checked while I was there, and according to it an 8kt warhead has a fireball radius of only 180m; the only 1km radius measurement is 5psi overpressure... and surely to God you don't actually expect a weapon to cause atmospheric overpressure in a vacuum, right? ) And you haven't touched the oceans. Blanketing the entire surface would in fact take about 100 teratons' worth of 1 megaton bombs, though of course that would still leave the deep ocean intact.

[Lamech]

That said, if we accept technological stagnation as the rule for Star Wars (there's a few pretty solid arguments against it), then time travel is useless to the VS discussion outside of timeships from the far future swooping in, which has some pretty solid canon evidence for being unlikely. If Clone Wars technology is roughly the same as present day, then a Federation ship would be every bit as outmatched (or not) against Clone Wars ships as it would against Imperial ones, so there's no reason for time travel to matter.

Time Travel is hacks. Remember how Voyager took years to cross the galaxy? Now they can go back in time, and show up the day after they left. The advantage the Empire has in getting to pick where it strikes? Sorry the Federation is ready for you. Oh and you came out of hyperspace in a self-replicating minefield. Does the Federation need some more time to build ships? Send a shipyard back in time. Did you ever leave a star less then perfectly defended? Whoops it exploded three years ago.

You do not win against time travel. Ultimately the only thing in question is how many rules Section 31 has to break to save the Federation.

We still have to deal with what we saw, and what we saw was the vaporization of what certainly appear to be nickel-iron asteroids (I calculated for silicate composition to be conservative) in fractions of a second each by a Star Destroyer's secondary weapons. The light on impact is easily accounted for by work heating; deforming material causes it to heat up. Smash something large enough hard and fast enough and it'll do something like what we saw.

They behave nothing like nickle-iron asteroids! Nickle Iron asteroids don't suddenly change direction! There is an atmosphere for crying out loud! There is no possible way that asteroid field bears any sort of resemblance to anything that fits with in the modern understanding of asteroids. They might look superficially similar, but they are not the rocks we know and love.

If they were moving much slower than that speed, the X-wings would overtake their own torpedoes. There are several possible explanations for this, including slow-motion capture to allow for showing the torpedoes. We already know there are cuts in the scene since it goes to the torpedoes going down the exhaust port immediately after Luke fires, while when Red Leader took his shot they traveled for a bit before striking.

What happened to "We still have to deal with what we saw"? Regardless, if we assume that the X-wings were moving that fast, the torpedoes simply could have slowed down. Which is still besides the point because Luke was using the Force to guide those torpedoes

We know they have targeting computers; quite a big deal was made of it during the Battle of Yavin.

And they appear to be unable to hit a 2 meter hole. And they appear to be unable to hit X-wings. Their targeting computers are crap. Sheesh they rely on WWII style gunners for trying to hit fighters. They appear to have two levels of computers: Droids and stuff that is trounced by modern computing tech.

The power disparity is so great that it wouldn't even matter. About the only thing they could conceivably do with time travel that could save them is go back in time and assassinate Palpatine, and good luck with that.

Luckily there have been many times through out history when Palpatine was in a system with a star. Which funny story can be made to explode by the Federation and quite easily for that matter. Many other key assets of the Empire have this weakness. For example: Nearly everything they have.

[Mando Knight]

How do you know? Demonstrate this. What makes you believe the Empire has bad sensors, or even that their sensors work on the same principle such that techniques that would block Federation or Borg sensors would be effective against them?

Another note is that the hyperdrive doesn't seem to work in a way that's conducive to being picked up on long-range scans: it's travelling through hyperspace rather than realspace, and hyperspace is distinct from subspace.

Okay, back up. Where does it say that Star Destroyers have a reactor ejection mechanism?

It's a safety feature Starfleet has, but doesn't really seem like something that Star Destroyer reactors are anywhere near capable of doing... Warp Cores are long rods with relatively few connection points. Star Destroyer reactors are huge and building the reactor so it can be ejected would create a lot of dead space. Not to mention that Imperial warships are built with a completely different set of values compared to Federation vessels. If the reactor is about to fail catastrophically, there's no point ejecting it since the Star Destroyer's done for anyway.

[The Glyphstone]

Time Travel is hacks. Remember how Voyager took years to cross the galaxy? Now they can go back in time, and show up the day after they left. The advantage the Empire has in getting to pick where it strikes? Sorry the Federation is ready for you. Oh and you came out of hyperspace in a self-replicating minefield. Does the Federation need some more time to build ships? Send a shipyard back in time. Did you ever leave a star less then perfectly defended? Whoops it exploded three years ago.

You do not win against time travel. Ultimately the only thing in question is how many rules Section 31 has to break to save the Federation.

Except that if the Federation loses, Starfleet 32K will never exist and be unable to go back in time to ensure its own existence. And if it wins, they don't need to go back in time to change anything. Aren't temporal paradoxes fun?

This is why I proposed that the universe-intersection be treated as the trigger point for a parallel universe split. Because otherwise the entire discussion literally grinds to a halt. The existence of Starfleet 32K in this timeline has to remain in the box with Shrodinger' Cat, both existent and non-existent until we determine whether or not it will have the capability to exist in the first place.

[Lamech]

But Starfleet 32K (actually shouldn't it be 30K?) isn't needed for any of that. TOS era Trek had fairly easy access to time travel so anything other than a complete and utter defeat of every ship before they can go to warp means that they can go back in time and warn the Trekies about what happened, detail the Empire's tactics and take a second swing at things. Or one lone captain can assassinate Palpatine before he starts the Empire. Somehow I don't think he had a massive guard when he was a 2 month old. Or I suppose if we wanted the Federation to have morals get a good Federation couple to adopt him and raise him right.

[Jon D]

But Starfleet 32K (actually shouldn't it be 30K?) isn't needed for any of that. TOS era Trek had fairly easy access to time travel so anything other than a complete and utter defeat of every ship before they can go to warp means that they can go back in time and warn the Trekies about what happened, detail the Empire's tactics and take a second swing at things. Or one lone captain can assassinate Palpatine before he starts the Empire. Somehow I don't think he had a massive guard when he was a 2 month old. Or I suppose if we wanted the Federation to have morals get a good Federation couple to adopt him and raise him right.

Palpatine had good parents, and still turned into a psycho.

Besides, if you go back in time and whack the old bug zapper, there's no Empire, so no reason to go back in time to kill him. Which means you didn't, so there is an Empire, and it just keeps circling around and around.

Regardless, time travel doesn't help.

[Kitten Champion]

Palpatine had good parents, and still turned into a psycho.

Besides, if you go back in time and whack the old bug zapper, there's no Empire, so no reason to go back in time to kill him. Which means you didn't, so there is an Empire, and it just keeps circling around and around.

Regardless, time travel doesn't help.

That's assuming Star Trek time travel has to make any sort of logical sense.

[grolim]

[QUOTE=Renegade Paladin;18546196]
Transporters are blocked by electromagnetism, as I covered above; we have zero reason to believe that shield fluctuation is necessary to block transporters.

How do you know? Demonstrate this. What makes you believe the Empire has bad sensors, or even that their sensors work on the same principle such that techniques that would block Federation or Borg sensors would be effective against them?

Spoilers: Echo Base and Death Squadron were able to detect each other before the latter had entered the Hoth system, so your argument is already dead on arrival.

SO a hyperspace race can detect hyperspace travel, fine. So you think Empire sensors are good enough that someone who could fool Borg sensors, which are assimilated from the sensor tech of thousands of races, could not fool them? Not saying the Empire has bad sensors, am saying the Federations practically specializes in sensors so are just better at it. Afaik in SW we do not often see them talking about getting real time sensor data from events light years away. In ST...it is the way they roll.

Okay, back up. Where does it say that Star Destroyers have a reactor ejection mechanism?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imper...Star_Destroyer

Catastrophic release braces were located underneath the ventral reactor bulge, in case of emergencies where the core of the main reactor had to be ejected from the ship.[33]

[Flickerdart]

Besides, if you go back in time and whack the old bug zapper, there's no Empire, so no reason to go back in time to kill him. Which means you didn't, so there is an Empire, and it just keeps circling around and around.

That's the easiest paradox to prevent - all you need to do is, after you go back in time, leave past-you a note to do the thing you just did.

[Mato]

No, it just starts getting silly if you allow everything that ever appeared to be included. Should we therefore have the Yuuzhan Vong invade the Federation rather than the Empire? After all, they appear in the Star Wars EU, so seems they ought to be fair game if we're also allowing the Borg or the Future Federation in the game.

Just allowing Voyager makes things silly without the future federation or the Borg.

And DS9 isn't much better, I swear half the intent behind it was designed to kill any Star Wars vs Star Trek discussions. Replicating ships/bombs/mines, out numbering the Empire, the Defiant Class, cloaked tricobalt weapons, the 54 isoton warhead for a x5 Death Star-sized fireball, they even covered their bases by inventing the rebels that would do everything it takes to win including ignoring directives.

All hope in SW being more that a gnat in the Federation's eyes relies on JJ Abrams. And as luck would have it, he loves blinding you with shiny lights sniping you from every angle.

[Lamech]

And DS9 isn't much better, I swear half the intent behind it was designed to kill any Star Wars vs Star Trek discussions. Replicating ships/bombs/mines, out numbering the Empire, the Defiant Class, cloaked tricobalt weapons, the 54 isoton warhead for a x5 Death Star-sized fireball, they even covered their bases by inventing the rebels that would do everything it takes to win including ignoring directives.

Definitely seems that way. Although that warhead doesn't seem like something that can be safely used in combat.

[Renegade Paladin]

Time Travel is hacks. Remember how Voyager took years to cross the galaxy? Now they can go back in time, and show up the day after they left. The advantage the Empire has in getting to pick where it strikes? Sorry the Federation is ready for you. Oh and you came out of hyperspace in a self-replicating minefield. Does the Federation need some more time to build ships? Send a shipyard back in time. Did you ever leave a star less then perfectly defended? Whoops it exploded three years ago.

You do not win against time travel. Ultimately the only thing in question is how many rules Section 31 has to break to save the Federation.

But if they do they only create a parallel timeline, because if they succeed (big if) then they won't have to go back and screw with time, which means they won't, which means the Empire shows up and wins after all.

They behave nothing like nickle-iron asteroids! Nickle Iron asteroids don't suddenly change direction! There is an atmosphere for crying out loud! There is no possible way that asteroid field bears any sort of resemblance to anything that fits with in the modern understanding of asteroids. They might look superficially similar, but they are not the rocks we know and love.

I don't see any asteroids suddenly changing direction, unless you mean the one that collided with the TIE fighter, and collisions count as an outside force for the purposes of Newtonian physics last time I checked. And there was an atmosphere in the worm; that doesn't mean there was one on the asteroid's surface (in fact there clearly wasn't). I admit it's strange, but that's a problem of pressure differences exposed to vacuum, not the composition of the asteroid, so it's a bit of a non-sequitur when talking about the energy necessary to destroy one of the asteroids.

What happened to "We still have to deal with what we saw"? Regardless, if we assume that the X-wings were moving that fast, the torpedoes simply could have slowed down. Which is still besides the point because Luke was using the Force to guide those torpedoes

Even if they were moving slower than that, it's still a ludicrously high-G turn. Besides, we know beyond doubt that there's time distortion involved in the last minute or so before the Death Star cleared Yavin; nearly four minutes elapsed between the one minute warning and the torpedoes firing. Timing courtesy of Andras on stardestroyer.net's message board, though I can get it out and time it myself if it makes everyone feel better.

Here's the timing of various events related to the final run in the DS trench.

timing of various events from SW ANH SE videotape
At Alderaan
Commence Primary Ignition 1:11:46
Fires the beams 1.12.01
15 seconds from CPI to firing at "real"time

At Yavin
3 minute warning @ 2.04.12
1 minute warning @ 2.06.20
the final run by X-Wings begins 2.06.39
30 second warning @ 2.08.05
clear to fire @ 2.09.10 -
Commence Primary ignition 2.09.20
Torps enter the port- 2.09.55
Explosion 2.10.05

up to the 1 minute warning, the movie could be said to be running in "real" time, that is no time distortion. after that though things slow down,
from 1 minute to 30 second warnings- 75 seconds
from 30 second to clear- to- fire warnings- 55 seconds
the entire Firing process takes 45 seconds, 3 times longer then at Alderaan
the last X-Wing run lasts 3.26 and they started 19 seconds after the 1 minute warning

I could also time it on the YouTube clip we've been using, but it's a fan-edit (albeit a subtle one) and most of the editing is in that final minute, so I'm not sure how much that affects the canon timing. (Haven't checked.)

In any case, the fact that the torpedoes are capable of making that maneuver means that either they're ridiculously overengineered or they have homing capability which calls on them to make similar maneuvers. The Death Star was heavily jamming the fighters (and in the novelization there's even reference made to distortion fields heavy enough to limit fighter maneuverability!). Further, the Rebel leadership clearly believed the attack was possible without Jedi or they wouldn't have attempted it.

And they appear to be unable to hit a 2 meter hole. And they appear to be unable to hit X-wings. Their targeting computers are crap. Sheesh they rely on WWII style gunners for trying to hit fighters. They appear to have two levels of computers: Droids and stuff that is trounced by modern computing tech.

In heavy jamming yes, and Jek Porkins would disagree, respectively. Modern anti-aircraft mounts still mostly have human operators if only to prevent computer error in target selection; that we see people at controls near the guns doesn't mean they're manually aiming without machine assistance.

Luckily there have been many times through out history when Palpatine was in a system with a star. Which funny story can be made to explode by the Federation and quite easily for that matter. Many other key assets of the Empire have this weakness. For example: Nearly everything they have.

Funnier story: That's a weakness shared by nearly every enemy the Federation has, including the Borg, yet no one's made their stars go boom.

[hamishspence]

And there was an atmosphere in the worm; that doesn't mean there was one on the asteroid's surface (in fact there clearly wasn't).

Problem is - the worm's mouth is open - raising questions of why the atmosphere isn't leaking out.

Could be that the Falcon is projecting its artificial gravity beyond its hull, as well as generating a force field - so that Han and Leia can walk around near it.

[factotum]

Further, the Rebel leadership clearly believed the attack was possible without Jedi or they wouldn't have attempted it.

One of the pilots at the briefing said that hitting a 2m target was impossible, even with a computer, and when the actual attack happened, in the only attack run we saw carried out by a non-Jedi pilot, he missed. Are we to assume that two experienced pilots knew less about how to fly and launch an attack than the leadership, who probably hadn't been near a cockpit in decades? Plus, the Rebels didn't actually have a lot of options but to launch the attack, considering Princess Leia had brought the Death Star right to their door--they didn't have time to evacuate so they had to go for it, no matter how slim the chances of success.

[Reddish Mage]

So I'm seeing a number of different scenarios for an Empire vs Federation match up with different outcomes:


Scenario 1: Overwhelming Energy Output Differential wins!

One side's lasers phasers, torpedoes, shields are simple on a different magnitude of scale, resulting in an easy victory.

Winner: Federation (based on a fan-physcist's numbers).

Problems: It looks a little cheap, but harder criticism is that the hard numbers given are inconsistent with what's seen on screen as well as the fact that inconsistencies abound even with the numbers themselves.

Scenario 2: The side with the most speed wins!

One side has warp drive, the other has hyperspace drive. One gets you through a quadrant the other lets you roam an entire galaxy.

Winner: Empire

Problems: The defense against an Empire winning with that the federation is adaptable and could find a way to get around hit and run or attrition sort of tactics from the Empire. Another criticism that can be raised is that this tactic depends on the Empire holding back and not acting very Empire-like.

Scenario 3: Maneuverability wins!

One sides ships are just so much more nimble in an actual confrontation.

Winner: Federation

Problems: Trek only looks this way in a few movies, but in addition to upsetting the casual fans' (aka my) thinking, its not clear that maneuverability really would make the decisive difference.

Scenario 4: The side with the most ship wins!

Winner: The Empire (easily)

Problems: Since when is a confrontation really decided this way?

Scenario 5: Plot wins!

We know from reading, watching, and whatever else we do with these universes that, in the end, it never comes down to whose technically superior or has better strategy or whatever, it comes down to giving victory to the side that makes for the better story.

Winner: Federation (aka the Good Guys)

Problems: I think this one makes a mockery of this entire exercise.


Scenario 6: An extraordinary force (or Force) intervenes!

This is what happens when future Federation decides to get involved, the Empire has use of the Sun Crusher, and/or Wesley Crusher takes sides.

Winner: Federation

Problems: The main problem brought up is that these is "out of bounds" or "violates the rules" or some such. I would simply label it as "cheap."

Scenario 7: Adaptability saves the day!

One side has a tendency to invent incredible new solutions to problems within the span of a 40-odd minute episode.

Winner: Federation

Problems: I really don't see one here. I give this one my Reddish Star of Approval because not only because there is no clear flaw, but also because its accurately reflects the Federation typically solves their major problems.

[Mando Knight]

Scenario 7: Adaptability saves the day!

One side has a tendency to invent incredible new solutions to problems within the span of a 40-odd minute episode.

Winner: Federation

Problems: I really don't see one here. I give this one my Reddish Star of Approval because not only because there is no clear flaw, but also because its accurately reflects the Federation typically solves their major problems.

This is exactly the same as "Scenario 5: Plot wins!" Of course the Federation solves its problems in less than an hour of screen time on average, they're the protagonists of an episodic TV show. Of course the Empire doesn't, they're the antagonists of (essentially) a melodrama.

[Renegade Paladin]

Scenario 1: Overwhelming Energy Output Differential wins!

One side's lasers phasers, torpedoes, shields are simple on a different magnitude of scale, resulting in an easy victory.

Winner: Federation (based on a fan-physcist's numbers).

You, sir, have that severely backwards.

[lt_murgen]

Scenario 6: An extraordinary force (or Force) intervenes!

This is what happens when future Federation decides to get involved, the Empire has use of the Sun Crusher, and/or Wesley Crusher takes sides.

Winner: Federation

Problems: The main problem brought up is that these is "out of bounds" or "violates the rules" or some such. I would simply label it as "cheap."

This one should be called a push. SW is chick full of technology and world devastating weapons. The Sun Crusher is just one. The Galaxy Gun, destroying planets from half a galaxy away; Centerpoint station, capable of pushing / pulling entire stars out of their galactic orbit.; Force storm capable of tearing apart the entire surface of planets and transporting it across vast distances (1/3 of a galaxy); chrysalide beasts, sith worms, terentateks and other force beasts.

[Renegade Paladin]

Uh huh. Since people glaze over when you start talking numbers and doing equations, let me sum this up real quick like.

Star Trek:

I recommend we destroy the asteroid. It would take almost all our photon torpedoes, but it would preclude any possibility of the Pegasus falling into Romulan hands.

Star Wars:



I believe the colloquialism, "'Nuff said," applies here.

[Mato]

And that is a baradium powered weapon.
You know, the ones you complained their illegal for being too powerful status meant nothing.

A shockwave even more powerful than that wasn't even enough to blew a fuse before TNG's era and those things overloaded when you cooked popcorn.

And if you look closely, the shield's weren't even activated in time.

[Renegade Paladin]

And that is a baradium powered weapon.
You know, the ones you complained their illegal for being too powerful status meant nothing.

Where does it say that? EU isn't canon anymore.

Not that it matters, since again, the problem isn't that it was banned (in the EU, which isn't canon), but rather that being banned doesn't make it the most powerful thing in the galaxy. The syllogism you base your argument on, that illegal = most powerful, does not logically follow. The weapons rating of the Millennium Falcon was also illegal, yet it is compelled to run from Star Destroyers. Nunchuks are illegal in New York, but I assure you, they are not the most powerful weapon on Earth (or even in New York). You base your argument on a blatantly false equivalency (and the falsehood that an 8kt weapon produces a 1km blast in vacuum, which it doesn't even come remotely close to doing). Your argument doesn't hold any water at all

Particularly since the Empire has a very good reason to ban the stuff despite the fact that it's far, far weaker than other extant weapons: It's destructive to large (by Coruscant standards) buildings in small, man-portable devices. And the Empire is fighting an insurgency. I don't know, can you think of a reason why they might prioritize banning baradium given that property, even though turbolaser fire is far more potent and can keep up an attack long after the Rebels have expended their building-destroying hand grenades?

As for the destruction of Praxis, that shockwave was superluminal, primarily affected subspace, and was totally weaksauce. Quo'nos was much closer than the Excelsior to the origin point and only suffered the loss of its ozone layer.

[Lamech]

Yeah that weapon the bounty hunter used might have caused the asteroid to implode just a little, but it wouldn't have come close to destroying it. It was cutting through much, much smaller, and the asteroid Riker was talking about? Gigantic. Even if it went all the way through it the Trek asteroid would have just smashed back together. It DID have its own gravity (and magnetism).

Not only that the goal wasn't just to shatter some stuff it was to obliterate any information that could be gleaned. The star wars charge just blew the rocks apart. Certainly cool looking, but not even close to what Trek needed.

Think of it like a sand castle. Kick it and the sand flies apart and you slice through the castle. But the toy ship you buried inside will be okay.

Oh and since this came up earlier: Ground combat. Massacre in favor of the Federation. See the Imperials use those big walkers, or have stormtroopers wander in on foot. Star Trek is fully capable of flying at surface level. A giant walker like that won't last three seconds against the Enterprise.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah that weapon the bounty hunter used might have caused the asteroid to implode just a little, but it wouldn't have come close to destroying it. It was cutting through much, much smaller, and the asteroid Riker was talking about? Gigantic. Even if it went all the way through it the Trek asteroid would have just smashed back together. It DID have its own gravity (and magnetism).

Not only that the goal wasn't just to shatter some stuff it was to obliterate any information that could be gleaned. The star wars charge just blew the rocks apart. Certainly cool looking, but not even close to what Trek needed.

Think of it like a sand castle. Kick it and the sand flies apart and you slice through the castle. But the toy ship you buried inside will be okay.

That's a ridiculous assertion. They were afraid that cutting their way out of the asteroid after the Romulans sealed them in would trigger a collapse that would destroy the Enterprise. The Pegasus would not have survived the collapse of the asteroid if a more localized cave-in could destroy a far more powerful ship that actually had its shields on.

Oh and since this came up earlier: Ground combat. Massacre in favor of the Federation. See the Imperials use those big walkers, or have stormtroopers wander in on foot. Star Trek is fully capable of flying at surface level. A giant walker like that won't last three seconds against the Enterprise.

Ground combat is unnecessary; if the scenario is fight to destruction, Earth would be a slagged wreck before the first day was out. However, if the Empire wishes to occupy the Federation, then it would do so with ease. What ground combat capabilities have the Federation exhibited? We only ever see unarmored, under-armed (and incompetent) infantry without vehicle support. The only ground combat vehicle ever deployed throughout the entire run of all the series and the movies is that buggy from Nemesis, and it's mounted weapon's only arc of fire was to the rear, from which we can conclude that their ground combat strategy centers on running away quickly. At any rate, the Federation quite clearly has no concept of combined arms warfare or even infantry heavy weapon support.

[Kitten Champion]

And that is a baradium powered weapon.
You know, the ones you complained their illegal for being too powerful status meant nothing.

A shockwave even more powerful than that wasn't even enough to blew a fuse before TNG's era and those things overloaded when you cooked popcorn.

And if you look closely, the shield's weren't even activated in time.

Also notable, Star Trek explosions often go faster than light... somehow.

Ground combat is unnecessary; if the scenario is fight to destruction, Earth would be a slagged wreck before the first day was out. However, if the Empire wishes to occupy the Federation, then it would do so with ease. What ground combat capabilities have the Federation exhibited? We only ever see unarmored, under-armed (and incompetent) infantry without vehicle support. The only ground combat vehicle ever deployed throughout the entire run of all the series and the movies is that buggy from Nemesis, and it's mounted weapon's only arc of fire was to the rear, from which we can conclude that their ground combat strategy centers on running away quickly. At any rate, the Federation quite clearly has no concept of combined arms warfare or even infantry heavy weapon support.

They've got transporters. While you can argue that their ships are immune due to... well, to be sporting, but I've never seen an Imperial Walker with shields.

[Renegade Paladin]

They've got transporters. While you can argue that their ships are immune due to... well, to be sporting, but I've never seen an Imperial Walker with shields.

I'll speak more plainly. Assuming for some strange reason that the Empire has landed troops without first gaining space superiority, when exactly do we see the Federation using starships in atmosphere to support ground operations? It certainly would have helped during the Siege of AR-558, to name the most prominent example. Then again, so would some analogue of a heavy machine gun, but they don't have that either.

[Mato]

Particularly since the Empire has a very good reason to ban the stuff despite the fact that it's far, far weaker than other extant weapons: It's destructive to large (by Coruscant standards) buildings in small, man-portable devices. And the Empire is fighting an insurgency. I don't know, can you think of a reason why they might prioritize banning baradium given that property

Yeah, pound for pound baradium is the most powerful destructive material the Empire has. A hand grenade delivers more power than a turbolaser, a 3ft mine destroy more asteroids than a dozen turbolaser shots, 1 metric ton of it has the potential to take out a Star Destroyer which normally takes several thousand bolts, and only a couple was enough to annihilate a custom nearly-Super-Sized Star Destroyer.

I have a little problem. It takes 7.2J to vaporize 3 cubic feet of this question's building construction material, the damage pattern is a cone with a 463 meter wide base. The catch is the target is a building so it has a lot of open space instead of being a pure solid. Approximately how much energy (in joules) was used to create the cone-shaped dent in it? I have no idea how to figure out the whole building part.