Star Wars vs Star Trek – How Science Fiction Failed Us
June 18, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado
Well, friends, I apparently got some people fired up with last week’s article on Space Battles. Apparently, I broke an unwritten rule that says that you can’t pit one universe’s technology against another’s without committing the worst faux pas since Princess Leia unwittingly kissed her brother after calling her future husband a “scruffy-looking Nerf herder”. But I’ve never been one to follow the rules, really, particularly ones that no one has ever bothered to write down. So that said, it’s time we settled this age-old dispute once and for all.
OK before we continue, I wanted to explain the rules of engagement (who knew I would find a use for the Law of Armed Conflict outside the military… and yes, there is such a thing… and yes, they enforce it… back on topic now). There are a few sites that have already gone into great detail about how the Empire would trounce the Federation (and anyone else in the Trek universe), but much of it is based on scientific data and guessing. The technology in Lucas’ universe is very different than that in the Trek franchise because Lucas’ story takes place “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” so he can pretty much just make things up. Star Trek takes place in the future, sure, so there are liberties, but it’s OUR future, so it had to have a foundation in real science, or it would have been unbelievable. With that in mind, I discovered something odd about the “science” of the two universes, and thusly, the arguments in favor of an Empire squash. Here’s what I discovered:
Star Wars does things on an epic scale, which alone makes it the favorite to win. But there are some major inconsistencies that mainly deal with the power of the weapons being used and the power output of the items. This is the main problem with trying to compare the two sciences. In Star Wars power output is measured in Watts, which is something we are very familiar with. A watt is a measurement of the amount of work it takes to move an object one meter in one second against a force of one Newton (sorry for the science talk, but I had to show you why some people are just too serious about this stuff). Trek measures its power output in a unit called “dynes” which makes more sense since we are talking about a propulsion system. A dyne is the measure of how much force it takes to accelerate a mass of one gram over one centimeter per second every second. Brain hurt yet?
How do watts compare to dynes? Well a single Watt would be equal to a force of 100,000 dynes over one meter ever second. Now that I’ve fried your brains a little, consider this: a single Imperial-I class Star Destroyer can produce about 7.75 x 1024 W (just for reference, a gigawatt would be 109 watts… the Flux Capacitor in Back to the Future only needed 1.21 gigawatts of power to TRAVEL THROUGH TIME… really?!… and our SUN puts out about 4 x 1026 watts of power, a mere 100 times more than the ISD… yeah… overkill, I think). Meanwhile, a standard Federation starship (in this case Voyager) can produce roughly 4,000 Teradynes, or 1010 watts, of power. Since the Star Wars ships are on the order of 10 to 20 times more massive, but produce 100 TRILLIONS TIMES more power… I think the Star Wars folks are overestimating a little bit.
Wow, for the first time since starting this article back in March, I had to stop and take a break from it. The science was starting to be too much (and if it’s too much for me, I KNOW it’s too much for you). I think I’ve discovered the fundamental flaw in any comparison of these two genre’s though (and apologies to the person who seems to have devoted many hours to the systematic tearing down of the Star Trek universe for the glory of the Galactic Empire). Star Trek is quite honestly too different from other Science Fiction universes in how it portrays Space Travel, ships, crews, and space combat in general. It has no fighters, and no large capital style ships. The best analogy I can come up with is that the Star Trek ships are more akin to submarines while other universes, including Star Wars use surface ships.
Think about it for a moment. The battles in Trek are slower, more calculated and usually involve torpedoes. The ships maneuver to try to get out of optimal firing lines. Other universes usually have large capital ships duking it out while their fighters work to get close enough to fire powerful missiles or torpedoes of their own. That’s more like how surface naval vessels fight today. Since it’s our only point of reference, that makes sense. Of course, space battles would probably be nothing like what’s presented in either universe, but it’s all we’ve been given to work with.
So what we’re left with is this: Star Wars overestimates and uses impossible physics while Star Trek just makes up units and particles, like “isotons” and “rapid nadions”. Comparing these two is like comparing Al Gore to George Bush; they’re both full of crap, but different kinds of crap. With that in mind, I present the following scenario. Please take it in with the appropriate grain of salt.
Imagine a scenario where a fleet of Imperial ships drops out of hyperspace and into our galaxy. They land on the nearest planet and claim it, subjugating the residents. Those residents happen to be Romulan. See, that’s what’s never considered. It’s always Federation vs. Empire, but that’s not how it would go down. The residents of this galaxy have shown more than once that they are willing to put petty differences aside to fight for a common goal. They did it against the Borg and again against the Dominion. Now they will do it against the Empire.
Seeing the strength of the Imperial Fleet (let’s say 30-40 ships, including a Super Star Destroyer and assorted support ships), the Romulans contact the Federation and their Klingon allies and ask for assistance against the massive ships. The Romulan fleet would be about 40 ships, with the D’deridex and Mogai classes at the front, the Klingons would commit 20-30 of their own ships, with at least 4 Negh’Var battleships, and the Federation would send a numbered fleet, which would number anywhere from 50 to 150 ships, so let’s make it an even 100 (the 12th fleet was 112 ships).
When the combined fleet warped in, they would be greeted by patrolling Tie Fighters, would be easily dispatched, but not before they communicated to the larger ships. The battle would begin the way all Imperial battles begin, with an onslaught of fighters. It would take the destruction of several smaller vessels at the hands of Ion Cannons and Proton Torpedoes to get the Trek Fleet to begin rotating shield and power frequencies, to lessen the impact of the Ion Cannons.
Eventually, the Federation flagship identifies the patterns and send orders to set phasers to wide area dispersal, which destroys the fighters in large groups, all while keeping outside the capital ships effective range. Several Stormtrooper carriers actually make it and attach to the hulls of the larger vessels, but find that the Klingons are more than a match for them in ground combat. The Romulan and Federation vessels are equipped with sensors that allow them to track the invaders, and they are easily cordoned off into cargo bays.
As the combined fleet moves to engage the Imperial Fleet, the Super Star Destroyer hits the Klingon flagship with its primary guns and destroys it in a few shots. The Trek group scatters and begins engaging the ships in groups of 4 or 5 at a time. The Imperials are scoring plenty of hits and find that the shielding of the smaller ships is no match for the power of their lasers, but also that the smaller more agile ships are more difficult to hit, even with computer guidance. The Klingons focus on the Super Star Destroyer, and two of the Battleships, badly damaged, ram into the large capital ship, disabling it. It goes badly for both sides.
In the end, I see the Empire losing 10 ships totally, with another 15 badly damaged or completely disabled with the fighters being a total loss. The Federation loses 75 ships, the Klingons all of theirs, and the Romulans managed to escape with a loss of only 15 (because gravity well generators don’t prevent warp travel, only hyperspace travel). But this is only a single battle and the Imperials are cut off from reinforcements. The Federation eventually develops technology that allows them to transport torpedoes directly to critical components if the Imperial shields are down, or beaming warp cores directly into the path of moving ships, causing massive damage.
In the end, the Imperials lose, but the Federation, Romulan and Klingon fleets are decimated and will take years to recover fully. Keep in mind the Imperials only lose because they are cut off from resupply and reinforcement. In a balanced scenario where resupply is not an issue, or in a single engagement, I have to say Empire wins every time. Size and numbers matter.
Of course, they could always just find a Doomsday machine or two…
I have te say, very well put together. ‘m liking yer way o’puttin science te our science fiction.
I dont see how a fully armored storm trooper is going to fall to a klingon. No offence but lets compare the two.
Stormtrooper fully armored, fully automatic blaster, fights in well organised groups. thousands per star destroyer.
klingon. knife, gun simiautomatic, stratagy includes charging enimies (who have guns) with knife.
Getting images of storm trooper actually stop shooting because they are confussed at why an unorganized mob is charging them with mere knives, the klingon stabiing at stormtroopers and as the knife bounces off the storm trooper armor the stormtrooper laughing so hard he has trouble standing, then the klingon stabbing again gets his knife stuck in the stormtroopers armor at which point the stormtrooper sticks his blaster in the klingons gut and ends him.
1. it would likely never get so far as boarding. The Klingons would never allow themselves to be boarded in the first place. With large dreadnaught ships, the imperials would send hundreds of troops to their deaths because all ships in Trek have something most ships in Wars don’t have… a self-destruct mechanism.
2. Any Klingon ship that was badly damaged would attempt to ram into the Imperials. Since the Trek ships can do something else the Wars ships can’t (move at FTL speeds over short distances), one solid ramming maneuver from a ship as small as a bird of prey could cripple or destroy even the largest imperial ship.
3. Taking ONLY film references.. we all know stormtroopers can’t aim for crap, despite what Obi-Wan said on Tatooine. And that armor has a lot of chinks in it where hand-to-hand combat is concerned. A single blaster shot won’t drop a Klingon like it would a human. It would take a lot. and Stormtrooper armor doesn’t strike me a “bat’leth” resistant.
Frankly, I don’t think it would even get that far. Ships that can fight at FTL vs ships stuck in Newtonian space (at least to fight)? No match. It would be a shooting gallery for the Feds. I think to compare universes it would be much more fair to compare Galactica and Wars. They are much closer technologically.
Uh, let’s be honest: ‘stormtroopers’ were taken care of by little furry creatures with slingshots. A Klingon would make them evacuate their bowels.
That said, overall, Star Wars crushes Star Trek, every time. The stupidly large numbers that Star Wars can bring to bear (size of fleets, ships and energy of weapons) mean that ultimately even the most cunning tactics the Feds come up with would be buried under an avalanche of brute force.
Finally, while neither universe is particularly believeable Star Wars is more so. How do they generate the numbers they say they do and persist with pathetic low-end technology? (Example – the ‘blasters’ employed by stormtroopers are clearly inferior to modern machineguns. What gives?)
Star Wars is MORE believable? ONly in that it’s darker and more human. The Star Trek universe has smaler ships and less people because it has a more realistic number of planets that can support life. They also can travel vast distances in much shorter periods of time, probably because they are folding space.
That said, as I recall saying, the Empire has all of the obvious advantages here. Their sheer numbers (which rival planetary scale) mean that, like China, they would be gauranteed victory, though at a high cost. The only advantage the Trek have is that their weapons technology, though on a smaller scale, is superior, as are their tactics. And their warp technology means that they can travel at FTL speeds without the needs for lengthy calculations and warm ups. There is no evidence that Empire ships can travel less than interplanetary distances at FTL speeds.
Further, as I mentioned in the post, The klingons aren’t against suicide rammming, and a single large Klingon Battleship would do tremendous damage to a Star DEstroyer.
AGain, I’m not saying the Empire woulnd’t win, but the Treks would put up one hell of a fight.
This really is comparing apples to oranges, but it is fun, and honestly you could easily argue how it could come out favorably for either side. With the Treks you have extreme mobility that would allow them to run and gun so to speak. Not to mention that a galaxy class federation starship has the ability to move small moons with their tractor beams! I’m surprised no one has considered that. Imagine the devastation that could be done, either by hurling large asteroid, or simply disabling enough turbo lasers to allow a ship to use a star destroyer as a giant shield. Not to mention that both the Romulans and Klingons can cloak and smack the Imperials around before they knew what was happening. I think that very well makes them even when it comes to the sheer size of the empire. Now we must also consider that Darth Vader could kill dozens of Klingon warriors without so much as breaking a sweat. Fiddle Fie your disruptor, Darth Vader got shield hands.
ok seriously?
so if you ignore cannon facts… from both sides. to massivly reduce the power from star wars and massivly increase the power of startrek… star trek can defeat a mino fleet which is for some random reason stuck and cut off.
and when did the startrek ships suddenly become agile again?
oh and for the ones saying that starwars can’t tavel less then planetary via hyperdrive… you are absoultly correct. hyperdrive is much to fast to use on such short distances.
also just as another question, which type super stardestroyer is it? and did you remember to concider scale and the fact that there are dedicated ramming ships in starwars which are completely solid durasteel… and it took 3 to kill a a Namana-class light cruiser?
I would like to say that i grew up with star wars, and that reason of Different Technology would be a Very good Fight. I would say though, Starwars Would defeat Startrek If they would Use Any Of their Ships or Station!, if the death Star woud of been involved It would be Hands down to the Empire, Just becasue It’s a small Moon With A Shit Ton Turbo laser and a sheild That can hold against Any Fleet. Im just gonna say. I don’t know where You Startrek Fags Get your info but Starwars have a Much Better Technological Advancement Against Startrek. Just gonna say Death Star PWNS all Rediculous StarTrek Ship with out using Its main Power Weapon.
I don’t think it’s necessary to get into name calling, Skarbek. If you read the article, you’d understand that the concepts of the technology are completely different. The shielding in Star Wars is designed to deflect the charged particles of their energy weapons and absorb some of the impact of the missile weapons. The energy weapons in Star Trek don’t use charged particles, instead they affect the speed at which molecules vibrate. It’s completely possible that Star Wars shielding would be completely inefective against Star Trek weapons.
I also stated that the Empire has a near limitless amount of resources and for some reason, Lucas had a size fetish. The ships are significantly smaller and the universe significantly less poppulous in Star Trek than in Star Wars. Perhaps in 40,000 years, Star Trek will catch up.
It goes without saying that a single Sith is worth his ships weight in Vulcans or Klingons, though I imagine Vader himself would have a hard time fighting off a squadron of Borg, particularly once they adapt to the lightsaber technology. See, both sides have a trump card.
It’s apples and oranges and always will be. I just think the comparison is interesting, since the battlefield is so different on each side.
Star wars ships never board enemys, thats ridiculous. You made that up, they’ve never, ever been shown to do something that stupid.
Also, you fail to realise the differances in energy output. Even an imperial transport ships turbolasers (which, unlike you have said, bear no relation to real life lasers) put out more energy than a galaxy class ships phasers do, so how much more powerful do you think a star destroyers weapons are? Their weapons range is greater than any ship based weapons in star trek have ever shown (which you failed to take into account), so they could just sit outside of the federation fleets range and destroy them at leisure.
Also, the drawback of wide beam phasers is that they don’t do as much damage (because the energy isn’t as focused), so they would need to fire much longer bursts that normal just to kill that many TIEs.
actually asedra the empire has boarded in the past, granted it is more commonly a rebel trick but RotJ Vader boards Leia’s ship, thus the reason that R2-D2 and C-3PO where deployed.but i do like how he just ignores peoples work because it defeats Star Trek, with out proving that they are wrong.
no one has considered that when a trek ship is destoyed the warp reactor go’s up and destroys massive dammage to any thing around it they can just ram a wars ship they would be destroyed also photon torpedos a full of anti matter and if it comes into contact with matter (imperial stardestroyer) it would make a massive explosion. also TIEs have very little sheilding and the trek ships phaser can just fire a spread of torpedos which would destroy a tie fighter. also beaming technology cant get through sheilds or thick hulls but they could just beam a quantum toepedo in front of a stardestroyer bridge.
If a wars ship does board a trek ship they can just put their hand phasers too high so they would incinerator or they could just depresseris the level and they would die.
also they can just equip a shuttle pod or a runabout with a clock then fire a photon down the hatch in the deathstar to the core.
and at the end they can all ways send a transmission to the borg and tell them where the starwars fleet is then the empire would really be screwed
trek ships are alot faster than starwars ships and they can easly fly behind a starwars ship for cover agaist the deathstar or SSD.
i not saying starwars would lose becouse om pretty shore they would put up a good fight but startrek just has better technology and strategies.
umm Titan? A) wars ships have very heavy armor and shields to prevent that B) they had there own version of dedicated raming ship, that was nothing but armor, engines, a hanful of fake turbolasers and scan scramblers, and that took 3 to distory a light crusier, Star Wars ships are tough
next you mind showing proof of being able to transport a torpedo? and are you forgeting the sensitivity to jamming
problem with that is the best phasers have shown is a disinegration through chain reaction, and that is a power drain. the boarders would actually be seeking to depressurize the ship (they are in space suits… I don’t ever remember a canon showing of a startrek space suit)
as the author claims the shields are differant (that i am not sure of i will have to check that out) the cloaks are know to be differant… infact startrek cloaks are known to be detectable even with out the CGT. (and i love how you assume it would be a death star 1 coming at you)
why in the world would the empire be scared of the borg? they aren’t that bright and don’t adapt nearly as well as people claim. any rationel for the trek ships being faster in sublight, and for the reason they do not use their faster superlight to their advantage?
ya startrek would be the one that loses they are slow, underpowered, and tiny.
David…
1. they may be tough, but they have strong weaknesses. A SINGLE A-wing fight ramming the bridge of the Executor completely disabled it, causing it to succumb to the gravity of the Death Star 2. Completely disabled means completely vulnerable.
2. You can teleport anything you can lock on to. Torpedoes can be set to overload like phasers and can be teleported like anything else can.
3. it’s nearly impossible to depressurize a Trek ship unless you have severely damaged it. The system that controls force fields is actually one of the highest on the ship, even above life support. they would blow a hole in the ship only to find themselves trapped in that section with no way to proceed. And you have to be totally daft to think they don’t have space suits in Trek.
4. Phasers work by exciting molecular bonds, either in energy or in matter. They can deplete shields and cut through solid object. SHip phasers cannot disintegrate on a large scale, though it’s safe to say they would wreck havoc against tie fighters. Their only disadvantage is a slower rate of fire. Keep in mind fighters aren’t designed for the most part to be effective against capital ships, but against other fighters, so it’s questionable how damaging TIE lasers would be against Trek shields.
5. Since the basic technology of weaponry is different, I can safely assume the shields are different. Trek shields are designed to dissipate energy quickly. Wars shields are designed to absorbs and dissipate charged particles (which is plasma, not energy). It’s altogether likely that both sides shielding would be ineffective against the others.
6. The Borg and Species 8472 are the only things I know for sure can beat the Empire hands down. The issue with the Borg is their ability to adapt. Since lasers are plasma weapons, they can’t change their frequency like phasers can. Once a borg unit adapted to the lasers, the empire would be done. Superlaser you say? All it would take it assimilating someone with knowledge of how it worked and it becomes useless. And with the size of Imperial ships, the borg could infiltrate one and half half of it assimilated before the bridge even knew what was happening (a la First Contact).
7. Trek ships can’t be faster in sublight, because sublight speeds are constant. What they can do is travel at faster than light speeds over relatively short distances. Wars ships cannot because they travel in hyper(sub)space. They generally don’t do this though, because it’s stressful on the ship and it’s engines. BUt it can be done (a la the Picard maneuver).
8. THIS IS ALL FAKE! IT CAN’T HAPPEN! Relax and enjoy your respective shows.
in which movie has starwars got a machine caple of jamming a transport beam and also borg ships can adapt to any laser frequency including starwars lasers and it took 40 federationships to scatch a borg cube. starwars troops have limited air startrek can just put force fields up around the boarded areas of the ship intil they die and if that doesnt kill them get the boarded ship to go to warp and the ship that had boarded the startrek ship would be smashed to bits becouse its not in the warp feild and the trek ship would just be minor dammaged by the ship that was attached to it.
And for starwars heavy ships use the tractor beam to ram the starwars ships into each other.
so basicly handwave?
1)ya when shields were down and the computer locked up, preventing secondary bridge from taking comand
2) so we are ignoreing the various explosives Star Trek Cannon has shown us that the enterpirse can’t lock on to, and assuming that both Star Trek Shields and armor is transporter permiable, and you still haven’t dealt with the jamming issue
3) “The system that controls force fields is actually one of the highest on the ship, even above life support” source for that? and it is called using another proton grenade or just using the blaster
4) so no rational attepemt to look at various power levels… just hand wave it all away
5) cause you say so and you know excatly what turbolaser is
6) this is hilarous
7) but wait when was the last time you saw a trek ship at warp speed ram into a ship not at warp speed? the problem wars has with short jumps is that there hyperdrives are too fast which makes you whole senario rather unrealistic
star trek has a handful, but consistantly doesn’t have them when they would be useful.
1. I’m not sure I remember anything about the computer locking up. What did they use Windows or something? I’m not saying a single ship could destroy a Star Destroyer, I’m saying they have weaknesses that can be exploited. I did think this through, I didn’t just say it willy-nilly.
2. I am not referring to a torpedo in motion. I’m referring to a torpedo in the torpedo room. Remember, it’s not an explosive, it’s a pod containing anti-matter that is opened, annihilating the matter around it explosively. Unless there is something in canon that says that can’t transport antimatter pods that I’m unaware of, I can’t see how it’s not possible. As for “jamming” that would require knowledge of the technology to begin with. There are no teleportation devices in Star Wars that I’m aware of, so how would they jam the signal? That said, it’s possible their shield would have to be down in order to allow transport, but considering how bad they are at blocking energy transfers(as opposed to plasma… I’m referring to the scene in ESB when the Ion channon shots disabled the Star Destroyer momentarily), they may not.
3. my source for that is just watching the damn show. I can’t think of any time they weren’t able to contain hull breaches with force fields. I also had technical manuals once upon a time. And the force fields are FORCE fields. They deflect force in an equal amount applied, up to the threshhold, which would have to be massive to contain a hull breach. Both blasters and grenades apply force to an object, so they would be blocked. They would need to figure out how to disable the forcefields to get past them, or attack the bridge directly.
5. What various power levels? All TIE fighters use basically the same weaponry, and that weaponry, by canon, is designed for use against other fighters. The exceptions? Anything carrying Proton Torpedos, which in the TIE universe is the TIE DEfender, which is rare, and the TIE bomber, which is slow as crap. Turbolasers are a whole different weapon, and would obviously be effective since they are designed to damage capital ships. For reference, the Enterprise E is only 350 meters shorter than a standard Star Destroyer and a warbird is 300 meters LONGER. NOw think about how effective a flight of X-Wings is against a Star Destroyer. Now reverse it. See?
5. I don’t just “say so”. I took science. You did too. You should know that Plasma is gas that’s been charged and excited to a state that’s almost a tranference to energy, but not quite. Well, Why else would you need Tibana Gas to fuel blasters? Because the blaster charges the gas into a state of plasma before discharging it. Because of that, and the effet of Ion Cannons, it seems logical to assume that WArs shields are designed to absorb the force of plasma hits. I even said that it’s altogether possible that both sides shields would be ineffective against the other.
6. Laugh all you want, but Stormtroopers have shown time and again that they aren’t the brightest lightbulbs in the ceiling. They are fodder, pure and simple, and a Borg cube probably has more drones that a SD has troopers anyway. In a large scale battle, imagine 3 or 4 cubes, plus smaller craft. Im trying to figure out where you get the idea the Borg aren’t good at adapting to weapons, actually.
7. I was saying TREK ships don’t often travel at warp speeds over short distances. Hyperspace travel is fundamentally different than warp travel. And if a Trek ship is ramming something… it’s warp drive is probably offline. That said, if a ship travelling at warp speed hit one travelling at sublight, or stationary… it would be uttely devastating, regardless of the size. The amount of energy transferred would be literally astronomical.
I didn’t make anything up. I did some looking up on the internet and drew some logical science based conclusions based on the technology presented. I appreciate your opinions, but please don’t accuse me of lying to make a point.
1) is it a weakness? ya sure, if you can take out the bridge there can be problems with transfere of control. but concidering the number of warp core issues Star Trek has had i think you are over stating it, perticually as you need to remove the shields first, and i am pretty sure one of the source books pointed out that it was a computer issue
2)i know they have had trouble with volitile exposives before.. and the fact that i can’t remember them ever doing it, suggest to me that they can’t. and i love how becuase the shield falls to stop a planetary ion cannon so teleporters work, also no transporter have to my knowledge been stoped, no wait at most once (but that is only one possible expaination), by dedicated system, it has been stoped by storms however on several ocations, hell was stoped by a solar flare when they were by the 4th planet in a system
3) ya concidering i have also watched the show, and ican’t remember that ever being stated (and the TMs are not canon just to point that out) and riker walked through one in the brig, and shuddle are known to be able to pass through the one in the shuddle bay, i find that “they just won’t work” to be an interesting assumption
4) the universe are differant, assumeing that something that isn’t effective against one sides capitols won’t be effective agianst the others is… an interesting assumption, and while bombers are slower they aren’t as slow as you are making them out to be, and what about TIE Oppressor, or TIE Interdictor?
also where the hell did you get your sizes for each and which warbird are you talkng about?(as there are 2 romulan verions and a kilion one)
5)are you forgeting that the damage is done before the visible bit hits the target? and shouldn’t the light fade do to cooling agianst space if it was plasma based? and the Ion cannon was seen hiting the shields but going through, this is easily eplained by high power as oposed to weak shields
6) they are both brighter and better shots then the borg all the same, and the fact that not only was the tommy gun effective, but starfleet weapons still are effecting them
7) yes but as they have never shown either the willingness nore ability there is no reason to belive that is a vible tactic
Last time.. and please keep an open mind:
1. I never said it was a given, I said it was a weakness. Warp Cores are also a major vulnerability, and it’s altogether likely that both sides would quickly surmise the others weaknesses and try to exploit them. One point to consider, though, is that a Trek ship can still function without a warp core (though at a much reduced power level), while the Executor was essentially a sitting duck.
That all said, I don’t buy the computer error bit. The “Wookieepedia” does mention that a transfer was supposed to occur, but that by the time it was complete, the Executor was hopelessly caught in the DS2′s gravity well. I can buy that. In many cases, it would be enough to lose the primary command staff and presumably the best C&C officers as well.
2. I made it very clear that Imperial shields could very well block Transporters, but it’s also possible they could not (in the scenario that neither sides shields block the others attacks). As for the ability to transport torpedoes; while there is nothing saying that can, there is nothing saying they can’t. They aren’t conventional explosives. However, it is generally thought that they normally wouldn’t transport weapons or explosives because the transport beam is too easy to disrupt and could cause an explosion on your own ship. As a means of last resort, though, they’d do it in a minute. And yes, I said they are easy to disrupt… because they are. HOwever shields are the least of the problem. For the Empire to jam or disrupt them effectively, though, they would need to know what they were, and since teleportation doesn’t exist that I know of in Star Wars, they wouldn’t have that knowledge. That is a logical conclusion.
3. You are making a poor assumption. All force fields are not created equal. There are different kinds and power levels to do different things. The field keeping the shuttle bay pressurized has been created specifically to allow certain material to pass through, while keeping the atmosphere intact. IN the event of a hull breach, that force field would not only be designed to keep in atmosphere, but also to absorb shock and maintain structural integrity. They are also designed to keep people from passing through, to prevent accidents. Since the fields extend into the hull, there would be no way around, and they using weapons wouldn’t do any good.
4. Fighters all-in-all, aren’t particularly effective against capital ships. Bombers, however, are another matter entirely. They are designed to be effective against capital ships. WHat I’m saying is that unshielded TIE’s would be fodder against computer controlled direct fire weapons or large spread torpedo volleys. Their only advantage is in numbers. Assuming they had advanced TIE’s like the Oppressor or INterdictor, which were both barely seen, they could pose a problem, but would be targeted heavily.
That said, there is something we aren’t considering, and that’s the yield of the heavy weapons. Photon Torpedoes are many times more powerful than proton torpedoes, proton bombs or concussion missiles. According to Memory Alpha, a single photon torpedo can destroy a city within minutes (that was on a Voyager episode… the non-canon technical manual states that the power is 25 isotons, but based on the amount of material used, the power would be equivalent to at least 64 megatons (the most powerful nuclear weapon the US ever had was 9 megatons). There is no clear indication of the strength of imperial heavy weapons aside from what we see in the movies and books. Aside from the superlaser, there is no single weapon ever shown that could destroy a city with one shot. I could be wrong, of course, you seem to know Wars better than I do.
AS for ship sizes and compliments, as well as power outputs, I used Memory Alpha for Trek and Wookieepedia for Wars. I will admit a mistake, though, for I was thinking Imperial-class ships were 1,000 meters long, not 1,600. honest mistake. HOwever, the crew size given for IMperial class ships is ridiculous. The Crew compliment of over 46,000 is over a third the size of a standard borg cube which is about 130,000. BUt a borg cube is many times more massive (28 cubic kms, or just over 3,000 meters per side… an based on the measurements of 1600m by 460 meters by 885 meters, and keeping in mind an SD is basically a pyramid on it’s side, the total would be somewhere around 220 cubic meters). Granted there’s a lot of empty space in a borg cube, but still. Many things about Star Wars physics don’t jive… but hey.. it’s fake.
5. I’m not sure how damage can be be done before the “visible bit” hits the target. Technically, both sides have weapons that travel at or near the speed of light (slowed down for our slow moving brains, and special effects). Damage can’t occur faster than that. As for the light fading, thermodynamics are different for plasma and energy than they are for matter. Just because matter loses heat to space rapidly doesn’t mean a bolt of plasma would. There would be plenty of energy comtained in the bolt to keep it “live”… this does, though, explain the limits of range… energy dissipation.
One word about Ion cannons. They are energy weapons designed to bring down shields and short out electronics. Granted, a massive cannon is very powerful, but a ship that has a power supply that puts out the energy of a small star should be able to absorb hits like that, or have shields that can help a little. Logical explanation is that their shields weren’t calibrated correctly, or just couldn’t handle the type of weapon being used. Hey it happens in Trek all the time.
6. The tommy gun was effective because those borg had likely never been shot at with one. Picard didn’t stay in the holodeck, though, because he knew, eventually, they would no longer be effective. AS for the phasers and such, there have been many changes to phasers since they first encountered the borg. They have been built so that the frequency of the energy changes randomly to help prevent rapid adaptation. They always do adapt to a weapon eventually, though. There is no proof otherwise. Besides, 130,000 drones is a lot, they are immune to the vacuum of space, can teleport through many shields and a typical borg cube can operate functionally even when it’s 75% damaged. There is no reason to believe they couldn’t do to an ISD what they did to Enterprise in First Contact.
7. The Klingons would do it in a heartbeat, provided they had warp capability and there was no other way to damage the imperial ships.
Now, as much fun as this has been, I think it’s clear that there is no way to reconcile the massive differences in the universes clearly enough to declare a real winner. ANd remember, none of this is real. It will never actually happen.
1) everything i have read said that the transfere was unsually slow, and you are assumeing the warp core can be ejected, where as more then once it was a very close call to get it out
2) logical, however it is wrong. solar flares are not designed to mess with transporters but they do, in fact i can’t recall any dedicated anti-transporter effects except the planary shield (one possible interpiation) but mulitple effects that are not designed for use against transports have been effective
3) ummm like the ones that riker managed to force his way through in the romulan brig? “Since the fields extend into the hull, there would be no way around, and they using weapons wouldn’t do any good.” source please.
4) what computer controled fire? and against guys that miss each others capitals at ranges in single km or less? next my torpedos are NOT my most powerful weapon, in fact that are strangly weak. also isn’t that the voyager ep where they got pretty much everything wrong? and the manual only hit 64 megatons if everything hits prefect eficentcy… and ignores that half the blast is utterly wasted into space at best. and it makes a lot of sense to me, all the shown borg cubes have massive internal holes.
5) ummm what is the proof about lightspeed weapontry (and better yet i REALLY want the proof that turbolasers are plasma based)plasma IS matter mate. I still notice you assume that the ion cannon is magicly weak, it is a planetary weapon, with a massive powerplant, they hit the ship shields and got through, which does beg the question how strong would they have been without the shields…. Trek=/= Wars
6) “The tommy gun was effective because those borg had likely never been shot at with one” seriously? the borg have never been hit with kenetic energy? actaully then large number of kenetic attacks, Species 8472 weapons, Scorpion Part I” suggests electric weapons as well
7) yet they never have.. and in fact when the Dominion DO ram enemy ships… it has never been at warp.
Heres something the treks can equip there ships with interphase clocking device used by the pegasus they could get into a stragic area and destroy any wars ship with a photon to the bridge or the main reactor.
1.The treks have a interphase clocking devices they could equip them to there large ships and get into a stragic postion where they could course massive damage to a wars ship.
2.the wars fighters and bombers can be counted by runabouts and shuttles
hey Titan welcome to the debate, now for the counter
1) umm you do realize that fire when cloaked is not a federation ability right (of the trek side either the romulans or klingons have pulled it off once if memory serves, while the wars side it is a standard ability (granted wars cloaks have there own issues)? You are also assuming that the Enterprise got to keep the prototype (which pretty much throws all of DS9 and everything we know about the Romulans out an air lock) AND that they both perfected said prototype (which the Romulan and Klingon failures suggest otherwise) AND got it into mass production
2) even if we assume equal firepower, the average Wars ship carries a lot more fighters and bombers then the average Trek ship.
also how do you get the torepedo to phase back at the right time/does it go through shields/is it effected by the properties of matter that it passes through/can you use it at warp/how are you reaching strategic areas at warp speed/can wars sensors detect it even in cloak (as they seem much more relyable (and flat out better, none of this Mk 1 eye ball is better at seeing power down enemy then scaners are stuff) then there Trek counterparts)
I’ll respond to both of you:
1. As I recall, the Pegasus “Interphase Cloaked” itself into an asteroid. Not exactly what I would call reliable technology, and the Pegasus was the only ship with it. Assuming that cloaking ships would no longer be against treaty, it is less likely of an option. That said, it would not be possible to phase inside the shields of any vessel, since the shields emit from the surface of the hip outward. SW shields actually form a protective layer on the surface, unlike Trek shields which create a “bubble” around the ship. But in both cases, the eminate from the surface, so there is no way to “get inside” the shields without being inside the ship itself.
As for cloaking itself as a technology, both universes had similar cloaking ability, in form if not in function. However, David, you seem to be under the impression that Imperial Scanners could just detect cloaked ships whenever they wanted, which is not true. According to the SOurcebooks, the only way you could detect a cloaked ship was with a Crystal Gravfield Trap, which detected minute fluctuations in the local gravity, giving away the cloaked ship’s location. These were RARE and EXPENSIVE, and if damaged in could not be repaired in the “in-between” battlefield we’ve created. Additionally, I would suspect that very few ISD’s would have these, and likely only flag ships, or ships specifically designed as interceptors (like the Interdictor-class, which would otherwise be useless to prevent FTL travel). That said, it is possible, if not likely, that at least one of the Imperial ships would have this device and would be able to “see” cloaked ships and pass that telemetry to the others, but it would be a target.
2. David is right. Trek ships don’t have the carrying capacity of Imperial ships, which are designed to carry numerous fighters. However, since most TIE’s are unshielded and rely heavily on pilot input for firing solutions (as they are analogs of traditional fighter aircraft), the shuttles and runabouts, and even the fighters (yes Trek has fighters) would have a marked advantage in a one-on-one fight. WE all know, though, that the Empire fights battles of attrition and that it relies on large numbers to overwhelm enemy defenses. So they would be better used targeting the slower moving SW heavy weapons (i.e. missiles and torpedoes) and protecting vulnerable parts of the ship. If they engaged the fighters man-to-man, they would do a great deal of damage, but would eventually lose.
3. Finally to address scanners. I’m not sure what makes David think SW scanners are superior. IN Trek, the scanners are so advanced that they can produce a picture image on the view screen (you didn’t think they used cameras, did you?). There is no equivalent technology in SW. Their scanners are always shown displaying tactical information as opposed to live feeds. Additionally video footage usually shows being taken from a fixed location, as opposed to following a target. That said, the Trek world is more Science focused while the SW world is more military focused. They would have differing needs and thus, different scanning technology.
1)how are the cloaking effects alike at all please tell? and yes of course lets ingore that super star destroyers are not only flagships but well, impractical ones at that being muh bigger and more expensive then they need to be, pertically the largest classes, also ignore that the empire are the group with CGTs. thing is that unlike the Wars cloaks, Trek cloaks have emisions leaks which have proven detectable.
2)no idea what your geting at there to be honest, concidering how often Trek ships miss from point blank ranges,nore why missiles and torpedoes are suppost to be “slower moving”
3 have we been watching the same shows at all? Trek sensors are notoriuos for being blocked by almost anything and still pick up trek cloaks, not only are WARS sensors enough of a hassle to warant massive dedicated ECM to (something i have never seen nor read (even though the books aren’t tecnicly cannon they are still enjoyable) Trek do) also differances of scale are a more problable reason for the lack of view screen, not only are the formations differant but the spaceing an number of ships make a viewscreen near useless (and this ignores hologram projectors entirely)
1. They are alike in that they both work the same way. The actual devices may work with different properties, but the physical mechanics are the same. Both universes cloaking devices not only mask sensor presence, but also bend light to mask a physical presence as well. Additionally both require huge amounts of systems power, making battle while cloaked impossible. That’s how they are alike.
As for “leaking” cloaks in Trek, the reason they can track the particle emissions is because the KNOW what to look for, which was a discovery made over time, as you will recall. Since the two cloaks are generated differently, there is no reason to believe that normal SW scanners would have any better time finding a cloaked ship than the Enterprise did in Balance of Terror. Ships with a CGT would have no difficulty, however.
2. Trek ships usually only miss if there is not a target lock on, or something interferes with targeting. There is no reason to assume spatial anomalies that affect Trek ships would not affect Imperial ships. You are also ignoring the fact that the technologies are vastly different. Imperial jammers may not work against subspace communications or Trek scanners. We can’t assume they would any more than we can assume they wouldn’t. As I’ve said many times, it’s altogether likely that ANY countermeasures that one group has would be ineffective against the other.
As for the speed of the projectiles, my reasoning is sound and based on data provided by the sourcebooks. SW warheads can be shot down. Missiles maybe not as easily since they move faster, but torpedoes most definitely be shot down. I quote Wookieepedia: A number of torpedo designs were shielded to protect them from being shot down either by skilled pilots or the target’s defensive flak guns. When did you ever see a photon torpedo shot down? You haven’t, because they can’t be. They move to fast.
Ignore the images you see on TV. In canon, they are “warp-capable” and shielded (though this shielding is to allow for better penetration through the tough tritanium hulls of Trek ships, not to prevent being shot down). Speeds and payloads are adjustable (and likely are with SW projectiles as well), but the yield of SW torpedoes appears to be many times less than those in Trek, particularly the more powerful later versions (there is no yield information on SW torps, but I know a single photon torpedo can destroy a large city.
3. AS mentioned previously, Trek sensors are usually blocked by either more advanced technology (such as advanced shields), or naturally occuring phenomena, which would likely block ANY sensors. I would add that there is nothing indicating that SW sensors are better and I again quote Wookieepedia: Sensors were, of course, not perfect. Not only could they fail to detect what they should or present false “ghost” images, they could be interfered with by natural phenomena like solar radiation, hydrogen clouds, asteroid fields, and potent gravity wells; and by artificial phenomena such as sensor jammers, sensor decoys, shield camouflage, stealth technology, and, of course, cloaking devices.
Again, since the technology is different, it’s possible that scanning jams would be ineffective against both sides. My presumption about Trek sensors being superior stems mainly from the use of the sensors to provide realistic images of the surrounding environment. Saying that the scale of the SW ships is irrelevant. They simply lack the technology to do it. Of course the real reason for this is that Lucas had massive windows on the bridges of his ships, making view screens less of a need. I prefer the viewscreens, but only because I know about them. Imperials would likely prefer their views.
You also mentioned holographic projectors, I have three words for you: Emergency Medical Hologram. SW’s holographic technology doesn’t seem to have advanced in thousands of years. And while it is useful to communicate using them, the same could be done with the portable hologram emitters the EMH used on voyager. They would just have to be programmed to do so.
AS for a massive dedicated ECm burst, while there would be less need for it in the Trek universe, the principals are based in well-known science and an ECM weapon would be easy enough to create using photon torpedo cases.
All I’m saying is that the sides are more evenly matched than usually thought. I’m also not including plasma torpedoes, which would likely be less effective against Imperial shields without heavy modification, or anything about the Dominion or Borg weapons and tactics (aside from my assertion the Borg could assimilate an Imperial ship with little effort).
1) ok ya, so you don’t know how a wars one works so you assume shit and hope i don’t call you on it, ya it takes up power but i can still fire when cloaked, the Wars cloak drawback is the double blind nature of MOST of them.
as for the know what to look for, i have a large number of sensors and mulitple people looking at them, you have to hope i assume it is a sensor ghost.
2)then they most have serious problems locking on to shit as they miss at point blank ranges all the time, and how do you know it is not the heavy assult versions and it is a size problem not a speed one? (pertiaully as flak is still a threat just via throwing a wall of it up) or because Trek ships simply don’t have the targeting ability… actaully you know it is claimed that they can, the diologe and actaul effects of things almost never lines up in trek
3) i suggest you take another look, as a lot of the natural stuff does not block modern sensors, and A) 1 of those naturals have cannon source which say that is bullshit (the astroid field) we get jammed up possibly ranges very close to the sun (nomnad city) but even then can get much closer then trek ships (4th planet out and you still got jaming from x-rays)
and i have still yet to see a Wars ship get with in meters and still aviod detection,
“My presumption about Trek sensors being superior stems mainly from the use of the sensors to provide realistic images of the surrounding environment” that is so utterly laughable i don’t know were to begin, it has to do with the act that there is no useful purpose for a wars ship do to formation gap and the more militery purpose, again, they showed they could withthe holoprojector used to plan the battle of yavin 4
umm i am sorry there is only ONE portable projecter in Trek, it is also tec that they got through time travel, if memory serves 4 hundred years in the future. Now again if we are going to go there i can not only use funtionaly identical hologram tec, i have an entire world built around it, only my tec does’t need holodecks.
i disagree here but hey to each his own, thing is they haven’t used it, and as such are also less likely to have ECCM
ya but your aren’t acttaully even tackeling the evedence that makes star wars the common fav, and frankly bring the borg and dominion on, in fact you already brought up the raming tactic which is much more dominion then it is kiligion, and frankly no one has ever made a decent case for borg or dominion being a major threat (oh and for anti-borg i will give you 2 clue, scorpian (parts 1 and 2) and Data)
the 501st vs a Klingon army of compairable size would be like throwing a kitten(Klingon) into a meat grinder(the 501st) or like makeing a little old woman(Klingon) fight conan the barbarian(the 501st) to the death, aside from that a single force user such as darth vader could stomp anyone into the ground, hell the emperor and vader together could probably fight a land battle alone and come out on top lol (probably not but damn close) and storm troopers just have one problem their blasters cant hit plot armor, and plot armor goes out the window in VS,
You are taking this way too personally, David. I will say it one last time: I am not making up anything. Every statement I’ve made is backed up by material I found online, usually on the wiki sites, backed up with material from sourcebooks or manuals. Granted Trek has a LOT less accepted Canon material, but that’s mainly because they’ve contradicted themselves so many times with so many different directors, writers and producers, no one can keep it all straight. The wiki site (Memory Alpha) does a pretty good job sorting it all out. With SW, technically, only the films themselves are truly canon. I quote George Lucas here: There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe.”
That said, for our purposes, any licensed material can be considered canon, because Lucas Arts works hard to incorporate all they can into the universe and make it all jive well. Wookieepedia does a great job sorting it all out.
In reference to Wiki: I know it’s user edited. I don’t use any source that isn’t footnoted as referenced to a known piece of material.
Now about your accusations:
1. I do know how cloaking works in both universes. Trek Cloaks are tied into the deflector shield grid (which is why both cloaks and shields can’t operate at the same time) and mask both sensor traces and visual presence). SW cloaks do almost the exact same thing. The primary difference is that SW cloaks are “double blind”, as you mentioned. Probably because they project a field beyond the ship that redirects all sensor equipment.
Now, because of the nature of cloaking in Trek (and because how much sense would it make to have a completely undetectable cloaking system in the hands of your characters ENEMIES), they learned how to track certain changes in background emissions that occur when a ship is cloaked. This was only discovered over a period of time, and only because they REVIEWED old sensor data. Trust me, in the heat of battle, I don’t care how many people you have looking at how many sensors, in the heat of battle, they aren’t looking for minor sensor blips that they can’t target (in both Balance of Terror and The Enterprise Incident, it’s noted that they could only notice the cloaked vessel when it was moving, but could not target it).
That said, since Trek ships cannot fire and are unshielded while cloaked, I doubt anyone other than the Romulans would actually use the cloak during the battle, and even they would use it judiciously and probably to escape.
2. I’m not sure why you think that the creation of dramatic encounters for a television show amounts to “missing at point blank all the time” or that Trek targeting sensors can be blocked by anyone at anytime.
What modern sensors are you referring to? Radar? Sonar? What doesn’t block them? Radar is jammed incredibly easily, and SONAR even more so. Sensors in Trek and SW use energies and travel faster than light (they would have to to be effective at long range), so how exactly can you compare them to modern sensing equipment? Tell you what, you name a modern sensor and I’ll tell you what can block it.
I am thinking back through my vast memory of modern Trek and I can’t recall a situation where I know they had target lock and missed (it’s far more likely that the weapon would be ineffective). However, I don’t know everything, and I know the targeting sensors can be blocked just like any other sensor can.
You mentioned being the 4th planet out and getting sensor jams from X-Rays… that would depend on the star. Our sun doesn’t block scans in Earth orbit, or even closer. Our sun doesn’t produce enough x-Rays for that. Other stars might, though. DOn’t forget we have to consider REAL physics. All stars are not created equal. Neither are all planets.
“and i have still yet to see a Wars ship get with in meters and still aviod detection”… You haven’t seen Empire Strikes Back enough times. As I recall, The Millenium Falcon was not only within meters, it was ON THE HULL OF THE SHIP. Now, as it flew by the bridge and over the top, it would have had to maneuver into place to attach itself, but as it passed close to the surface of the ship, it disappeared from sensors (as I recall this happened immediate after passing the bridge… not 30 seconds later, not 10 seconds later… immediately).
And if you are seriously comparing that wireframe projection to a view screen, you are mad. Trek ships are often hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers apart, but the viewscreen makes looking at them much easier. You can’t visually see things that are thousands of kilometers away unless they are huge (which may be why Lucas made his ships so large). You are entitled to you opinion, but in truth, I don’t think sensors of either side are better at detecting. I should say that the technology for user interfacing is better, not the sensors. I would rather have an adjustable viewscreen and a window. You would too.
HOlograms: there was only one in VOYAGER. But Voyager is back now. It doesn’t matter where the tech came from, they can reproduce it (since they can repair it, I’m sure they can build new ones), and there is no reason they wouldn’t be able to make more. I’m not saying they did, I’m saying they can.
I stand by my assessment on EMP. Trek ships are actually shielded against EMP. I do know that by the time of TOS in Trek, a nuclear warhead detonated in close proximity to a ship caused a minor electrical disruption (due to the EMP.. that’s from Balance of Terror). That likely is no longer possible, but more powerful EMP, like an Ion blast, likely would be effective.
Ramming as a tactic is most defintely something a klingon would do if he had propulsion but no weapons. In fact, in FIrst COntact, Worf was going to ram the borg cube with the Defiant. It may not have been done a lot, but it IS something they would do. It would be a very honorable death, especially if it led to victory.
Finally, you are making a massive assumption in relation to the Borg: in Trek the Borg are now a known factor, so you assume that they would not be a threat to the IMperials. However, it’s taken over a decade of contact with the Borg to find effective means of making them.. well.. ineffective. The first contact with the Borg nearly destroyed the Enterprise D. The battle of WOlf 359 devastated Starfleet. and I quote Memory alpha:
“Of the forty vessels that engaged the Borg cube, thirty-nine were destroyed, resulting in approximately eleven thousand deaths.” ‘
Granted the Borg had knowledge of the plan because they assimilated Picard, but what makes you think they wouldn’t try a similar tactic against an UNPREPARED Imperial fleet. Re3member the Imperials have never encountered anything like the Borg. They would be flatfooted and would try to fight them the way they fight the rebels; by throwing fodder at them until they are destroyed. The Borg would just absorb it. That’s what they do. That isn’t to say that with prolonged exposeure to the borg that the IMperials wouldn’t eventually develop sound tactics, but it would take time, just like it did in Trek.
For Billy:
can you back your argument up with any facts or data? I can see no reason why two similarly sized forces of Klingons and Elite Stormtroopers would be so unevenly matched. Let’s compare the two side by side:
Stormtroopers were elite soldiers, scoring in the top 5 percent of those testing to enter the Imperial Army or Navy. It can be assumed based on our standards, that the 501st only accepted the very best of those. They were hand-picked, after all. That said, all Imperial Army and Navy members went to an Academy, which, let’s be generous and say that they received two years of training before going into battle. Let’s take the 501st and add another year of intense special training. SO three years of training and then continued daily training every day after that.
Additionally, it’s noted that the overall effectiveness of the Imperial army declined significantly over the years until their stunning defeat at Endor. This was due to the use of recruiting normal people and the decline in the use of Jango Fett’s clones. Commander Cody, a first generation Jango clone, commented that he would sacrifice all of the normal human stormtroopers to get one good Jango clone.
Now, Klingons are raised in a warrior-based society. From an early age, they train with all types of weaponry and tactics. The concept of Self-Preservation isn’t viewed favorably among Klingons, mainly because they come from large family units who they feel will always avenge them.
Klingons, are much stronger than humans, and had a redundant organ system that made killing them more difficult. Besides that they had considerably higher stamina and lived considerably longer than humans, despite having a much shorter period of childhood (an eight year old Klingon was about as physically mature as a 16 year old human).
Now, I made assumptions on how long Stormtroopers trained based on modern military training. And I’m not saying the Klingons would crush the Imperials. I’m thinking that in hand-to-hand combat, the Klingons would win hands down. But in a shoot-out, the 501st would probably have a marked advantage.
However, you’ve removed one of the major advantages the Empire has: numbers. In an equally sized force, I’m not sure how the Imperials would fare against ANY force. Against the Rebels, they always had numerical superiority.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
first of all i would like to back up Phineas Delgado in the info that he said about the clocks and the data about the wars ships.
The klingons phaser rifles may be slow in firing but if they put the setting to full and overload it they could use this as a very powerful grande and then run in and attack with hand to hand combat.then the imperials would be stuff and even if more keep coming the klingons have versed bader ods.
Just to prove I’m not biased, I want to point out something important here:
Klingons don’t use phasers or phaser rifles. They use Dispurtors, which work on an entirely different principal than phasers do.
An important fact to note, as well, is that stormtrooper armor was designed to disperse kinetic energy and bolts (it’s often compared to kevlar), not sustained energy blasts, which could mean that Trek weapons would be highly effective against it.
As for the tactic you mentioned; there is no reason to waste a perfectly good weapon by overloading it. That is a tactic of last resort, and something Klingons would only do in kamikaze effect. Besides, the explosion created by an overloaded disruptor would actually be less effective against stormtroopers than just shooting at them, based on what I said above.
i meant last resort with the overloading of the disrupter and i got mixed around with the phaser and disrupter.
Well given the latest movies.
The Trek universe with trans warp beaming allows a person on a planet to transport anything anywhere un the galaxy. Who needs ships?
Beam viruses to home planets, and wait for them to die. Beam toxic gasses about ships while they are in FTL travel.
All without ever leaving the house.
This is a very interesting take on the SW vs ST thing. I took the time to read all of the comments after the original article, and being a newbie in this whole SW vs ST thing, am impressed, amused, and slightly nonplussed by the attention this article garnered and the arguments that came from it.
Mr. Deldago, my compliments. To this observer you have argued your points well. The article itself remains the only article I’ve seen so far that isn’t biased.
I took issue with your statement that the borg and species 8472 would “beat the Empire hands down.” That was before I knew what species 8472 was. I continued to take issue with it until I came across their… “planet killer.” Against a portion of the empire as you have mentioned here, I can not doubt you; against the entire empire (assuming the species 8472 would be invading the empire) I would have to say that the amount of casualties the empire would take would be immense, but considering that they also have “human” ingenuity and technology that seems to be much more advanced than that which is evidenced by the Federation, that the empire would win (eventually). The Old Republic even more so, considering what Jedi can do (unless Species 8472 is force-resistant!, which I suppose isn’t that improbable).
Considering the difference in sheer power between the empire and the federation, while I admit that our universe would put up quite a fight, that even from the get-go it would be obvious that we would be doomed. I invite you to look at the source for my… comment; http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html
Kudos to k2000k for the comment, “Fiddle Fie your disruptor, Darth Vader got shield hands.” Get’s me laughing every time. “Darth Vader got shield hands.” HA! In this scenario by Mr. Delgado however, I don’t think Darth Vader would be present.
david asked about turbolasers being plasma based; they are not plasma based. Plasma, to quote Wikipedia, is “a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. The basic premise is that heating a gas dissociates its molecular bonds, rendering it into its constituent atoms. Further heating leads to ionization (a loss of electrons), turning it into a plasma: containing charged particles, positive ions and negative electrons.” Turbolasers, like blasters, didn’t user plasma, instead firing a highly compressed, focused high-energy particle beam, which in the SW universe (and thus, assuming also within this scenario) were stronger than plasma. I leave that to you, Mr Delgado, to figure out how that might change/factor into the situation.
I would like to point out that while the inhabitants of our universe would use quite a variety of tactics, and would come up with new ones to face the threat of the empire, that the empire in this scenario would do the same, especially went up against the wall.
@Elawise, forgive me if I’m incorrect, but I believe the last movie took place in an alternate reality… I’m not sure if it applies to this scenario or to SW vs ST in general.
I’m mostly done here, but~! Darth Vader has shield hands. XD
Mm, two more things. Star Destroyer’s are by themselves able to “sterilize” planets (i.e. kill all life on them). Also, k2000k said something about the tractor beams in ST being able to move small moons; k2000k then asked why wouldn’t they throw asteroids at the empire? My response to that is well, they wouldn’t originally because that isn’t an accepted, normal tactic. Also, in the expanded universe of SW, the tractor beams of SW ships can move asteroids, and in fact that is done.
And I hate to have to say this, but I must because otherwise I may be accused of something…
I am aware that a SW Star Destroyer can not kill all life on a planet in an instant; rather it is a process that takes some hours.
Heh. Shield hands~
Well, DK, first, thank you. You’re the first person that recognized the amount of work that went into such a seemingly easy article. The webpage you mentioned was part of my early research into the topic until I discovered that their math is horribly wrong.
First, converting watts (which is a measurement of joules per second) into megatons (which is a measurement of a massive number of joules) is not as easy as one would think. Secondly, since we know now that the energy weapons work on completely different principals, it makes sense that the Imperial weapons would take more energy to operate. See, it takes more energy to convert matter into plasma (which is what the imperial weapons do… converting tibana gas into the laser bolts) than it would simply to create a particle beam.
I mentioned in my article that I think it’s clear that LucasArts has no idea about “normal” when it came to power and ship size. It’s also clear that the Galaxy of Star Wars is far more populated but technologically stagnant (light sabers and blasters are the same now as they were 40,000 years ago, in essence, as are ship shields and hyperspace travel).
Oddly enough, though, while the lasers are overpowered the heavy weapons aren’t. A proton torpedo can’t destroy a city. A city block maybe, but not a city. Neither can the bombs. A single photon torpedo has a yield of 25 isotons (which is a made up unit… SW people didn’t want to tie themsevles into a real unit of measurement for the sake of having creative license), but we know that 54 isotons can destroy a small planet (say the size of Mercury or Pluto. Keeping in mind a scale of exponential growth, 25 isotons could do a lot more damage than the 64 megatons mentioned on that page.
Lastly, while it’s given that travel in SW is faster, there is no evidence that they can fight at FTL speeds. Additionally, we have no gauge for how large their galaxy actually is. It could be considerably smaller.
That said, I agree with you that the Empire, while arrogant and short sighted, has the advantage of numbers, if nothing else. It’s like Vicini said in Princess Bride, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia”.
The USS Enterprise could easily beat a imperial star destroyer first blasting out it stupid deflector then going for the bridge of course the S.D could send out some tie fighters but all would be shot down in one hit from its type 10 phaser emplacements
Vader & Yoda & characters of lesser importance would be absorbed into the Borg collective so the Treksters would win rather easily.
There’s one small problem with your calculations here, primarily concerning speed; the Federation contains only hundreds to thousands of planets, and it takes them weeks to travel from one side of their space to the other. It was supposed to take Voyager years to travel a mere few dozen lightyears.
In Star Wars, the ships are capable of traveling across the entire galaxy, which is hundreds of thousands of light-years, in a matter of weeks to months. In other words, while the trek universe has the advantage of quickness, the wars universe has the advantage of actual speed. It doesn’t matter how quickly they run away, they can never actually escape.
On top of this, this is entirely neglecting such equipment as the Star Forge, Death Star, and other darkside constructs; a single one of them could single-handedly destroy the federation, and probably most of the rest of the universe.
Finally, Emperor Palpatine is the star wars equivalent of the Q in trek; he was capable of making force-storms powerful enough to destroy entire battle-fleets on his own, and he didn’t hesitate to use them, the way the Q tend to.
Of course, if you put the star wars universe in a situation where they’re vastly outnumbered, they’re going to lose, at least when it comes to the Empire, but that’s only because their primary battle tactic was to send swarms of expendable troops at their target! Heck, the Millennium Falcon could tank shots from a battle-cruiser and had an impressive arsenal, and it had missiles nearly powerful enough to destroy a moon on its own, It’s not too far of a stretch to think that it could destroy a galaxy class vessel completely unaided.
i dont rember Emperor Palpatine turning a robot into a human in a flick the only thing he can do is use the force Q has the power to get rid of the force in a flick and i am pretty shore Q can destroy the entire Army of the starwars galaxy.
Cygnus.
Let’s address your arguments one by one.
The Trek universe was based on the Milky Way, and an assumption that only a percentage of star systems would have planets capable of supporting life, and that fewer still would have life one them, and fewer still would have warp capable civilizations. Additionally, warp technology in the Trek Universe is a relatively new thing, with most races having achieved warp in only the last few thousand years. Warp speed is based on travelling through normal space, and thus, is somewhat limited. Travel from Earth to Vulcan, which is 11 light years away, took only hours. Voyager, which was on the other side of the galaxy (which is 100,000 light years roughly in diameter) was originally going to take over 70 years to get home.
Star Wars never defined it’s means of travel, but I imagine it uses Hyperspace, which means the ships don’t travel through real space to get where they are going. They would, however, need to account for real space obstacles, like stars, because of the gravity wells they produce. Also, the Star Wars universe is tens of thousands of years old, which light speed travel being at least 40,000 years active, and then some. But to travel from planet to planet in a system, SW ships must use sublight engines, because hyperspace travel won’t work so close to a gravity well (hence by there are Star Destroyers with gravity well projectors). But Trek ships have no such limitations. So, it stands to reason that Trek ships are sprinters and Wars ships are marathon runners.
Next point: you are ignoring the scenario I put into play. Imperial ships enter Federation space. They have limited resources, and do not have Sith, the Death Star, or any other non-standard non-film canon equipment. A super Star Destroyer is more than enough, given the circumstances. And while the Death Star is quite the weapon, I’m convinced two or three Borg cubes would make short work of it. It only takes a single drone to make a whole new colony of borg. and they are good at being inconspicuous. Besides, if whiney-assed Luke Skywalker can run around basically unnoticed, I’m sure a borg drone could.
The Emperor is NOT equivalent to the onipotent, omnipresent Q. Not even remotely. The Q had the power to completely alter space time to their whims. They could create matter from nothing. They should alter reality. They could THINK races into and out of existence. As powerful a Sith as the Emperor was, he was not that powerful. Not only would he not pose a threat to a Q, given motivation the Q wouldn’t NEED force storms, they would simply WILL the Imperials back to where they came from, or out of existence altogether.
Numbers: I did not outnumber the Imperials. I gave them the numbers their ships have according to the Wiki sites. They outnumber the trek units at least 50 to 1.
Power of ships: The MF could not single handedly destroy a galaxy class vessel without being destroyed itself. Besides being about 5% yes that’s right FIVE PERCENT of the size of a Galaxy Class Heavy Cruiser, I went over the possibilities of weapons damage. There is a good chance that the missiles on the MF would be totally absorbed by t he shields of a Trek ship. It’s also highly unlikely in ANY scenario, that it would survive even a SINGLE photon torpedo hit, let alone a series of phaser blasts. I love Han and Chewie, but this is not their fight.
Reread the article. You ignored many of the “rules” I put into place before I started.
In Wars, there IS actually a teleporter, namely the Matter Transmitter, Hypergates and, through the Force.
Actually, Not-A-User, the Force aside, the items you mentioned are not Transporters in the way Star Trek uses them. They are in fact portable wormholes, which is an altogether different concept.
The Q’s can just send the entire Empire to the start of the big bang and you cant say the force can get you out of that.
whats your point star wars will still lose
Honestly the way ppl do thing in this is putting the empire against everyone in the ST universe.if u want to add the other factions in the SW universe im sure that the SW universe would win even on a same scale fight.i like both but im always a sw fan
The empire is not the strogest ground force either.the clone army was the most effective in a fight. not to metion the CIS(Trade federation)had counless numbers of smart battles droids for every type of situation…bording,assination,ground war,or supprestion