I can't describe them accurately enough to do them justice.
Their ships outstrip all but a handful of the B5 races by a wide margin. They have unmatched cloaking techology/abilites. They are excellent at manipulation.
The only reason they ever lost a war is because they toy with the younger races instead of simply launching an all out assault.
Amaya wrote:It doesn't matter. I seriously doubt that they have the technology to lock their weapons onto Minbari ships.
So the Imperial Navy would be fighting....like they normally do? You do realise that most Imperial ships just throw crap out and hope it hits stuff right? you need a decent enoug officer or relay to get them to lock on.
And the Shadows would only be defeated by the Imperium if they made grievous tactical errors. Which I doubt they would. They would play it safe for centuries, millenia, however long it takes to slowly eat way at the Imperium's infrastructure before making their strike.
Er...whut?
Yes, it is oh so easy to hit agile ships with out having some sort of targeting array. A piece of cake.
Er....whut? What else is there to say? How can you fight an enemy you can't see?
Maybe you should watch Babylon 5...
Kit it out with the smartest machine spirit you can find. If a land raider moving a top speed can target that one artillery unit up there on that hill with one of it's lascannons surely an Emperor class battleship's machine spirit could.
Amaya wrote:Aren't the most advanced Machine Spirits in Landraiders?
I'm pretty sure 40k space combat is more akin to WW1/WW2 era naval combat than it is to three dimensional combat.
Nope, to my knowledge the most advanced would probably be titans, although... machine spirits do develop experience, so in theory, if one was to survive its first few confrontations... the machine spirit would adapt to the new enemy. And actually, IoM ships usually have broadside guns, turrets on top, and big motha a down bottom in the form of a lance... the equivalent of a solar flare... nasty.
Amaya wrote:Aren't the most advanced Machine Spirits in Landraiders?
No not at all, Machine Spirits are barely even tangible beyond their unnerring actions. Titans have an actual entity of sorts, almost a personality. Ships, especially the larger behemoths, are on a whole other level.
I'm pretty sure 40k space combat is more akin to WW1/WW2 era naval combat than it is to three dimensional combat.
If you're playing BFG yes. But the book did say that trying to have a game regarding space battle on a 2D board is simply impossible.
Commissar Agro wrote:The Scrin from the Command and Conquer tiberium verse might be able to defeat the IoM, but not in a conventional war.
What they do is "seed" every planet in the galaxay with tiberium.
Considering that the IoM regularly inhabit DEATH WORLDS (Catachans) and TOXIC WORLDS (Salvar Chem Dogs), Tiberium would be an insignificant nussiance.
Keezus, you are wrong there, Tiberium would be a grave threat not an insginificant nussiance, Tiberium causes mutations in humans that eventually leads to death, most die outright. Due to the way the Imperium itself acts towards mutants it would most likely purge the mutant populations thus weakining itself as it loses forge worlds, agri worlds to the green crystal, it would lose its way of feeding the IG and producing more wepaons for the IG, this would weaken it. Also the IG proberly wouldn't accept these new mutants thus allowing outside forces to destroy it.
But I don't think SM would be terribly affected by tiberium.
IMO the 2 Greatest threats to the IoM are
1. Itself, come on just imagine an alternate reality version of the IoM invading our version of IoM.
2. Tibeirum, which would weaken the Imperium allowing some other force to destroy it.
Im discounting the stuff ftom B5 cause i don't watch it, the borg cause that argument is just one massive flame war and the other Sci-fi series/books that I havent' watched/read. But this is just my opinion.
Just remember this is only peoples opinons based on fluff as evidence and we don't actually know how a fight between X race of Y verse Vs IoM would end, they are just games or book or T.V. serries not RL, I think some of you have forgotten this.
I do like how noone has suggested 40K could beat The Culture. Here's a new idea. The Solar Deliberative from Exalted.
Apocalypse class battleship fires it's lances at the Solar Exalt floating in space. Solar parries with his daiklaive. Solar uses First Age presence charm. Every member of the bridge crew watching the main screens falls instantly into worshipful love of the Solar. Lock the bridge doors, vent the atmosphere of the rest of the ship. Solar has a new battleship.
Bromsy wrote:I do like how noone has suggested 40K could beat The Culture. Here's a new idea. The Solar Deliberative from Exalted.
Apocalypse class battleship fires it's lances at the Solar Exalt floating in space. Solar parries with his daiklaive. Solar uses First Age presence charm. Every member of the bridge crew watching the main screens falls instantly into worshipful love of the Solar. Lock the bridge doors, vent the atmosphere of the rest of the ship. Solar has a new battleship.
You know it took me a while to realise that you weren't talking about Solar Macharius.
A Retribution Class Battleship isn't nearly fast enough to get a broadside on a Borg Cube.
A Borg cube can fight at Warp Speed now? Okay, even then all the Retribution has to do is fire all shots in all directions (entirely possible with it's lance armanent) and odds are one will hit isomething.
Pretty much all ST ships can fight at warp, thats why they are so vicious.
Firing in all directions is irrelevant. Your artillery and less than light speed weaponry is literally standing still compared to an ST ship. It would just look like a porcupine to them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Having said that all this is irrelevant. The IoM can't even take out the wimpy mosquitolike Tau. Most races in ST and Star Wars would do just fine thank you very much. The IoM is too busy dealing, all the big powers are too busy dealing with the other big powers.
Frazzled wrote:Firing in all directions is irrelevant.
Haha. You're right, but not in the way you intended. The IoM ship just needs to fire straight ahead when the Borg Cube drops out of warp to deliver it's menacing monologue. That should do it 9/10 times.
Melissia wrote:ST ships can't fight at FTL speed, thus it is irrelevant.
Friggin' trekkies.
Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.
Frigging nuns with guns nancy boys.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
keezus wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Firing in all directions is irrelevant.
Haha. You're right, but not in the way you intended. The IoM ship just needs to fire straight ahead when the Borg Cube drops out of warp to deliver it's menacing monologue. That should do it 9/10 times.
Excellent point.
"Oh you got me monologing!"
-Badguy, the Incredibles.
Melissia wrote:ST ships can't fight at FTL speed, thus it is irrelevant.
Friggin' trekkies.
Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.
Frigging nuns with guns nancy boys.
Ah yeah the FTL speeds at which they fight.
If the high-sublight speed and kinetic energy formulas are taken to their logical conclusion, then the warhead yield is an insignificant fraction of the total energy of the torpedo. This is a ludicrous conclusion; one would have to question why the Federation would put warheads on their torpedoes at all, since they require complex and damage-prone antimatter loading and containment systems.
Federation sublight drives employ a low-level variant of warp drive to propel starships at high relativistic speeds without corresponding expenditures of energy. Their kinetic energy is therefore also low (they cannot get a large amount of kinetic energy with a small expenditure of energy- this would be a violation of Conservation of Energy), most likely because they have somehow reduced the "effective mass" of their starships. This technology is also used on photon torpedoes, in the form of a "warp sustainer" engine described in the TM. Therefore, the kinetic energy of a photon torpedo is not related to its speed, since it is propelled by a spatial distortion rather than conventional impulse reaction physics.
The formula for the maximum speed of a photon torpedo is v=vi+0.75vi/c, where vi is the launch velocity, and there is a 75% boost available for torpedoes fired at low sublight (ref TMpg. 129). However, maximum speed is a nonsensical concept in space, where continued acceleration is always possible provided that fuel is available. This is consistent with a space-warp propulsion system rather than a conventional impulse reaction propulsion system, and it is yet another piece of evidence that the KE=½mv² formula cannot be applied to photon torpedoes.
Photon torpedo speeds are greatly exaggerated. Photon torpedoes invariably accelerate to a velocity of a few kilometres per second relative to the launching platform, rather than reaching high sublight speeds regardless of launch-platform speed as some believe. They can travel at superluminal speeds when launched from a ship at warp, but when launched from low sublight platforms or immobile platforms such as DS9, they invariably remain at low sublight speeds. The velocity increase (relative to the launching platform) is consistently in the range of 1-10 km/s, not 100,000 km/s. This can be clearly seen in "Way of the Warrior" and "A Call to Arms".
The low-sublight DS9 torpedoes seen in "Way of the Warrior" and "A Call to Arms" were just as effective as torpedoes launched from mobile platforms such as starships. If the kinetic energy of a photon torpedo were commensurate with the launch platform's velocity, the low-speed DS9 torpedoes would have been ineffective compared to torpedoes launched from a mobile starship.
Without knowing the rate of acceleration, it is impossible to determine how fast a photon torpedo is traveling by the time it reaches its target. If a torpedo accelerates at the same rate as a GCS (10 km/s²) and it strikes its target in 5 seconds, it will only be traveling at 50 km/s. This would explain the relatively low speeds seen in the episodes while being consistent with the high speed claims of the TM. Given enough time, thanks to its space-distortion drive system, a photon torpedo may indeed be capable of achieving high relativistic speeds. However, those speeds will be tactically useless, because of the long time required to achieve them.
In conclusion, because photon torpedoes use a warp sustainer engine rather than conventional impulse reaction engines to achieve its speed, they do not possess the kind of kinetic energy that one would normally expect from a torpedo travelling at high relativistic velocities. Furthermore, their observed velocities in actual combat are far lower than the claims being made on their behalf. We can only assume that this must be yet another propaganda campaign on the part of the Federation.
Photon torpedo tactical effectiveness
Photon torpedoes are roughly equivalent to high-yield nuclear fusion weapons. We know that shielded Federation starships can withstand nuclear explosions (albeit with damage and radiation exposure to some crewmembers) from "Balance of Terror". This indicates that a single hit from a large nuclear weapon or photon torpedo could be expected to penetrate a TOS Federation starship's shields, but several would be required to destroy it. This is consistent with the pattern of battle in TOS, where a single volley of photon torpedoes (only 2 torpedoes with the old TOS launchers) heavily damaged a fully shielded Klingon warship in "Elaan of Troyius".
Photon torpedo accuracy is excellent against targets which are either immobile or travelling in a predictable path- a photon torpedo struck a 1.5 metre target from 80,000km away in "The Changeling". This is not surprising- active guidance systems like those in 20th century cruise missiles correct and refine their courses as they approach their targets so that the range is irrelevant to the accuracy (a cruise missile has the same target accuracy from 10km away as it does from 400km away). The same would probably be true for photon torpedoes, which use active guidance systems.
In general terms, photon torpedoes have much longer ranges than phasers and much higher power, but they are not very maneuverable and are therefore not effective against highly maneuverable targets (otherwise, why would phasers be used at all?).
Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.
But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.
About Impulse drive.
Impulse Drive
Impulse drive uses a fusion-powered low-level variant of warp drive to power the ship forward. This allows it to achieve high relativistic speeds in excess of 0.75c (TMpg. 75) although such speeds are normally not used and the TM suggests that combat incidents always occur at low sublight relative velocities. This is supported by the various onscreen combat incidents in the Star Trek canon- we never see any combat in Star Trek where the relative velocities of the combating ships are high (and by "high" I mean "relativistic", rather than fighter-plane speeds).
There is some debate as to whether Federation impulse drives must accelerate a starship in conventional space physics fashion, as opposed to simply initiating the space warpage that allows them to reach high relativistic speeds and bypassing the normal acceleration curve requirements. However, the original TNG TM explicitly stated that the old Ambassador class's acceleration was at least 10 km/s², and the new DS9 TM explicitly states that Bajoran impulse fighters are limited to 15,600 m/s acceleration (this is curious, since the units of acceleration are m/s² rather than m/s, but we can assume that when they say "maximum delta-v" they are actually referring to "maximum delta-v per second"). Impulse fighters can easily outmaneuver capital ships (as seen in "Sacrifice of Angels"), so this allows us to determine that capital ship acceleration is between 10 km/s² and 15 km/s².
The presence of a maximum acceleration limit indicates that impulse drives do require a finite amount of time to accelerate. Some Federation cultists have claimed that this is untrue because the helmsman announces that they are at full impulse almost immediately after the captain orders it, but that only indicates that their engines are at full power. It does not indicate any sort of speed. If the helmsman announced "we are at 0.8c" instead of "we are at full impulse" we might have some idea of its actual speed. But since the helmsman invariably states "we are at full impulse" we only know that the engines are at full power. No speed or acceleration information can be derived from this sort of incident. In conclusion, Federation capital-ship impulse drives appear to be capable of producing accelerations in excess of 1,000g but less than 1,500g.
The stated highly relativistic speeds of Federation starships are at odds with their slow observed speeds in planetary orbit, as seen in STG, "Way of the Warrior", "A Call to Arms", "Tears of the Prophets", and others. In all of those situations, higher speeds would have been useful, but for some reason, they were apparently unavailable. It is therefore surmised that their low-level warp drive, or so-called "mass-lightening effect" must suffer from reduced effectiveness in a planetary gravity well. This is logical because the use of "mass-lightening" technology in a planetary gravity well presents serious Conservation of Energy problems.The problems with mass-lightening in a gravity well are consistent with the invariably slow speed of starships attempting to enter or leave orbit, although it would theoretically be possible to very quickly circumnavigate a fixed-altitude orbit without running into this problem because no change in gravitational potential energy would occur.
Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.
But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.
Incorrect. I reference...The Kirk!
Klingons doing warp speed strafing runs on a sublight enterprise.
That could actually work against them with the proper logic engines aboard an IoM ship, calculating where the Klingons would appear next and then hitting them as they pass by. Maneuverability at that speed is rather low (thus leading them to find dodging difficult-- unless they violate the laws of physics, making sharp turns at that speed would kill everyone on board), while the impact of each IoM ship's attack is going to be massive due to them often using more physical batteries.
Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.
But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.
Incorrect. I reference...The Kirk!
Klingons doing warp speed strafing runs on a sublight enterprise.
That could actually work against them with the proper logic engines aboard an IoM ship, calculating where the Klingons would appear next and then hitting them as they pass by. Maneuverability at that speed is rather low, while the impact of each attack is going to be massive.
They can use warp strafing,but again that will do nothing,but annoy IOM ship which will proceed to destroy their planets,shipyards and in the end them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grakmar wrote:Can't we all just agree that Picard is one of the missing Primarchs and leave it at that?
No,he's way to short to be a primarch,but I admit he has psychic defenses like plot armour and luck.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Amaya wrote:
Golden Sabres wrote:... IoM warp travel is faster than federation... pls read previous posts... God, why do you do this to me?
It's safer too! ;D
I'm still wondering how the Imperium can defeat a foe they can't see and that will corrupt their goverments.
They're already fighting Chaos which is way more worse than Shadows.
Asherian Command wrote:http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_Cannon
I found a weapon. That literally scared me D:
The Atlas-class warhead was a type of weapon employed by the warships of the Imperium of Man.
At the time of the Horus Heresy, several Atlas-class warheads were adapted for space to surface operations in order to disperse the Life Eater virus on Istvaan III.1
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Lance http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Fleet Also this creepy thing....
Again. Please read the ships. As you guys have not compared the sheer size and weaponry of the imperium ships to a trekkies.... And not to mention an entire fleet of the Imperium is like 4,000 ships. D:
Grakmar wrote:Can't we all just agree that Kirk is one of the missing Primarchs and leave it at that?
Fixed your typo.
Ha! We've successfully hijacked the thread into a classic Krik vs Picard debate.
My plans are coming to fruition. <evil laugh>
Anyway, back on topic. Did you see how many times Kirk ignored the prime directive? He should have been court martialed dozens of times!!! Picard had a little something called integrity.
Asherian Command wrote:http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_Cannon
I found a weapon. That literally scared me D:
The Atlas-class warhead was a type of weapon employed by the warships of the Imperium of Man.
At the time of the Horus Heresy, several Atlas-class warheads were adapted for space to surface operations in order to disperse the Life Eater virus on Istvaan III.1
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Lance http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Fleet Also this creepy thing....
Again. Please read the ships. As you guys have not compared the sheer size and weaponry of the imperium ships to a trekkies.... And not to mention an entire fleet of the Imperium is like 4,000 ships. D:
How is a lasgun better than a phasers. IIRC a phaser at full power and disintegrate a person. A lasgun can't, Our lasguns freaking suck, A lasgun is better used as a club than a gun imo...I am a IG player.
Asherian Command wrote:http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_Cannon
I found a weapon. That literally scared me D:
The Atlas-class warhead was a type of weapon employed by the warships of the Imperium of Man.
At the time of the Horus Heresy, several Atlas-class warheads were adapted for space to surface operations in order to disperse the Life Eater virus on Istvaan III.1
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Lance http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Fleet Also this creepy thing....
Again. Please read the ships. As you guys have not compared the sheer size and weaponry of the imperium ships to a trekkies.... And not to mention an entire fleet of the Imperium is like 4,000 ships. D:
How is a lasgun better than a phasers. IIRC a phaser at full power and disintegrate a person. A lasgun can't, Our lasguns freaking suck, A lasgun is better used as a club than a gun imo...I am a IG player.
What do you call a lasgun with a flashlight on it?
Twin linked!
Commissar Agro wrote:[
How is a lasgun better than a phasers. IIRC a phaser at full power and disintegrate a person. A lasgun can't, Our lasguns freaking suck, A lasgun is better used as a club than a gun imo...I am a IG player.
As for the issue.Do you ever read fluff,don't use gameplay mechanics.
Mechanism: What are phasers?
Phasers are one of the most curious weapons ever seen. Their characteristics are unusual, seemingly self-contradictory, and in some ways, apparently in violation of fundamental laws of physics. After examining numerous video records sold to us by Ferengi information merchants, we have discovered the following:
1.Maximum-power phasers make a human being "disappear" in a flash of light, without debris or gas clouds. People can stand right next to a person being disintegrated and not be affected.
2.Phaser disintegrations occur slowly, taking a significant amount of time even after the phaser beam stops: anywhere from ½-second to 2 seconds.
3.Maximum-power phasers disintegrate a human body in its entirety, regardless of mass, and no excess energy ever spills into the environment.
4.Phasers can heat rocks until they become luminescent, allowing away-teams to keep themselves warm.
5.Phasers can shatter large amounts of rock, knocking very large boulders loose and causing explosive reactions.
6.Phasers are ineffective against heavy armour (they have historically only been effective against light silicates, eg. rock or plaster).
7.Phasers seem to violate Conservation of Momentum. A man can fire a one-handed phaser shot, without significant recoil, that picks up an opponent and hurls him through the air upon impact (as seen in ST3).
What sort of weapon can exhibit such characteristics? It may be instructive to examine each characteristic, one at a time:
1.
Harmless disappearance of matter. Matter cannot simply disappear. So, if the matter can't simply disappear into nothingness, it must transform into a form of matter which we cannot perceive. There are several candidates:
1.
Vapourization into invisible gas. Gaseous matter is often invisible. However, more than three quarters of the human body is composed of water, and the volume of water vapour at boiling point and atmospheric pressure is more than three thousand times as large as the volume of liquid water at the same temperature and pressure. So what would we expect if the water vapour in a human body vapourizes? Try putting your hand directly over the spout of a kettle full of boiling water which is venting steam at high speed, preferably in the region where it has not yet become visible (meaning that your hand must be within a centimetre of the spout). Once you recover from the burns, picture a cloud of steam at this temperature and pressure, more than 8 metres wide, filling the room from the floor to the ceiling. If you were in a room full of such steam, would you notice? Frankly, I can't see how someone would fail to notice such a cloud unless he or she were dead.
2.
Disruption into subatomic particles. There would be little point in even discussing this possibility, except that some Federation cultists have advanced it as a possible explanation. However, if a human body were disintegrated into all of its component subatomic nucleons and electrons, the result would be a huge cloud of ionized hydrogen plasma and a large neutron radiation flux. Picture the deadly cloud of water vapour described in the previous section, multiplied in volume by several orders of magnitude and heated to many thousands of K. Furthermore, assume that this gas cloud is accompanied by dangerous levels of neutron radiation. And finally, remember that as the plasma cools and becomes ordinary hydrogen gas, it will be highly flammable! This explanation is not better than the vapourization explanation- in fact, it is much worse.
3.
Transition out of the continuum. This is the phrase used by the official TM, to describe the eventual destination of the missing matter. The phrase, by itself, has little or no meaning since it never describes where the matter is going- it only makes a vague suggestion that it is leaving. Furthermore, since real science outweighs official literature in the hierarchy of evidence, we must remember that there is no evidence whatsoever for the possibility of matter in any form leaving this universe in favour of another. Even if it were possible, the laws of symmetry dictate that an equal amount of mass/energy would have to come back from the other dimension.
4.
Disappearing into the Zero-point Domain. Some Federation cultists feel that the "zero-point domain" can be advanced as a potential destination of the missing matter, but they are gravely mistaken. Although some overoptimistic interpretations of quantum mechanics may lead to the apparent conclusion that matter can disappear into the "zero-point domain" or suddenly appear out of the "zero-point domain", no experimental observations have ever supported this possibility. There is observed evidence for the existence of the "quantum foam" of virtual particle/antiparticle pairs, but there is no observed evidence for the seamless movement of matter in and out of the "zero-point domain". There is a very real allure to the notion that we can turn the entire world of conventional physics on its ear with ZPE/ZPF theories and discard "old-fashioned" notions of conservation of energy and symmetry, but until some of the more enticing theoretical notions are actually supported by experimental observation, they should not be taken seriously. It is curious that Federation cultists seem to be going back to the Aristotelian philosophy that experimental verification of scientific theories is not necessary, after having moved beyond this ridiculous philosophy centuries earlier!
5.
Complete conversion into electromagnetic energy. Another way of saying this is that the matter all becomes energy, or perhaps more precisely, the mass of the human body becomes photons. However, this is perhaps the worst alternative yet explored. In the case of an 80kg adult male humanoid, the result of such a mass/energy conversion would be a 1700 megaton blast of gamma radiation. I don't think you need a physics degree to know that your chances of survival would be rather slim if you were standing a few feet away from a 1700 megaton blast.
6.
Complete conversion into neutrinos. Although there are no known nuclear processes which can convert matter completely into neutrinos, this would appear to be the only possible destination which does not violate the core fundamental physical laws. It can't become vapour, it can't become plasma, it can't leave the universe, it can't disappear into the zero-point domain, and it can't turn into photons. Therefore, it must turn into something even smaller than nucleons. However, no matter how small that particle may be, it cannot have an electric charge since charged particles, regardless of size, interact with matter (remember the power of electromagnetic interactions- they are the only thing that keep you from walking through walls). Even quarks, which carry fractional charge, will interact strongly with matter for this reason alone, in spite of their tiny mass. So we know that the matter must become something which is very small, and electrically neutral. The answer? Neutrinos. Billions upon trillions of neutrinos could pass through every square millimetre of your body and you would never notice it. They carry mass and energy, and they can potentially remove an arbitrary amount of energy from the locality of a disintegrating mass without any noticeable effects, unlike all of the other explanations advanced so far.
2.
Slow disintegrations. The effects of a phaser blast continue even after the phaser is no longer pumping energy into the target. As we can see from the phaser disintegrations in ST2 and ST6 (among countless others), the phaser beam might only strike for a fraction of a second, but the energy slowly propagates through the body for a long period after that, sometimes as long as two full seconds. This slow process rules out any sort of direct energy transfer to the body. Why? Because the tissues in the impact zone would have to temporarily hold a very large excess of energy (over and above the energy required to induce the neutrino conversion reaction) if they can "bleed" enough energy to the rest of the body to induce that same reaction throughout the entire body mass. However, we know how quickly the mass disappears in the rest of the body when exposed to the energy "bleeding out" of the impact site, so there is no way the tissues at the impact site would "hang around" in solid form long enough, overloaded with this energy, to disperse that energy to surrounding tissues over a period of several seconds. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, and that it occurs in some sort of chain reaction rather than a direct transfer of energy.
3.
Independence of target mass, lack of excess energy. Most Federation cultists have noticed the strange disappearance of matter, and the slow rate of that disappearance, as noted above. However, most of them have failed to notice that phasers act independently of the mass of the target. The importance of this fact cannot be overstated- in "The Vengeance Factor" we actually saw Riker increase the power setting on his hand phaser to maximum, before using it to disintegrate a diminutive female humanoid, probably no more than 50 kg in mass. However, we know that hand phasers on maximum setting can also disintegrate large adult male humanoids, in excess of 80 kg in mass. In both cases, there is just enough energy to disintegrate the entire body, and there is no excess energy to damage the ground under the victim's feet, or spill over to damage other solid objects in the victim's vicinity. This can only make sense if the energy for this reaction somehow comes from the victim's mass, so that the reaction continues until it runs out of mass but does not continue afterwards. Otherwise, if the energy all comes from the phaser, there should either be a deficit of energy when shooting at large targets, or a surplus of energy when shooting at small targets. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, and that it must occur in a chain reaction which feeds off the victim's mass.
4.
Heating effects. At low power levels, phasers can be used as simple heating devices. Their behaviour, when used in this manner, seems to be totally different from their behaviour when used to disintegrate targets. In fact, they seem to act like simple "heat lamps" in this mode. This initially seems contradictory, but the TM describes SEM:NDF ratios (Simple ElectroMagnetic effects to Nuclear Disruption Force), which are weighted heavily toward SEM at low power settings and heavily toward NDF at high power settings. This suggests that a phaser is indeed a simple "heatbeam" at low power settings, but induces an exotic "nuclear disruption" reaction at high power settings. This NDF chain reaction must be the neutrino-transformation chain reaction that has been discussed above. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, we know that it occurs in a chain reaction which feeds off the victim's mass, and we know that there is some sort of "threshold" for this reaction, below which the phaser weapon merely adds thermal energy to the target.
5.
Rock shattering. We've seen phasers shatter rock quite easily in some episodes, easily blasting boulders free which may be as large as several tons. On the other hand, we've also seen phasers strike the ground in combat situations (eg. "Rocks and Shoals") without damaging the ground noticeably at all. This is extremely confusing, especially since phasers tend to produce a disintegration chain reaction or a localized heating effect in other situations. Why then, do they sometimes blast large, intact, unheated chunks out of rock walls? One possible explanation might be that natural rocks are not chemically or microstructurally homogeneous, so the phaser chain reaction may "shoot through" the rock along natural pre-existing grain boundaries, hence the shattering effect.
6.
Material dependence. We saw in "Devil in the Dark" that a silicon-based life form would be more resistant to phaser fire than a carbon-based life form. We have also seen that high-density armour is extremely resistant to phasers, as we can tell from comparing something like "The Die is Cast" or "Inheritance" (in which light silicate planetary surface crust is destroyed) with something like ST2 or "Way of the Warrior", in which repeated phaser blasts did only minor damage to armour. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the material composition of the target has an enormous effect on the effectiveness of phasers. Since we already know that phasers operate on some sort of chain reaction, and that they must derive much of their energy from the target itself, this is not a surprise. The pattern appears to favour atoms with very high nucleon counts, such as heavy metals. Apparently, the higher the atomic number, the less susceptible an element is to the NDF reaction. This is also consistent with "Devil in the Dark", since silicon has a higher atomic number than carbon (14 as opposed to 6).
7.
Apparent failure to observe Conservation of Momentum. Conversation of momentum is a fundamental law, like conservation of energy. It affects even the most stupendously massive objects, such as neutron stars (conservation of angular momentum is what causes their high rates of rotation). So why can Captain Kirk fire a one-handed phaser shot in ST3 which carries so much momentum that it can lift a Klingon off his feet and hurl him dozens of feet back through the air? Shouldn't his arm be broken or his shoulder dislocated from the recoil? The simple answer is that the phaser cannot possibly carry that much momentum, because conservation of momentum is a fundamental law. Therefore, the Klingon's movement through the air must not have been due to simple impact physics. Perhaps the chain reaction propagated in such a manner that the stream of neutrinos coming out of his body was largely aimed in one direction (remember that neutrinos do have momentum), so it acted as a jet and drove him backwards. Presumably, phaser particles were ejected from the disrupted nuclei in the other direction, which impacted on deeper tissues. Perhaps the Klingon's body armour somehow contributed to this unusual effect, or it may have been a freakish anomaly (perhaps related to some sort of anomalous space-time condition on the Genesis planet).
We know now that phasers most likely transform matter into neutrinos. We know that they use some sort of chain reaction, which feeds off the target matter somehow. We know that the effect is highly dependent on material composition, and has shown a correlation to atomic number. Therefore, we can formulate a phenomenon-based theory of what they really do (note that this is a theory of what they do, not how they operate): the NDF theory.
Firepower
The USS Reliant tears a gash into the primary hull of the EnterpriseThe energy absorption capability of Federation shields is roughly 1500 TJ against charged-particle weapons, and 150,000 to 200,000 TJ against EM radiation (small wonder that Picard was contemptuous of laser-armed vessels in "The Outrageous Okona").We know that phasers can penetrate shields of this type within 5 seconds of continuous firing, so phasers must be tactically equivalent to 300 TW plasma cannons, or 30,000 to 40,000 TW laser cannons. This is consistent with their performance relative to photon torpedoes; since photon torpedoes release perhaps 24 megatons of energy at the target (with the rest being wasted in inefficiencies or directed away from the ship), so it would take less than 3 seconds for a phaser beam to deliver more energy than a maximum-yield photon torpedo.
These numbers are far in excess of the figures in the TM which estimate a mere 1.02GW for the Enterprise-D's entire phaser array. Furthermore, they easily exceed the total power generation of DS9 (even though it mounts many phaser arrays), which is rated at only 790 TW in the DS9 TM. However, the unique nature of the phaser NDF chain reaction, coupled with so-called "subspace" effects, appear to offset the limitations of this low power level. In the end analysis, the actual amount of power is totally irrelevant, but the tactical strength of phasers relative to plasma and EM radiation is relevant.
Phasers appear to be much less effective against armor than they are against shields. The TM states that 2.4TJ is sufficient to vaporize one cubic metre of tritanium which is used in starship hulls, so if phasers were equivalent to 30,000 TW of EM radiation they would vaporize 12,500 cubic metres of Federation tritanium starship armor every second! This obviously doesn't happen- phasers appear to destroy less than 5 cubic metres of starship armor per second of continuous impact, so they seem to be tactically equivalent to 1-10 TW lasers. This is undoubtedly due to the negative impact of heavy transuranium elements on the NDF chain reaction.
Criticisms
One Federation cultist recently pointed out that the neutrino reaction would violate Conservation of Baryons, a particle physics concept. Interestingly, several other Federation cultists then began echoing this criticism. This is a pretty good criticism, but Conservation of Baryons is not a truly universal law. Just as conservation of atoms and elements applies to chemical reactions but not nuclear reactions, conservation of baryons (also known as conservation of nucleons) applies to nuclear reactions but not certain highly exotic situations. The best example would be a black hole.
When matter falls into a black hole, its state is "forgotten". It doesn't matter whether the original matter was radiation, matter or antimatter. It doesn't matter whether it was protons, neutrons, or electrons. It all collapses into the black hole and every aspect of its original state is lost except for its mass and momentum. Conservation of baryons does not apply to black holes. One could argue that black holes are an extremely exotic situation, but so is a vapourization that does not produce any detectable vapour!
Black holes are actually a good example to use in determining the hierarchy of physical laws, ie- which ones are truly universal. Conservation of Momentum, the First Law of Thermodynamics, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics all apply to black holes. Conservation of atoms does not. Conservation of baryons does not. Lots of "higher-level" laws also fail to apply to black holes. But the handful of core, fundamental laws apply to everything we have ever detected, even black holes.
Alternate Theories
It is always possible that another theory may be proposed, which will also fit the facts. In fact, Federation cultists are producing new theories seemingly by the week. However, as any good scientist knows, a theory must fit all of the facts to be considered valid. Therefore, any competing theory must be capable of simultaneously explaining all of the phenomena described at the top of this document, as well as the following:
How could they have expected to destroy so much material in TDiC, with finite fuel reserves?
Why would a variance of only 0.06TW be sufficient to blow off a planet's atmosphere in "A Matter of Time?"
Why have low GW-range weapon power figures been repeatedly supported, with a 1.02GW figure (TNG TM), a 40MW figure (Battle Lines), a 400 GW figure (Survivors), and a 4.2GW figure (Who Watches the Watchers)? The largest onscreen indication of phaser power came from A Matter of Time, it still indicated low TW output, and it only came after Geordi had altered the phaser array for a special operation.
These facts are canon, and they all have to be explained by any theory that is expected to gain any sort of credibility. The energy-transfer theory fails to explain any of the above criteria, and other theories fail almost as badly. Until such time as another theory arises which explains the above evidence more easily than the NDF theory, the NDF theory remains the most valid theory.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Commissar Agro wrote:That joke is so old yet so true.
Oh,yeah Lasgun blast through ferrocette door and wound the guy on the other side who only survives because of his armor and blasts through 3 metres ice.
Commissar Agro wrote:[
How is a lasgun better than a phasers. IIRC a phaser at full power and disintegrate a person. A lasgun can't, Our lasguns freaking suck, A lasgun is better used as a club than a gun imo...I am a IG player.
As for the issue.
Mechanism: What are phasers?
Phasers are one of the most curious weapons ever seen. Their characteristics are unusual, seemingly self-contradictory, and in some ways, apparently in violation of fundamental laws of physics. After examining numerous video records sold to us by Ferengi information merchants, we have discovered the following:
1.Maximum-power phasers make a human being "disappear" in a flash of light, without debris or gas clouds. People can stand right next to a person being disintegrated and not be affected.
2.Phaser disintegrations occur slowly, taking a significant amount of time even after the phaser beam stops: anywhere from ½-second to 2 seconds.
3.Maximum-power phasers disintegrate a human body in its entirety, regardless of mass, and no excess energy ever spills into the environment.
4.Phasers can heat rocks until they become luminescent, allowing away-teams to keep themselves warm.
5.Phasers can shatter large amounts of rock, knocking very large boulders loose and causing explosive reactions.
6.Phasers are ineffective against heavy armour (they have historically only been effective against light silicates, eg. rock or plaster).
7.Phasers seem to violate Conservation of Momentum. A man can fire a one-handed phaser shot, without significant recoil, that picks up an opponent and hurls him through the air upon impact (as seen in ST3).
What sort of weapon can exhibit such characteristics? It may be instructive to examine each characteristic, one at a time:
1.
Harmless disappearance of matter. Matter cannot simply disappear. So, if the matter can't simply disappear into nothingness, it must transform into a form of matter which we cannot perceive. There are several candidates:
1.
Vapourization into invisible gas. Gaseous matter is often invisible. However, more than three quarters of the human body is composed of water, and the volume of water vapour at boiling point and atmospheric pressure is more than three thousand times as large as the volume of liquid water at the same temperature and pressure. So what would we expect if the water vapour in a human body vapourizes? Try putting your hand directly over the spout of a kettle full of boiling water which is venting steam at high speed, preferably in the region where it has not yet become visible (meaning that your hand must be within a centimetre of the spout). Once you recover from the burns, picture a cloud of steam at this temperature and pressure, more than 8 metres wide, filling the room from the floor to the ceiling. If you were in a room full of such steam, would you notice? Frankly, I can't see how someone would fail to notice such a cloud unless he or she were dead.
2.
Disruption into subatomic particles. There would be little point in even discussing this possibility, except that some Federation cultists have advanced it as a possible explanation. However, if a human body were disintegrated into all of its component subatomic nucleons and electrons, the result would be a huge cloud of ionized hydrogen plasma and a large neutron radiation flux. Picture the deadly cloud of water vapour described in the previous section, multiplied in volume by several orders of magnitude and heated to many thousands of K. Furthermore, assume that this gas cloud is accompanied by dangerous levels of neutron radiation. And finally, remember that as the plasma cools and becomes ordinary hydrogen gas, it will be highly flammable! This explanation is not better than the vapourization explanation- in fact, it is much worse.
3.
Transition out of the continuum. This is the phrase used by the official TM, to describe the eventual destination of the missing matter. The phrase, by itself, has little or no meaning since it never describes where the matter is going- it only makes a vague suggestion that it is leaving. Furthermore, since real science outweighs official literature in the hierarchy of evidence, we must remember that there is no evidence whatsoever for the possibility of matter in any form leaving this universe in favour of another. Even if it were possible, the laws of symmetry dictate that an equal amount of mass/energy would have to come back from the other dimension.
4.
Disappearing into the Zero-point Domain. Some Federation cultists feel that the "zero-point domain" can be advanced as a potential destination of the missing matter, but they are gravely mistaken. Although some overoptimistic interpretations of quantum mechanics may lead to the apparent conclusion that matter can disappear into the "zero-point domain" or suddenly appear out of the "zero-point domain", no experimental observations have ever supported this possibility. There is observed evidence for the existence of the "quantum foam" of virtual particle/antiparticle pairs, but there is no observed evidence for the seamless movement of matter in and out of the "zero-point domain". There is a very real allure to the notion that we can turn the entire world of conventional physics on its ear with ZPE/ZPF theories and discard "old-fashioned" notions of conservation of energy and symmetry, but until some of the more enticing theoretical notions are actually supported by experimental observation, they should not be taken seriously. It is curious that Federation cultists seem to be going back to the Aristotelian philosophy that experimental verification of scientific theories is not necessary, after having moved beyond this ridiculous philosophy centuries earlier!
5.
Complete conversion into electromagnetic energy. Another way of saying this is that the matter all becomes energy, or perhaps more precisely, the mass of the human body becomes photons. However, this is perhaps the worst alternative yet explored. In the case of an 80kg adult male humanoid, the result of such a mass/energy conversion would be a 1700 megaton blast of gamma radiation. I don't think you need a physics degree to know that your chances of survival would be rather slim if you were standing a few feet away from a 1700 megaton blast.
6.
Complete conversion into neutrinos. Although there are no known nuclear processes which can convert matter completely into neutrinos, this would appear to be the only possible destination which does not violate the core fundamental physical laws. It can't become vapour, it can't become plasma, it can't leave the universe, it can't disappear into the zero-point domain, and it can't turn into photons. Therefore, it must turn into something even smaller than nucleons. However, no matter how small that particle may be, it cannot have an electric charge since charged particles, regardless of size, interact with matter (remember the power of electromagnetic interactions- they are the only thing that keep you from walking through walls). Even quarks, which carry fractional charge, will interact strongly with matter for this reason alone, in spite of their tiny mass. So we know that the matter must become something which is very small, and electrically neutral. The answer? Neutrinos. Billions upon trillions of neutrinos could pass through every square millimetre of your body and you would never notice it. They carry mass and energy, and they can potentially remove an arbitrary amount of energy from the locality of a disintegrating mass without any noticeable effects, unlike all of the other explanations advanced so far.
2.
Slow disintegrations. The effects of a phaser blast continue even after the phaser is no longer pumping energy into the target. As we can see from the phaser disintegrations in ST2 and ST6 (among countless others), the phaser beam might only strike for a fraction of a second, but the energy slowly propagates through the body for a long period after that, sometimes as long as two full seconds. This slow process rules out any sort of direct energy transfer to the body. Why? Because the tissues in the impact zone would have to temporarily hold a very large excess of energy (over and above the energy required to induce the neutrino conversion reaction) if they can "bleed" enough energy to the rest of the body to induce that same reaction throughout the entire body mass. However, we know how quickly the mass disappears in the rest of the body when exposed to the energy "bleeding out" of the impact site, so there is no way the tissues at the impact site would "hang around" in solid form long enough, overloaded with this energy, to disperse that energy to surrounding tissues over a period of several seconds. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, and that it occurs in some sort of chain reaction rather than a direct transfer of energy.
3.
Independence of target mass, lack of excess energy. Most Federation cultists have noticed the strange disappearance of matter, and the slow rate of that disappearance, as noted above. However, most of them have failed to notice that phasers act independently of the mass of the target. The importance of this fact cannot be overstated- in "The Vengeance Factor" we actually saw Riker increase the power setting on his hand phaser to maximum, before using it to disintegrate a diminutive female humanoid, probably no more than 50 kg in mass. However, we know that hand phasers on maximum setting can also disintegrate large adult male humanoids, in excess of 80 kg in mass. In both cases, there is just enough energy to disintegrate the entire body, and there is no excess energy to damage the ground under the victim's feet, or spill over to damage other solid objects in the victim's vicinity. This can only make sense if the energy for this reaction somehow comes from the victim's mass, so that the reaction continues until it runs out of mass but does not continue afterwards. Otherwise, if the energy all comes from the phaser, there should either be a deficit of energy when shooting at large targets, or a surplus of energy when shooting at small targets. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, and that it must occur in a chain reaction which feeds off the victim's mass.
4.
Heating effects. At low power levels, phasers can be used as simple heating devices. Their behaviour, when used in this manner, seems to be totally different from their behaviour when used to disintegrate targets. In fact, they seem to act like simple "heat lamps" in this mode. This initially seems contradictory, but the TM describes SEM:NDF ratios (Simple ElectroMagnetic effects to Nuclear Disruption Force), which are weighted heavily toward SEM at low power settings and heavily toward NDF at high power settings. This suggests that a phaser is indeed a simple "heatbeam" at low power settings, but induces an exotic "nuclear disruption" reaction at high power settings. This NDF chain reaction must be the neutrino-transformation chain reaction that has been discussed above. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, we know that it occurs in a chain reaction which feeds off the victim's mass, and we know that there is some sort of "threshold" for this reaction, below which the phaser weapon merely adds thermal energy to the target.
5.
Rock shattering. We've seen phasers shatter rock quite easily in some episodes, easily blasting boulders free which may be as large as several tons. On the other hand, we've also seen phasers strike the ground in combat situations (eg. "Rocks and Shoals") without damaging the ground noticeably at all. This is extremely confusing, especially since phasers tend to produce a disintegration chain reaction or a localized heating effect in other situations. Why then, do they sometimes blast large, intact, unheated chunks out of rock walls? One possible explanation might be that natural rocks are not chemically or microstructurally homogeneous, so the phaser chain reaction may "shoot through" the rock along natural pre-existing grain boundaries, hence the shattering effect.
6.
Material dependence. We saw in "Devil in the Dark" that a silicon-based life form would be more resistant to phaser fire than a carbon-based life form. We have also seen that high-density armour is extremely resistant to phasers, as we can tell from comparing something like "The Die is Cast" or "Inheritance" (in which light silicate planetary surface crust is destroyed) with something like ST2 or "Way of the Warrior", in which repeated phaser blasts did only minor damage to armour. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the material composition of the target has an enormous effect on the effectiveness of phasers. Since we already know that phasers operate on some sort of chain reaction, and that they must derive much of their energy from the target itself, this is not a surprise. The pattern appears to favour atoms with very high nucleon counts, such as heavy metals. Apparently, the higher the atomic number, the less susceptible an element is to the NDF reaction. This is also consistent with "Devil in the Dark", since silicon has a higher atomic number than carbon (14 as opposed to 6).
7.
Apparent failure to observe Conservation of Momentum. Conversation of momentum is a fundamental law, like conservation of energy. It affects even the most stupendously massive objects, such as neutron stars (conservation of angular momentum is what causes their high rates of rotation). So why can Captain Kirk fire a one-handed phaser shot in ST3 which carries so much momentum that it can lift a Klingon off his feet and hurl him dozens of feet back through the air? Shouldn't his arm be broken or his shoulder dislocated from the recoil? The simple answer is that the phaser cannot possibly carry that much momentum, because conservation of momentum is a fundamental law. Therefore, the Klingon's movement through the air must not have been due to simple impact physics. Perhaps the chain reaction propagated in such a manner that the stream of neutrinos coming out of his body was largely aimed in one direction (remember that neutrinos do have momentum), so it acted as a jet and drove him backwards. Presumably, phaser particles were ejected from the disrupted nuclei in the other direction, which impacted on deeper tissues. Perhaps the Klingon's body armour somehow contributed to this unusual effect, or it may have been a freakish anomaly (perhaps related to some sort of anomalous space-time condition on the Genesis planet).
We know now that phasers most likely transform matter into neutrinos. We know that they use some sort of chain reaction, which feeds off the target matter somehow. We know that the effect is highly dependent on material composition, and has shown a correlation to atomic number. Therefore, we can formulate a phenomenon-based theory of what they really do (note that this is a theory of what they do, not how they operate): the NDF theory.
Firepower
The USS Reliant tears a gash into the primary hull of the EnterpriseThe energy absorption capability of Federation shields is roughly 1500 TJ against charged-particle weapons, and 150,000 to 200,000 TJ against EM radiation (small wonder that Picard was contemptuous of laser-armed vessels in "The Outrageous Okona").We know that phasers can penetrate shields of this type within 5 seconds of continuous firing, so phasers must be tactically equivalent to 300 TW plasma cannons, or 30,000 to 40,000 TW laser cannons. This is consistent with their performance relative to photon torpedoes; since photon torpedoes release perhaps 24 megatons of energy at the target (with the rest being wasted in inefficiencies or directed away from the ship), so it would take less than 3 seconds for a phaser beam to deliver more energy than a maximum-yield photon torpedo.
These numbers are far in excess of the figures in the TM which estimate a mere 1.02GW for the Enterprise-D's entire phaser array. Furthermore, they easily exceed the total power generation of DS9 (even though it mounts many phaser arrays), which is rated at only 790 TW in the DS9 TM. However, the unique nature of the phaser NDF chain reaction, coupled with so-called "subspace" effects, appear to offset the limitations of this low power level. In the end analysis, the actual amount of power is totally irrelevant, but the tactical strength of phasers relative to plasma and EM radiation is relevant.
Phasers appear to be much less effective against armor than they are against shields. The TM states that 2.4TJ is sufficient to vaporize one cubic metre of tritanium which is used in starship hulls, so if phasers were equivalent to 30,000 TW of EM radiation they would vaporize 12,500 cubic metres of Federation tritanium starship armor every second! This obviously doesn't happen- phasers appear to destroy less than 5 cubic metres of starship armor per second of continuous impact, so they seem to be tactically equivalent to 1-10 TW lasers. This is undoubtedly due to the negative impact of heavy transuranium elements on the NDF chain reaction.
Criticisms
One Federation cultist recently pointed out that the neutrino reaction would violate Conservation of Baryons, a particle physics concept. Interestingly, several other Federation cultists then began echoing this criticism. This is a pretty good criticism, but Conservation of Baryons is not a truly universal law. Just as conservation of atoms and elements applies to chemical reactions but not nuclear reactions, conservation of baryons (also known as conservation of nucleons) applies to nuclear reactions but not certain highly exotic situations. The best example would be a black hole.
When matter falls into a black hole, its state is "forgotten". It doesn't matter whether the original matter was radiation, matter or antimatter. It doesn't matter whether it was protons, neutrons, or electrons. It all collapses into the black hole and every aspect of its original state is lost except for its mass and momentum. Conservation of baryons does not apply to black holes. One could argue that black holes are an extremely exotic situation, but so is a vapourization that does not produce any detectable vapour!
Black holes are actually a good example to use in determining the hierarchy of physical laws, ie- which ones are truly universal. Conservation of Momentum, the First Law of Thermodynamics, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics all apply to black holes. Conservation of atoms does not. Conservation of baryons does not. Lots of "higher-level" laws also fail to apply to black holes. But the handful of core, fundamental laws apply to everything we have ever detected, even black holes.
Alternate Theories
It is always possible that another theory may be proposed, which will also fit the facts. In fact, Federation cultists are producing new theories seemingly by the week. However, as any good scientist knows, a theory must fit all of the facts to be considered valid. Therefore, any competing theory must be capable of simultaneously explaining all of the phenomena described at the top of this document, as well as the following:
How could they have expected to destroy so much material in TDiC, with finite fuel reserves?
Why would a variance of only 0.06TW be sufficient to blow off a planet's atmosphere in "A Matter of Time?"
Why have low GW-range weapon power figures been repeatedly supported, with a 1.02GW figure (TNG TM), a 40MW figure (Battle Lines), a 400 GW figure (Survivors), and a 4.2GW figure (Who Watches the Watchers)? The largest onscreen indication of phaser power came from A Matter of Time, it still indicated low TW output, and it only came after Geordi had altered the phaser array for a special operation.
These facts are canon, and they all have to be explained by any theory that is expected to gain any sort of credibility. The energy-transfer theory fails to explain any of the above criteria, and other theories fail almost as badly. Until such time as another theory arises which explains the above evidence more easily than the NDF theory, the NDF theory remains the most valid theory.
Grey Templar wrote:So you are saying that Phasers can't do much damage to IoM ships because the hulls are incredibly thick and are homogenous in their makeup?
Yeah.
Read my comments on the previous page about Proton torpedoes and STL.
If we go by Saint Sabbath Imperial STL is 0.75c.
Not to mention that Adamantium is superior to ST materials.
Grey Templar wrote:So you are saying that Phasers can't do much damage to IoM ships because the hulls are incredibly thick and are homogenous in their makeup?
Yeah.
Read my comments on the previous page about Proton torpedoes and STL.
If we go by Saint Sabbath Imperial STL is 0.75c.
Not to mention that Adamantium is superior to ST materials.
Blegh. I hate the Adamantium is uber arguement... as hull strength in BL publications "as tough" or "as weak" as required by the writers. I'll give you that the IoM has magical energy sources to power their improbable-drives and invicible shields and shoot their super-huge pew-pew guns due to their "high" technology of the 41st millenium.
However, claims that the IoM's uber material for hulls - (one that is readilly available to make huge hulls of ridiculous size and thickness - AND is molecularlly is stable at normal operational environment) is superior to something that a civilization with molecular replication can produce is assinine. Re: relative durability - less thickness = less aggregate strength. I can accept, but a "better" material? I highly doubt it, unless Adamantium is actually "crystalized WARP" or something equally crazy.
Let's face it, Adamantium's true claim to fame is the fact that Wolverine has it bonded to his bones.
Grey Templar wrote:So you are saying that Phasers can't do much damage to IoM ships because the hulls are incredibly thick and are homogenous in their makeup?
Yeah.
Read my comments on the previous page about Proton torpedoes and STL.
If we go by Saint Sabbath Imperial STL is 0.75c.
Not to mention that Adamantium is superior to ST materials.
Blegh. I hate the Adamantium is uber arguement... as hull strength in BL publications "as tough" or "as weak" as required by the writers. I'll give you that the IoM has magical energy sources to power their improbable-drives and invicible shields and shoot their super-huge pew-pew guns due to their "high" technology of the 41st millenium.
However, claims that the IoM's uber material for hulls - (one that is readilly available to make huge hulls of ridiculous size and thickness - AND is molecularlly is stable at normal operational environment) is superior to something that a civilization with molecular replication can produce is assinine. Re: relative durability - less thickness = less aggregate strength. I can accept, but a "better" material? I highly doubt it, unless Adamantium is actually "crystalized WARP" or something equally crazy.
Let's face it, Adamantium's true claim to fame is the fact that Wolverine has it bonded to his bones.
Okay,I concede my Adamantium argument,but look at this and look at the replicator argument.
From Execution Hour.
Page 80:
Quote:
Although it was not one of the front-line systems, Belatis was abundant with natural resources and supplies vital to the war effort. Adamantium ore for the diamond-hard armoured prows of the mighty warships of BAttlefleet Gothic. Unprocessed promethium fuel for the war machines of the Imperial guard,
Implies that Adamantium is a naturally occuring material, which I believe imposes limits on some of its properties (It may be an element as part of the overall composition of the ship, though, so they may simply use it with others in more exotic processes, something I may touch on later.)
It also implies the material is quite "hard", which probably makes it a good penetrator, but may also mean something about its tensile properties.
Take a look on replicators,they're not so mighty.
Replicators
Replicators are a low-resolution version of transporters, which transport raw materials from storage through "waveguides" (ref. TM) to "replication terminals" where the raw material is reorganized at the molecular level into a new form based on stored data. This means that replicators can reconfigure existing elements into new molecular compounds and perform rapid-prototyping by rapidly assembling those molecules into programmed configurations. However, replicators cannot change one element into another. The TM supports this theory by stating on page 91: "While transporters (which operate in realtime) recreate objects at quantum-level resolution suitable for life-forms, replicators store and re-create objects at the much simpler molecular-level resolution, which is not suitable for living beings." Many Federation cultists claim that replicators can cheaply manipulate matter at the subatomic level to achieve elemental transmutation, but this can be shown to be untrue:
1.Latinum is a highly valuable substance, as seen in DS9. Obviously, it would not be valuable if anyone could replicate arbitrary amounts of it at will. Therefore, the energy costs of latinum replication must be so high that it is actually cheaper to physically mine and refine the material. In fact, it may not be possible at all, because otherwise, Quark would probably have attempted to tap into DS9's station power to obtain the necessary energy.
2.Quark once stated that gold is still valuable (ref. Little Green Men), although not as valuable as latinum. Again, Quark would simply replicate large amounts of gold if it were feasible for him to do so.
3.The USS Voyager is constantly searching for sources of energy, including deuterium. If replicators could arbitrarily transmute any element into any other element without exorbitant energy costs, they would be able to manufacture huge amounts of deuterium by extracting any random substance from any planet or nebula. Instead, they had to search for planets where deuterium could be found naturally, as seen in Demon.
The above examples also disprove another long-standing but erroneous Federation cultist claim, which is that Federation replicators manufacture objects out of pure energy rather than re-organizing existing matter. If they did, there would be no reason for specific elements to be difficult or impossible to repliacte (since the cost of transforming pure energy into matter will not be related to the type of element). Therefore, it is most likely that replicators manipulate matter at the molecular level to reorganize existing (or supplied) elements into new materials. For instance, food products can be manufactured out of the "raw food stock" (TMpg. 153) which is used as raw material for Federation food replicators. This food stock must contain all of the elements commonly found in food. If the replicator is supplied with more exotic elements, it could theoretically be used to manufacture items like weapons and starship parts. However, a replicator cannot economically create tantalum carbide (for example) unless it has a supply of tantalum to work with. This explains the following phenomena:
1.Replicators cannot create latinum. Since a replicator would need latinum to create latinum, such an operation would be pointless. A replicator would only be useful for changing the shape of a latinum bar (eg. creating a sculpture without having to do all the work, although true artists would undoubtedly be quite offended at the idea of replicated sculptures).
2.Starships need to return to port for certain critical components. Those critical components undoubtedly contain numerous exotic materials which are not normally carried aboard a starship as replication supplies.
Replicators have very limited military applications. To date, the only known military application is the cloaked, self-replicating minefield seen in A Call to Arms.
An important question then arises: since replicators consume large amounts of energy and still require a supply of raw material to synthesize anything, why are they useful at all? The answer lies in the Federation obsession with consumer convenience. Although it is more efficient to simply store food rations (as evidenced by the USS Defiant, which carries food rations rather than replication equipment), replicators allow a ship to convert "raw foodstock" (ref. TM) into a wide variety of palate-pleasing foods (several thousand menu selections, according to the TM). There is no cargo-capacity benefit to replicators since normal food or food rations take up no more room than "raw foodstock", unless one wishes to store such a wide variety of foods that thousands of menu items can be accomodated. Such a large variety of foods would require either a large vessel or a replicator, and the Federation insists on providing a gourmet menu on even its smallest ships. There is no economic benefit, because normal food or food rations can be obtained as cheaply as "raw foodstock" which must be carefully mixed so that it has all of the ingredients necessary for replicator operations. And finally, there is no military benefit since the energy costs of refridgeration are insignificant compared to the energy costs of food replication (modern thermal isolation techniques make the energy cost of refridgeration negligible compared to the normal operation of a starship). Therefore, food replicators are only useful if one wishes to provide a large menu selection on a small starship. This may be considered an important priority for the consumer-driven Federation, but we have no need for such devices.
In conclusion, replicators are interesting toys but we have no use for them. They represent a typically wasteful Federation compromise between military efficiency and consumer convenience, perhaps also influenced by the small size of their ships. Well-trained soldiers do not need thousands of menu selections to operate at peak efficiency, and large starships such as Emperor-class Battleship can easily carry a wide variety of foods without having to resort to the manufacture of synthetic foods from "raw foodstock." Replicated food is always noticeably inferior to real food due to "single-bit errors" (ref. TMpg. 154). As an emergency food supply device, replicators are similarly useless because they need food to create food- a classic Catch-22 for supply-starved outposts.As a component-fabrication device, replicators are potentially useful,provided that necessary raw materials are present to create components.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also Macharius(the ship from Execution hour) has five plasma reactors.
The lasgun is actually an insanely efficient and powerful main weapon for a standard soldier. For example, it can blast an Ork or Space Marine's arm off if they aren't protected by armor. I sincerely doubt that a Space Marine would be disintegrated by a phaser-- I doubt it'd even get past his armor, as you can't tell me it's any stronger than a Gauss Flayer. A group of carapace vets or stormtroopers could take a ST ship with ease if they boarded-- Astartes? No contest. On the ground there is NOTHING in ST that can match 40k.
Also? The security forces used in Star Trek are so hilariously incompetent that you really should stick to ship on ship combat.
@IvanTih: Note I stated that the Federation has MOLECULAR replication (which would be atomic manipulation). Nothing about creating elements from subatomic manipulation. As many compounds exhibit superior properties to base elements, I don't see the lack of ability to create elements as being an issue... if anything, it would appear that raw materials harvesting might actually be more efficient in the Star Trek universe. However, that is generally outside the ass-kicking scope of this thread.
Melissia wrote:The lasgun is actually an insanely efficient and powerful main weapon for a standard soldier. For example, it can blast an Ork or Space Marine's arm off if they aren't protected by armor. I sincerely doubt that a Space Marine would be disintegrated by a phaser-- I doubt it'd even get past his armor, as you can't tell me it's any stronger than a Gauss Flayer. A group of carapace vets or stormtroopers could take a ST ship with ease if they boarded-- Astartes? No contest. On the ground there is NOTHING in ST that can match 40k.
Please. The Gauss flayer is one of the most poorly worded sci-fi weapons (and I shudder to call it that) ever. First off, its action has nothing to do with anything Gauss related at all, and secondly, its action is hillariously nonsensical as this "fearsome weapon" - as written by the GW "science team" is essentially a directional atomic bond slicing beam - which selectively cuts bonds to free ONLY the outermost shell of atoms before going onto the next. If it actually functioned the way it was described, a Gauss hit on a guardsman would strip his flak armor, atom by atom until it was gone, then it would strip his BDUs until those were gone before starting on the hapless guardsman himself. A super precise, but retardedly inefficient device to be sure.
Melissia wrote:The lasgun is actually an insanely efficient and powerful main weapon for a standard soldier. For example, it can blast an Ork or Space Marine's arm off if they aren't protected by armor. I sincerely doubt that a Space Marine would be disintegrated by a phaser-- I doubt it'd even get past his armor, as you can't tell me it's any stronger than a Gauss Flayer. A group of carapace vets or stormtroopers could take a ST ship with ease if they boarded-- Astartes? No contest. On the ground there is NOTHING in ST that can match 40k.
Also? The security forces used in Star Trek are so hilariously incompetent that you really should stick to ship on ship combat.
We all know that 40k stomps ST in space and ground.
Man I love lasgun,it's very durable,spare parts and ammo are everywhere,you can recharge it by sun or by putting the power pack into fire and you can treat it like crap and it will still fire.
Plus read the Kill Team Lasgun and Flak armor show to be somewhat superior to Fire Warrior Pulse Rifle and armor.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
keezus wrote:
Melissia wrote:The lasgun is actually an insanely efficient and powerful main weapon for a standard soldier. For example, it can blast an Ork or Space Marine's arm off if they aren't protected by armor. I sincerely doubt that a Space Marine would be disintegrated by a phaser-- I doubt it'd even get past his armor, as you can't tell me it's any stronger than a Gauss Flayer. A group of carapace vets or stormtroopers could take a ST ship with ease if they boarded-- Astartes? No contest. On the ground there is NOTHING in ST that can match 40k.
Please. The Gauss flayer is one of the most poorly worded sci-fi weapons (and I shudder to call it that) ever. First off, its action has nothing to do with anything Gauss related at all, and secondly, its action is hillariously nonsensical as this "fearsome weapon" - as written by the GW "science team" is essentially a directional atomic bond slicing beam - which selectively cuts bonds to free ONLY the outermost shell of atoms before going onto the next. If it actually functioned the way it was described, a Gauss hit on a guardsman would strip his flak armor, atom by atom until it was gone, then it would strip his BDUs until those were gone before starting on the hapless guardsman himself. A super precise, but retardedly inefficient device to be sure.
About gauss weaponry(In real science it would suck for sure,but again this is 40k).
Ancient Threat - Codex Necrons Preview - White Dwarf # 270, Games Workshop, Page 97
"Ahead, he could see Adept Faistos flattened against the second of the bulkheads interposed between them and the advancing aliens, fervently chanting the rite of excorcism, tears streaking his face. Suddenly, Faistos began to shake, shrieking hideously as his body convulsed in pain, his chest collapsing to leave a gaping, crimson hole. His corpse slumped, revealing the ragged tunnel the necron weapons had burrowed through the metre thick bulkhead."
These seem to be mere necron warriors. At best, they would be immortals, carrying gauss blasters. One would assume that a single necron would be doing this. If so we can asssume it's a sustained 'blast' from a single gauss flayer, in order to provide a generous calculation. Assuming the bulkhead was made of iron, and that the hole burrowed was roughly thirty centimetres wide (to account for 'chest collapsing') this would mean that the necrons vaporised
Estimated Size: 0.0707m³
Density of Iron: 7874 Kg/m³
Total Mass: 7874*0.0707= 556.6918 Kg
Latent heat of fusion: 0.289 MJ/kg
Latent heat of Evaporation 6.34 MJ/kg
(556.6918*0.289=160.8839302)+(556.6918*6.34=3529.426012)
3529.426012+160.8839302=3690.3099422 Mj
3690.3 MJ energy over a short time for one gauss flayer? This should be assumed to be an upper limit, suggesting yeilds in the single gigawatt range? (Note, additional energy required to increase temperature of iron to boiling point omitted at this stage)
Caves of Ice - Sandy Mitchell, Black Library, Page 139
"In less than a second, he [an ork struck by a gauss weapon] seemed to dissolve; skin, muscle, and skeleton whipping away to vapour, leaving only the echo of a howl of inhuman agony to mark his passing."
Here we see a distinct mention of at least some vapourisation as part of the gauss flayer effect. Orks are of course, substantially larger than humans, yet this does not seem to provide any problem for the gauss flayer.
This page also provides examples of gauss flayers being moved while active, to generate a sweeping/raking/cutting effect. Despite this, there is no damage described by Cain to the enviroment.
---
Caves of Ice - Sandy Mitchell, Black Library, Page 141
"The ork's triumph was short lived, however, as the conerted beams of the two surviving necrons ripped it to vapour in a heartbeat"
Again, an indication of at least some direct vapourisation of matter by gauss flayers.
@IvanTih: Consideirng the bulkhead was probably DUN DUN DUN... adamantium... your calc is too low. This is probably why the mighty and invincible Gauss Flayer has been given the same statline as the blessed Bolter and the panzee's SHURIKEN CATAPULT - as they are clearly equivalent in power.
-edit- The name does the weapon a huge disservice as well, as it only adds to the confusion as to how the damn thing is supposed to function... apparently it does everything... the LEATHERMAN tool of the 41st millenium.
keezus wrote:@IvanTih: Consideirng the bulkhead was probably DUN DUN DUN... adamantium... your calc is too low. This is probably why the mighty and invincible Gauss Flayer has been given the same statline as the blessed Bolter and the panzee's SHURIKEN CATAPULT - as they are clearly equivalent in power.
-edit- The name does the weapon a huge disservice as well, as it only adds to the confusion as to how the damn thing is supposed to function... apparently it does everything... the LEATHERMAN tool of the 41st millenium.
Again gameplay mechanics don't accurately represent fluff otherwise Marines and Necrons would be much more powerful.
I've already said that I was wrong about the Adamantium's toughness.
Frazzled wrote:Do a search on one of the legacy ST vs. 40K or SW vs. 40K threads. You have no idea.
I've seen them but I've blocked them from my memory. Way to traumatize me again Frazzled.
Anyways, I think its pretty well established that IoM can beat The Federation....at least I hope it is.
Frazzled wrote:Do a search on one of the legacy ST vs. 40K or SW vs. 40K threads. You have no idea.
I've seen them but I've blocked them from my memory. Way to traumatize me again Frazzled.
Anyways, I think its pretty well established that IoM can beat The Federation....at least I hope it is.
No way! No matter what the IoM can throw at them, the Federation can easily counter. It would go down like this:
1) Imperial ship shoots Federation ship
2) Federation ship rocks uncontrollably and computers explode, killing unnamed extras
3) Security officer gives updates on their shields percentage
4) Repeat 1-3 until all seems hopeless for the Federation
5) Someone in engineering throws around some science terms and suggests "Reverse the polarity!"
6) Federation wins!
Frazzled wrote:Do a search on one of the legacy ST vs. 40K or SW vs. 40K threads. You have no idea.
Oh my god,I am really ashamed of starting ST vs 40k thread.Back then I was unexperienced debater,but now I have returned stronger and more experienced.
Frazzled wrote:Do a search on one of the legacy ST vs. 40K or SW vs. 40K threads. You have no idea.
Oh my god,I am really ashamed of starting ST vs 40k thread.Back then I was unexperienced debater,but now I have returned stronger and more experienced.
Frazzled wrote:Do a search on one of the legacy ST vs. 40K or SW vs. 40K threads. You have no idea.
Oh my god,I am really ashamed of starting ST vs 40k thread.Back then I was unexperienced debater,but now I have returned stronger and more experienced.
Frazzled wrote:Do a search on one of the legacy ST vs. 40K or SW vs. 40K threads. You have no idea.
Oh my god,I am really ashamed of starting ST vs 40k thread.Back then I was unexperienced debater,but now I have returned stronger and more experienced.
I still say the supcom universe has a much better chance. They'd just need to develope an actual navy-- I know they can build spaceships and etc, but usually they rely on teleportation to get from planet to planet. On the ground, they'd kinda overwhelm the Imperium's forces due to far superior production (and the smallest unit in SupCom is equivalent to a sentinel or dread depending on the faction. The 40k forces would basically be forced into fighting at apocalypse level in every single battle, and even then they'd have to win the first engagement and wipe the SupCom forces out or the latter would win out of sheer attrition (even moreso than Orks or Tyranids).
The traditional water-borne naval units in SupCom are fairly strong and adapatable. Scaling it up to Experimental Tier put it in the range of small-sized Imperial vessels (frigate class?). They'd have to scale it up much more to match the heavy stuff, but their vessels are extremely numerous and easy to produce, and they can reclaim used mass after a victory (or after a defeat if the enemy leaves it there and they still have something capable of reclaiming in range). It would depend on how fast they can adapt to the scale of naval warfare, and how fast the Imperium can force a surrender.
Supreme Commander. It's a set of games (Supreme Commander, Forged Alliance, and Supreme Commander 2) which are a spiritual successor to the Total Annihilation games.
The games focus on huge scale battles (the smallest unit in any given faction is a predator or armored sentinel equivalent, and they can have dozens or even hundreds of these in even a small battle), and justify the quick building aspects of the games through nano-machine construction methods. They also harvest resources through nanomachines, literally harvesting "mass".
Melissia wrote:I still say the supcom universe has a much better chance. They'd just need to develope an actual navy-- I know they can build spaceships and etc, but usually they rely on teleportation to get from planet to planet. On the ground, they'd kinda overwhelm the Imperium's forces due to far superior production (and the smallest unit in SupCom is equivalent to a sentinel or dread depending on the faction. The 40k forces would basically be forced into fighting at apocalypse level in every single battle, and even then they'd have to win the first engagement and wipe the SupCom forces out or the latter would win out of sheer attrition (even moreso than Orks or Tyranids).
The traditional water-borne naval units in SupCom are fairly strong and adapatable. Scaling it up to Experimental Tier put it in the range of small-sized Imperial vessels (frigate class?). They'd have to scale it up much more to match the heavy stuff, but their vessels are extremely numerous and easy to produce, and they can reclaim used mass after a victory (or after a defeat if the enemy leaves it there and they still have something capable of reclaiming in range). It would depend on how fast they can adapt to the scale of naval warfare, and how fast the Imperium can force a surrender.
If those Experimental Units were in "frigate" range then we would have large craters all over planet.
Just a note.
SupCom stands a chance because of their production ability on ground,but hey that doesn't matter when your opponent has orbital superiority.I wonder how would Imperial Titans do against strongest SupCom units.
As for space I don't know.
I think the Imperial Titans would destroy a lot of them, but eventually they'd be overwhelmed unless they managed to make it to destroy the SupCom force's base.
As for in space, we don't know anything about potential supcom stuff in space, only that they DO have space faring vessels. You can see one in the opening CGI of both Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance.
Melissia wrote:I think the Imperial Titans would destroy a lot of them, but eventually they'd be overwhelmed unless they managed to make it to destroy the SupCom force's base.
As for in space, we don't know anything about potential supcom stuff in space, only that they DO have space faring vessels. You can see one in the opening CGI of both Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance.
yeah, SupCom might be able to stand toe to toe on the ground, but the IoM justs has to fight untill the Navy gets into Orbital bombardment positions.
teliporters are common in 40k as well so there would be a way to detect a force incoming(by "common" i mean they aren't unknown and the ways how they work are well known)
SupCom, not having infantry means they would be extreamly vulnerable.
IoM Titans fear infantry in large quantities. the SupCom wouldn't be able to deal with equal numbars of Titans AND masses of Infantry and Tank forces.
Melissia wrote:Supreme Commander. It's a set of games (Supreme Commander, Forged Alliance, and Supreme Commander 2) which are a spiritual successor to the Total Annihilation games.
The games focus on huge scale battles (the smallest unit in any given faction is a predator or armored sentinel equivalent, and they can have dozens or even hundreds of these in even a small battle), and justify the quick building aspects of the games through nano-machine construction methods. They also harvest resources through nanomachines, literally harvesting "mass".
Those games took so long. It was mind boggling how much time you had to invest just to complete a single mission.
Don't discount the infantry though, I didn't see too much in the way of security forces. To neutralize a building or even a base all you'd have to do would be infiltrate or deepstrike some Storm Troopers or even Terminators. I'm pretty sure they could clear out the inside of most bases quick-smart.
... most of the buildings didn't have an entrance to begin with. Or interiors. I mean they were completely autonomous buildings, designed to run on AI tied to the ACU. They were repaired by spraying specially programmed nanomachines into them. And they could be built in seconds in some cases, or minutes in others, using the resources that were commonly lying around.
It has no entrances, no rooms, no corridors, no doors. Just a lot of armor, and compartments with no room for humans containing the various working parts. They aren't really buildings as we normally think of the term. A power plant is really just a particularly large and well armored power plant and NOTHING more. A turret is just... a turret with power plant, AI, and weapon, and the armor to protect it. A factory is a well-armored wall and some flat metal space with movable parts that spray specially programmed nanomachines at the right area, no room for personnel to enter. A research center is literally just a rather large and extremely well armored AI unit dedicated to researching enemy armor, weapons, and battle tactics in order to come up with ways to resist their weapons, penetrate their armor, and come up with new on-the-spot upgrades to deal with their tactics.
You don't "enter" these buildings. You have to destroy them from the outside. I suppose you could melta your way in and toss a satchel charge in there, but even then you run the risk of being taken down by the turrets. The light turrets are certainly fast enough to track human sized targets (And they don't do enough damage to be worth much against anything bigger than a sentinel anyway).
Especially UEF buildings, which often all have their own individual turrets. And anti-air turrets.
there is no way that a building bigger then a small bedroom could be built in less then a few seconds. you still need the matter to build the structure and that isn't contained within the seeding of the Nanobots.
i could see Nanobots building a small factory to produce small arms in 24-36 hours, but a factory capable of building fast attack walkers? no!
Turrets there may be, but a single melta charge or Melta gun will wipe the Structure's power supply.
alternativly the IoM uses Fusion torpedos to EMP the electronic components of SupCom.
SupCom, IMO, doesn't really qualify to goe against IoM. it isn't as much of a Sci-fi universe as others that have been mentioned. we really know very little about it.
I'm gonna hafta toss in the Anti-Spirals and the Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann into the mix. Sure, it's completely absurd, but I think I recall them using entire galaxies as weapons at one point.
Hmmmm, the obvious answer would be to blow it up then. *frowns*
Oooh! Hey, what about a boarding party against the Command Suit? Termies teleport, kill pilot and...well whatever.
Well, the command unit inside the ACU is basically just an armored sphere with a command couch and interactive things in it which is inserted into/onto the ACU (depending on which game you're talking about). In the sequel, the ACU can detach this head in an emergency, and it becomes a controllable, highly maneuverable escape pod which can rebuild the ACU if it finds a safe place and enough resources to do it.
I don't know if the AdMech would approve of the SupCom technology, but the galaxy would be pretty fethed if they managed to capture one of these pods. Even worse if it was captured by Orks or Chaos.
I wonder how the Daleks would do, assuming they were at the height of their power (ability to teleport planets across the galaxy/time travel etc.)
Nothing, bar plot-trauma, could really sttand against the Dalek Empire at it's greatest. We never really saw it, but somewhere before the first season of the revived show, the Daleks were raised up to literally unfathomable levels of power thanks almost exclusively to their mastery of time travel and ruthless willingness to use said time travel to unravel everything in the universe that wasn't a Dalek. Only another time-travelling super power (i.e. the Time Lords) could hope to stand against such a foe, and even then it's not so much a war in the traditional sense but a crazy twenty-dimensional game of chess to see who can erase the other from existence 'first'.
The Daleks travel back in time and sterilize the Earth in the year 10,000BC, game over.
Time travelling races should not be allowed in this discussion, for the simple reason that any race with time travel automatically beats every race without it.
I wonder how the Daleks would do, assuming they were at the height of their power (ability to teleport planets across the galaxy/time travel etc.)
Nothing, bar plot-trauma, could really sttand against the Dalek Empire at it's greatest. We never really saw it, but somewhere before the first season of the revived show, the Daleks were raised up to literally unfathomable levels of power thanks almost exclusively to their mastery of time travel and ruthless willingness to use said time travel to unravel everything in the universe that wasn't a Dalek. Only another time-travelling super power (i.e. the Time Lords) could hope to stand against such a foe, and even then it's not so much a war in the traditional sense but a crazy twenty-dimensional game of chess to see who can erase the other from existence 'first'.
The Daleks travel back in time and sterilize the Earth in the year 10,000BC, game over.
Time travelling races should not be allowed in this discussion, for the simple reason that any race with time travel automatically beats every race without it.
The Emperor can time travel... why are you looking at me funny. No, i'm serious... In one of the novels, he STOPS time... this demonstrates that he does have some control over time, we just don't know how much.
Stopping time, even temporarily, doesn't equal the ability to time travel.
Stopping Time is likely far easier then reversing the process.
Time Travel and manipulation does happen in many 40k novels, but the instances are usually caused by warp fluctuations and are uncontrollable(Ravenor)
If time is water flowing down a stream, then what the emperor did is like Freezing the stream. True time manipulation wouldbe able to cause the water to reverse the flow, and stop it, and start it back again.
the Warp does strange things, but no 40k entity, aside from posssably Tzeench, is capable of true time travel. IE: no machine they can get in and punch a button to get where and when they want to go.
Mass produced mini titans vs ones that cannot be replaced.
Str 6 basic weaponry, mass flying transports that HEAL
Tactical nukes, cloaking ( I recall the IoM doesn't have detection...)
Battlecrusiers + yamato cannon, nuff said.
After all, the originals are always the best. Today's space marines have lost sight of their origins.
In the novel "Eye of Terror" by BarringtonJ. Bayley a null ship created by the AdMech for the Inquisition is sent into the EoT
It was the boast of the Adeptus Mechanicus that the vessel was invisible to any psychic or material probes which the Chaos Worlds could throw at it.
this is the final paragraph of page 12 if anybody is interested.
It isn't a cloaking field but it is undetectable...until the shields are lowered, It dosn't say what the shields are but I believe they are refering to psychic shields as it says that the ship would be vissible to any deamon or renegade psyker looking their way.
Mass produced mini titans vs ones that cannot be replaced.
Str 6 basic weaponry, mass flying transports that HEAL
Tactical nukes, cloaking ( I recall the IoM doesn't have detection...)
Battlecrusiers + yamato cannon, nuff said.
After all, the originals are always the best. Today's space marines have lost sight of their origins.
Dude, Starcraft was released in 1998, 40K was released in 1987; you have failed most basic Google-Fu.
In Neal Asher's Polity series the aggressive alien Prador were only beaten by humanity because... well, humans weren't in charge. Without A.I. the IoM might win vs such a small (by comparison) race as the Prador kingdom, but how much trouble would they cause?
For Asher readers, consider the IoM encountering Jain tech...
or chaos getting hold of it, for that matter.
I'm also with those who realize that the Culture would wipe the floor with any 40k race, hands down. Vast spacecraft able to create a 'cloud' of warships autonomously? Plus daemon-free FTL travel and numberless CREATED worlds? Hats off, Mr Banks, for creating the flipside to what the 40k universe became... the twisted utopia to its twisted dystopia.
In a way it's sad that really, the only two galactic civs in popular imagination are the IoM and SW Empire. Many others are just too damned obscure or not up to the same dizzying scale. My 2 cents worth is that the SW Empire MUST lose to 40k - because even in its most Vaderesque coolness, it contains the seeds of Jar Jar Binks.
juraigamer wrote:Mass produced mini titans vs ones that cannot be replaced.
Mini titans that suck and in background can barely turn around, sure.
Str 6 basic weaponry
pfffffffffffff ahahaha I stopped reading your post here.
Ok, I stopped laughing, I'm back
Tactical nukes, cloaking ( I recall the IoM doesn't have detection...)
Ever heard of an auspex? No, I guess you probably haven't ever read anything with "40k" on the cover somewhere, or else you would have.
Battlecrusiers
Can be killed by flying beasts that spit spikey bone glaives.
+ yamato cannon, nuff said.
You've probably never heard of a nova cannon, or an Imperial battleship. You probably don't know that BFG even exists, huh.
After all, the originals are always the best. Today's space marines have lost sight of their origins.
lolololololololll
Universes/forces that I know of that 40k loses to: Total Annihilation/Core and Arm Supreme Commander (same as above) The Culture On the ground, quite possibly Starship Troopers (original only). In space, SST still loses.
Jain Tech would pretty much screw the imperium as there are so many potential hosts, the Adeptus Mechanicus alone would fall to the last magos to Jain.
Thus the irony - a dead race would kill off the mighty IoM with greater ease than any living one!
Now, who's ready for a nostalgia trip....
the Ur-Quan Hierarchy of Battle Thralls! Yeah, they'd get killed, but I just wanted to bring them up. Big ol' three-eyed caterpillar things all launching fighters and stuff...
Actually, if Sub/Under-Space is similar to the warp that may result in IoM Ships being able to drop into the warp and sterilizing or pacifying Jain Nodes.
Mass produced mini titans vs ones that cannot be replaced.
Str 6 basic weaponry, mass flying transports that HEAL
Tactical nukes, cloaking ( I recall the IoM doesn't have detection...)
Battlecrusiers + yamato cannon, nuff said.
After all, the originals are always the best. Today's space marines have lost sight of their origins.
Oh please, this pathetic thing doesn't even BEGIN to match with the power of SupCom's armies. One of SupCom's tier 1 "medium tanks" can match that thing in size and firepower.
There's still three more tiers (T2, T3, TX) after that to whip its ass, and each of THOSE are exponentially tougher than the previous tier.
If 40k could put up a fight to SupCom, then Starcraft is fethed. It doesn't even qualify to be considered for this thread.
Dude, Starcraft was released in 1998, 40K was released in 1987; you have failed most basic Google-Fu.
Sorry I thought the majority of forum viewers here knew what I was talking about. Starcraft marines are the closest to the first edition marines of 40k, thus closer to their roots, than the marines we currently use in 40k. As we all know, the originals are the better ones, ask anyone older than you.
Just a note there are milions of titans.
Star Wars beats IOM,but loses against 40k.
ST get beaten stomped by every 40k faction.
We don't see naval forces in SupCom,if they are weak then IOM will just bombard ground forces.
Titans vs Neon Genesis 'Angels?" - what the feth were those things anyway? And if there's a buttload of them out there in space creating 'impacts' to seed life... what if say a few hundred of them took on the IoM?
I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that the Imperium is a match for nearly all sci fi franchises, bar the Culture, but it would be a fight that would irrevocably change the socio-political makeup of the IoM to fight some of the more bad-ass races out there like the SW Empire etc. Tech advancement would be utterly necessary, giving Mars the upper hand over Earth...
Now THERE's a battle. Ad mech vs imperium anyone? Dangerous Dan got close to writing about this in 'Titanicus' but stopped short.
they are too ingrained and neither can exist without the other.
the IoM would lose its manufacturing capabilities and the Ad Mech would lose vital supplies and couldn't hold off the predatory races of the galaxy by themselves(even with the formidable Titan legions and Explorator fleets)
IvanTih wrote:We don't see naval forces in SupCom,if they are weak then IOM will just bombard ground forces.
Yes we do, we just don't know much about them a the game takes place on the ground.
We know, however, from both the first game and its expansions that naval forces exist.
I remember that there is a story(can't remember the name) where Imperial and Chaos ship battled and it ended with heavily damaged Imperial ship with overloading it's warp engines which caused destruction of the Chaos ship and the Chaos Infested world nearby became Dead World.
Sherley, you can't be serious?
There is no way the republic (or Empire) could beat the IoM. The only planet busting ship the Empire could come up with is the deathstar, which is massive. And yet, the IoM could do the same with a single missle.
Amaya wrote:Gotta love how people are using silly firepower information from barely canon picture books.
Of course the Imperium will 'win'. They have more 0s in their FP than everyone else.
Are you reffering to the SWICS which is dreaded among the trekkies?
What's to dread?
I know ST would win, but I'm not going sit here and argue about it all day.
Because it makes ST an ant when compared to SW.
Basically it means that an Acclamator-class troop transport could solo entire ST galaxy if it had infinitive supplies.
Amaya wrote:Gotta love how people are using silly firepower information from barely canon picture books.
Of course the Imperium will 'win'. They have more 0s in their FP than everyone else.
Are you reffering to the SWICS which is dreaded among the trekkies?
What's to dread?
I know ST would win, but I'm not going sit here and argue about it all day.
Because it makes ST an ant when compared to SW.
Basically it means that an Acclamator-class troop transport could solo entire ST galaxy if it had infinitive supplies.
No way. Nothing can withstand the Picard Maneuver.
Amaya wrote:Gotta love how people are using silly firepower information from barely canon picture books.
Of course the Imperium will 'win'. They have more 0s in their FP than everyone else.
Are you reffering to the SWICS which is dreaded among the trekkies?
What's to dread?
I know ST would win, but I'm not going sit here and argue about it all day.
Because it makes ST an ant when compared to SW.
Basically it means that an Acclamator-class troop transport could solo entire ST galaxy if it had infinitive supplies.
No way. Nothing can withstand the Picard Maneuver.
This is Star Wars not Star trek, both aren't real life...yet
But in Star wars A ship Jumps to hyperspace which is different to normal space.
While a ship in Star trek moves at speeds faster than light while remaining in space.
So when a ship in SW is in hyperspace as it nears a object with a lo of gravity (i.e. plantary systems, black holes or interdictor crusiers when the gravity generator is on) a ship exits hyperspace and declerates rapidly.
Commissar Agro wrote:This is Star Wars not Star trek, both aren't real life...yet
But in Star wars A ship Jumps to hyperspace which is different to normal space.
While a ship in Star trek moves at speeds faster than light while remaining in space.
So when a ship in SW is in hyperspace as it nears a object with a lo of gravity (i.e. plantary systems, black holes or interdictor crusiers when the gravity generator is on) a ship exits hyperspace and declerates rapidly.
Wrong. One of the issues in the early years of the Old Republic's expansion was ships crashing into planets because they were in uncharted territory.
But we aren't talking about that. We're talking about how silly it is to compare ship's damage output when something as small and slow as an X-Wing traveling at the speed of light can destroy a planet.
X vs X discussions are really pointless because the RULES of each system are very different.
How can we really discuss if any other universe can beat the 40kIOM on a 40k forum? The bias keeps any discussion from reaching a philosophical level.
Well, I'm certainly not biased. I only bother to mention and debate about the universes I know. In fact, that is how most people on this site are.
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Golden Sabres wrote:
IvanTih wrote:
Star Wars beats IOM...
Sherley, you can't be serious?
There is no way the republic (or Empire) could beat the IoM. The only planet busting ship the Empire could come up with is the deathstar, which is massive. And yet, the IoM could do the same with a single missle.
SW Hyperdrives contain a safety system that detects Gravity wells through the distortions they cause in the light pattern. when a ship nears a gravity well the Hyperdrive shuts down.
if this safety system is disabled the ship can enter hyperspace near a gravity well, but this isn't done in the SW universe because the Plot won't have it.
this is one reason the Empire wouldn't be able to stop, or detect, IoM fleets as they leave this dimension completely. Sith and Jedi could sense an approaching fleet, but there arn't many jedi to go around. and a Jedi/Sith could only do so much to the thousands of Impierial Storm Troopers on board each IoM ship, the countless millions of the IG, and the martial might of the Space Marines(no lightsabre deflecting Bolt Rounds ) Librarians would also give Jedi a fight for their lives(and they are far more common then Jedi or Sith)
the old republic can't be used in this discussion as it didn't really have much of a formal military and doesn't exist anymore. New republic has the same disadvantages as the Empire
the Republic and the Empire would also have extreame psycological disadvantage in a war with the IoM. the Citizenry being less then loyal to the Government, large quantity of pacifistic planets, relying on Clones for the army(empire only) means the citizens aren't accustomed to the cost of war, relativly low army troop strength(caused by little opposition, at least opposition in great numbers to warrent an army numbering in the billions). when the average revolt is less then a few thousand rebels and a couple hundred ships at most the need for Billions of troops and hundreds of thousands of Starships simply isn't there.
the Death Star caused the Rebels to their pants, but it killed, what?, 1 planet. the IoM steralizes planets semi-regularly and they can do it with any ship that has torpedo bays. granted both are a last resort measure, but the IoM would simply have to do it to a couple of planets(heck they could do it to the Death Star with a callidus assassin and 1 vial of the stuff) and my guess would be 60% of the Empire's planets throw down their arms and surrender(until the mass genocide of Xeno species begins)
Star Trek has a similer problem. the IoM is very good at making war horrendous. they have a fantically loyal populace that won't cry for peace at the sight of blood(quite the opposite in fact), the Fleet simply doesn't have enough ships of sufficient size to face the IoM in open battle. they would quickly realize this and begin guerilla warfare among the stars, but the IoM would shrug off the damage and conquor the Feds planets one by one untill the Fed was only a small unsupplied resistance force. the IoM wouldn't nessacarly conquor the Feds planets according to their orientation either(IE closest planets first) they might simply take out the capital first.
I thought I just pointed out how easy it is to wipe out a planet? FFS we completely freak out the thought of a little meteor headed our way at what is a crawl compared to light speed.
I'd still like to know how the Imperium can beat the Shadows (they can't, probably the reason the discussion ended) or the Vorlons (who have ships that literally shrug off weapons that can punch into a planet's core).
@Melissia: While the SupCom ground forces are indeed impressive (damn nanobots!) we never really see extensive use of orbital bombardment so we have to assume that SupCom space navy is inferior to much of the Imperium's Navy. That said, shields would no doubt help heaps and give extensive protection, meaning well established bases stand a good chance of survival. Then it comes down to attrition, which the SupCom will invariably lose as it is on the Imperium's terms and (short of preserving ALL their mass recovered from wrecks) they will run out of supplies sooner or later.
Amaya wrote:I'd still like to know how the Imperium can beat the Shadows (they can't, probably the reason the discussion ended) or the Vorlons (who have ships that literally shrug off weapons that can punch into a planet's core).
I can't talk for the Shadows (as I don't know what their combat capabilities are) but the Vorlons could be dealt with by boarding parties if any number of IoM ships got close enough.
Emperors Faithful wrote:@Melissia: While the SupCom ground forces are indeed impressive (damn nanobots!) we never really see extensive use of orbital bombardment so we have to assume that SupCom space navy is inferior to much of the Imperium's Navy. That said, shields would no doubt help heaps and give extensive protection, meaning well established bases stand a good chance of survival. Then it comes down to attrition, which the SupCom will invariably lose as it is on the Imperium's terms and (short of preserving ALL their mass recovered from wrecks) they will run out of supplies sooner or later.
Amaya wrote:I'd still like to know how the Imperium can beat the Shadows (they can't, probably the reason the discussion ended) or the Vorlons (who have ships that literally shrug off weapons that can punch into a planet's core).
I can't talk for the Shadows (as I don't know what their combat capabilities are) but the Vorlons could be dealt with by boarding parties if any number of IoM ships got close enough.
Only problem with that is that only Vorlons know how to enter their ships. Their vessels are organic and only open for Vorlons.
Emperors Faithful wrote:@Melissia: While the SupCom ground forces are indeed impressive (damn nanobots!) we never really see extensive use of orbital bombardment so we have to assume that SupCom space navy is inferior to much of the Imperium's Navy. That said, shields would no doubt help heaps and give extensive protection, meaning well established bases stand a good chance of survival. Then it comes down to attrition, which the SupCom will invariably lose as it is on the Imperium's terms and (short of preserving ALL their mass recovered from wrecks) they will run out of supplies sooner or later.
Actually orbital bombardment is used by the UEF in SupCom2. Similarly, there's planet-destroying technologies sprinkled throughout the various storylines. Certainly the Seraphim destroyed all life on Earth rather quickly, turning it into a dessicated wasteland through the use of many thousands of nuclear/quantum bombers.
The sad thing is we just don't see their space technology very much. It's there, we just don't know much about it.
And then there's the planetary ecosynthesizer. Effectively a machine capable of re-programming a planet to whatever the user wants, and rather rapidly as well. It also had highly advanced shields which protected vital parts of it from any and all forms of damage. Including rapid bombardment with nuclear missiles. I really don't know how they blew the damn thing up, I only know it took a massive amount of effort.
del'Vhar wrote:
And if Replicators existed in the 40k universe they would likely be nigh unstoppable, if they ever managed to assimilate Tau tech or Titans it would probably be game over for the IoM
Stargate offers several options. Take the Nox from SG-1 season 1. They can teleport things to the unkown literally with the snap of their fingers. Your battleship does little good when it instantly teleports several million light years away...or into a star or black hole.
If it hasnt been mentioned...The single winner for this argument in all of sci-fi is the Q continuum from Star Trek. They are omnipotent. They could make it so the IoM doesnt exist...and never existed...with a simple thought.
One thing Galactic Empire beats IOM due the industrial capacity(they have massive fleet and remember Storm Troopers number in trillions and unlike those in movies EU storm troopers are much more accurate and competent).
Their ability to construct ships is staggering when compared to IOM and they share similar firepower,but in the terms of durability I think that IOM has the advantage,but GE has hyperdrive allowing them to engage when they want.
Those thing make GE the winner,not to mention things like Sun Crusher which survived glancing blow from Death Star Superlaser and whose ability to make supernovas can screw IOM quite easily.
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Eyclonus wrote:Actually Cuslexus assassins would be awesome against them. Their very presence weakening the Vorlons...
Ok Vorlons are out because they have no hope against the Officio Assassanorum's Cuslexus Temple.
Not to mention what will 40k psykers will do to them.
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Grey Templar wrote:
Eyclonus wrote:So your saying Grey that IG man-spam are the perfect counters for a race of immortal angelic beings...?
that or Null Rods
make em eat some phaseblades.
Not to mention void shields which absorb psychic energy.
My take on Void shields that they are several things together.In short read this theory,it's not mine.
W_R waffling about Void shields
There are a couple of concepts for void shields.
As with a lot of items of technology in 40k, I'm inclined to think that there are a range of technologies used, and they are collected under a name or class of technology, in a similar fashion to Meltaguns, Cyclonic torpedoes, plasma guns, lasguns etc.
There are also instances where different settings have been described, and aspects of void shields are altered.
Void shields have been described as absorbing, refracting, reflecting and repelling incoming energy and weaponry.
Reflecting, as well as repelling indicate some sort of distinct boundary to a field, in the context of descriptions of voids as "wavering bands" or depictions as your bog standard sci-fi energy barrier. Absorbing could indicate the same, but I think at this point it probably refers to the shunting of energy into the warp, as Path of the Warrior makes explicit reference to this process, with Imperial shields void shields flaring as they shunt energy into the warp.
In terms of why it isn't described more often, its easy enough to rationalise that the context of the PotW example isn't often found, we don't often get to see things from the perspective of the Eldar, whose technology is heavily based on manipulating warp energies, and the Imperials we are mostly sharing viewpoints with simply can't see.
Obviously you can still batter your hands against some types of Void shielding, there are often flares of energy produced when they are impacted, Void shielding might also be a combination of Imperial shield technologies, maybe other existing technologies, from the perspective of the use of many different forms of defensive energy shields, are derived from a Dark Age void shield technology. Void shields require lots of power, so maybe having a simple refractor field is a cheaper option, although personal void shields exist.
Power fields and refractor fields repel incoming fire from various types of weaponry, Conversion fields convert it partially to at least the visible spectrum, Displacer fields teleport the user, although this isn't explicitly the same, I don't expect that simply openly raping a hole through reality into the warp and dumping your energy there is such a hot idea, so forming a stable, semi-permeable warp tunnel perhaps does work in the context of a void shields warp shunt.
Titan void shields have been described as setting up interference patterns that prevent teleportation, and in games mechanics terms, you need to drop Void shielding to perform teleportation attacks in BFG. I think an existing field designed to shunt energy into the warp would mesh with this concept, although it doesn't mean its true.
Obviously for various shields there is a limit to the energy they can transfer, shield generators shut down until they have gotten rid of the energy, rather than exploding, which is a fairly sensible design.
Potentially, some Void shielding might not have the functions of other versions of the tech, i.e. the warp shunt might not be there, or the conversion field, etc. This could explain a few inconsistencies.
Another tech described is the gellar field, which is sometimes implied to be part of a void shield, and is probably a distinct feature, given that some rather gribbly creatures have simply waltzed straight through a void shield.
It might even be a tech primarily used for spacecraft, given the perils of planetary warp rifts.
IvanTih wrote:Those thing make GE the winner,not to mention things like Sun Crusher which survived glancing blow from Death Star Superlaser and whose ability to make supernovas can screw IOM quite easily.
I think someone earlier in the thread noted that the IoM could easily survive Andromeda's nova-bomb's stellar gravitational inversion effect... The IoM is just that tough. A supernova is nothing when compared with the power of Void shields. They stop everything. Even common sense!
Yes, the people who hurt Psykers will hurt telepaths who don't even use the warp.
Let's put it this way, Vorlons can turn midlevel telepaths into WMD telepaths capable of mind controlling hundreds of individuals at a time. We don't have a fething clue what Vorlons can actually do. Only twice did we ever see a Vorlon die. One was killed by Shadows and the other by several PPGs (more than capable of killing a human with one hit or cutting through metals) and the remains of a Vorlon.
I don't if the average 40k Psyker can beat a Vorlon, but if they can, it will not be easy.
IvanTih wrote:Those thing make GE the winner,not to mention things like Sun Crusher which survived glancing blow from Death Star Superlaser and whose ability to make supernovas can screw IOM quite easily.
I think someone earlier in the thread noted that the IoM could easily survive Andromeda's nova-bomb's stellar gravitational inversion effect... The IoM is just that tough. A supernova is nothing when compared with the power of Void shields. They stop everything. Even common sense!
Then I wonder how will Terra,Luna and Mars,planets which in short have planetary plating will react to supernova,but seriously I think that IOM can't stand supernova.
Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Amaya wrote:Yes, the people who hurt Psykers will hurt telepaths who don't even use the warp.
Let's put it this way, Vorlons can turn midlevel telepaths into WMD telepaths capable of mind controlling hundreds of individuals at a time. We don't have a fething clue what Vorlons can actually do. Only twice did we ever see a Vorlon die. One was killed by Shadows and the other by several PPGs (more than capable of killing a human with one hit or cutting through metals) and the remains of a Vorlon.
I don't if the average 40k Psyker can beat a Vorlon, but if they can, it will not be easy.
You're average 40k psyker can mind rape squads or zapp them with psychic lighting.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
Which is the exact same as the IoM planet killer.
The Vorlon planet killer is different. It blows the planet up Vader style.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
Which is the exact same as the IoM planet killer.
The Vorlon planet killer is different. It blows the planet up Vader style.
IvanTih wrote:Those thing make GE the winner,not to mention things like Sun Crusher which survived glancing blow from Death Star Superlaser and whose ability to make supernovas can screw IOM quite easily.
I think someone earlier in the thread noted that the IoM could easily survive Andromeda's nova-bomb's stellar gravitational inversion effect... The IoM is just that tough. A supernova is nothing when compared with the power of Void shields. They stop everything. Even common sense!
Then I wonder how will Terra,Luna and Mars,planets which in short have planetary plating will react to supernova,but seriously I think that IOM can't stand supernova.
It definately cannot. A ship exploding can take down void sheilds. A star exploding? C'mon
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IvanTih wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
No it cracks it open like an egg. Can completely destroy a planet in half an hour.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
No it cracks it open like an egg. Can completely destroy a planet in half an hour.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
No it cracks it open like an egg. Can completely destroy a planet in half an hour.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
No it cracks it open like an egg. Can completely destroy a planet in half an hour.
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
No it cracks it open like an egg. Can completely destroy a planet in half an hour.
Issac Assimov's Foundation. Google it. He basically invented the Mechancus and Rogue Traders, among other things. The Galactic Empire at its 25million world peak could KO the imperium, maybe. But I already said that on page 3 =P
About the X-Wing, easy planet killers, a nova cannon will do to a planet what a railgun does to a person. Turn it inside out. Then create a warp detonation twice the size of the now flipped planet. But virus bombs are cooler (somehow) and as such are the equivalent of burning a witch at the stake rather than strapping her to a barrel of TNT and throwing her out of a plane. Its symbolic, and saves resources.
Retribution wrote:Has anyone mentioned that the great Galactic Empire crumbled because of...ewoks
Yes, Luke and Vader killing the Emperor had nothing to do with it. And the Empire has definetly not continued to fight for the past 50 years. And the Alliance that defeated the Empire certainly didn't bounce the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Nope, not all.
Retribution wrote:Has anyone mentioned that the great Galactic Empire crumbled because of...ewoks
Yes, Luke and Vader killing the Emperor had nothing to do with it. And the Empire has definetly not continued to fight for the past 50 years. And the Alliance that defeated the Empire certainly didn't bounce the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Nope, not all.
I believe the Tanith First And Only would not have the advantages of the Tallarn First, for one thing they fought in the largest tank battle in the Imperium's history, hence the best way for them to beat Ewoks involves burning the forest till nothing stands.
Eyclonus wrote:I believe the Tanith First And Only would not have the advantages of the Tallarn First, for one thing they fought in the largest tank battle in the Imperium's history, hence the best way for them to beat Ewoks involves burning the forest till nothing stands.
Two different armies. Two different battle strategies.
Against Ewoks, I would prescibe a Catachan regiment any of them.
Nothing would make me happier, than to see a cute little bear's throat being cut by the blade of a catachan!
Or just Marines, I mean how effective will stone arrows be against AV14?
I don't know, your going to have to read Codex: Ewoks
Now that's a good idea!
Troops:
slowed Ewok WS = 1 BS = 2 S = 1 T = 1 I = 2 A = 1 W = 1 Sv = -
Wargear: A weird spear made out of balsa wood. Bow with Stone Arrows (S = 1 range: 1inch, ap 2, heavy 1000000).
Special Rules: EEEwwoookkk!!!! (Same as Orks WAAGGHHH!!!!) IMA TEDY BEAR! Enemies must roll a d6 when targeting slowed ewoks, on a 3+, they overcome the ewoks cuteness and blast their hides apart. The ewoks are automatically destroyed. No roll to hit are to wound are made, the ewoks simple stand still with drule coming out of their mouths! If the test if failed, the enemy unit goes to ground as they are horrified at thoughts of killing the ewoks.
Eyclonus wrote:I believe the Tanith First And Only would not have the advantages of the Tallarn First, for one thing they fought in the largest tank battle in the Imperium's history, hence the best way for them to beat Ewoks involves burning the forest till nothing stands.
Two different armies. Two different battle strategies.
Against Ewoks, I would prescibe a Catachan regiment any of them.
Nothing would make me happier, than to see a cute little bear's throat being cut by the blade of a catachan!
Stuff a whole regiment, just send in Marbo, He'll get the job done and won't even think about it afterwards but he will look like this:
Well lets see what their main characteristics are: Only one planetoid. No extra-celestial technology. No form of economic infrastructure. No form of industrial infrastructure. No form of scientific/technological infrastructure. Rocks. Fur. Special relationship with Wookies and Furries...
Frazzled wrote:Well its really difficult to compare Vorlons/Shadows or even Membari/Centauri to IoM. The universes are quite different. plus there's not a whole lot in regards to stats to compare the two.
I am not sure if there is anything to compare the weapon effectiveness or survivability of one vs. the other. We do know that they have planet killers and have no aversion to using them, at all. We also know that it tok many humans using plasma weapons, electricity, and a Vorlon to actually kill a Vorlon in person.
Too difficult to compare, but they are cool.
That planet killer isn't that awesome,it merely sterilizes surface of the planet.
No it cracks it open like an egg. Can completely destroy a planet in half an hour.
Thats defintely not IoM though. thats the good guys. If you're going to start claiming chaos stuff, the Kirk can indeed harness the Organians to melt the Imperial Navy in 17.2 seconds.
Retribution wrote:Has anyone mentioned that the great Galactic Empire crumbled because of...ewoks
Yes, Luke and Vader killing the Emperor had nothing to do with it. And the Empire has definetly not continued to fight for the past 50 years. And the Alliance that defeated the Empire certainly didn't bounce the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Nope, not all.
Wait...
There's a SW story out side of the movies?
Just like there's a 40k story outside of the codexes?
Retribution wrote:Has anyone mentioned that the great Galactic Empire crumbled because of...ewoks
Yes, Luke and Vader killing the Emperor had nothing to do with it. And the Empire has definetly not continued to fight for the past 50 years. And the Alliance that defeated the Empire certainly didn't bounce the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Nope, not all.
Wait...
There's a SW story out side of the movies?
Just like there's a 40k story outside of the codexes?
I thought about throwing in the homeworld universe.... but after compareing the ship sizes i quickly decided it would be no match if it was just one faction at least and then when it comes to land combat there stuffed
Melissia wrote:Homeworld at least has a small chance, if only because of how rapidly they can consume and spend resources, and develope new technologies.
That depends on how much their technology developes before they meet the Necrons, and if they manage to use hyperspace to escape (it's much safer than the warp that's for sure).
Ledabot wrote:They win when it comes to ftl travel.
Giant windows of uba stuff rules! + personal colour scheme
himmm. wonder how many salvage corvetes they would need to pull away a IOM ship. like 50?
We don't have calcs for Homeworld and gameplay mechanics don't matter so we don't know?
Necrons have better FTL,just wanted to say that,I know that its IOM vs.
Warp drive can cross 10,000 ly in 10-40 days.
Just for fun.
Idont really think they would live.
They only had 100 years since they escaped from exile so its pritty pointless to argue that they could win.
We do have some basic strengths provided ingame showing relative strength.
the intercepters have a "strength" of 20 and an ion frig a strength of bout 150. if a machine gun has a sthrength of 20 then we can determine the force of such weapions
btw liked the arguement for IOM vs Borg.
I dot get how a bunch of cubes such described could win also
Melissia wrote:"Far Jump" hyperdrives can send a ship across a galaxy in minutes at most.
Necrons can cross galaxy in a blink of an eyeL.Aside from the dark tragedy of the internet which states that Necrons don't have eye blinks so that we can't determine it's speed the only info on Necron FTL.
Are you seriously trying to tell us that a lasgun has a directed energy of 13MJ? Seriously?
Because I had a look for a comparative equivalent. 3kg of TNT outputs less energy ar 12.3MJ.
So every time a target gets hit by a lasgun, 3kg of TNT explodes on their chests?....
And you wonder why people have trouble taking the figures, taken as gospel on the 40K side, with a pinch of salt.
Cheers
Andrew
Made up numbers are fun.
In my universe of uber warrior gods the weakest foot trooper is 250 feet tall and can lift 500m battleships overhead. They carry guns that fire 100.00 cal rounds at a rate of 50,000 per second that explode with the force of 25,000 MJ. Oh yeah and there's like 1,000 trillion of these guys and they never need to eat, sleep, and can survive in a vacuum. They also resist all types of mind powers.
Melissia wrote:"Far Jump" hyperdrives can send a ship across a galaxy in minutes at most.
Necrons can cross galaxy in a blink of an eyeL.Aside from the dark tragedy of the internet which states that Necrons don't have eye blinks so that we can't determine it's speed the only info on Necron FTL.
Maybe, but the Necrons don't have a history of chasing people around.
Also, the Sajuuk can destroy most ships in a single attack with its massively powerful and advanced phased cannon array, but there's only one of those. It can jump rather frequently however-- capable of making tactical hyperspace jumps which instantaneously move it throughout the battlefield so it can devastate target after target with its main gun.
Melissia wrote:"Far Jump" hyperdrives can send a ship across a galaxy in minutes at most.
Necrons can cross galaxy in a blink of an eyeL.Aside from the dark tragedy of the internet which states that Necrons don't have eye blinks so that we can't determine it's speed the only info on Necron FTL.
Maybe, but the Necrons don't have a history of chasing people around.
Also, the Sajuuk can destroy most ships in a single attack with its massively powerful and advanced phased cannon array, but there's only one of those. It can jump rather frequently however-- capable of making tactical hyperspace jumps which instantaneously move it throughout the battlefield so it can devastate target after target with its main gun.
Ledabot wrote:I think that the main perpose of ST being to entertain give them a slight, licence to stuff the laws of physics, as long as its entertaining
Yeah,ST definitely rapes physics,but 40k does it even more.
Is it just me or is this thread drying up?
its pritty much decided that almost nothing could beat IOM, except for the really big superpowers, and thats just out of there leage. The IOM seems to lie someware between the ave sci fi univerce faction strength and the uba god like power of the factions like the culture
It is,but some anime universes beat IOM,then we have Xeelee,Downstreamers and Star Wars.
I still don't see how starwars can beat IoM... seeriously how the hell do they?
Similar firepower disparity,greater strategic mobility and industrial capacity.
Stormtroopers suck in movies because good characters have plot armor,if we go by book Luke and the company would be already dead.
Stormtroopers number in trillions and are really accurate,again the books.
They can go toe to toe with each other,but SW has Hyperdrive which allows them to engage any target as they please.
Problem is the IOM reaction time.
Here's a quote about Terra's defenses,Sol system planets have armor plating and there are rumours of Luna having some huge Nova cannon.
He [Ragnar] considered their approach. He knew that they had passed countless fleets and fortresses as they had swung in from the ultra-solar jump points. They had passed the armoured moons of Jupiter and the forge world of Mars. They had been subjected to hundreds of challenges and scans and they had been boarded twice. It had been a long drawn out process but it was only to be expected.
The world down there was better protected than any other in human history. There would not be a Second Battle of Earth if the terrible lords of the Imperium could help it. Even now the sky was filled with satellite fortresses; great weapon installations with enough firepower to destroy battle fleets. The whole of sublunar space was crowded with warships.
- Space Wolf: The Second Omnibus, pg. 56
1) Size of the Rebel Alliance was never specified.
2) The Empire wasn't simply fighting the Rebels, they were also struggling against a multitude of alien races.
Well the thing is... The 40k universes cobras would kill a fleet of star destroyers with one shot. As everyone forgets that a single Apocalypse Battle Ship can wipe out 5 systems by itself!
And let us not forget about the grand cruisers.
It is,but some anime universes beat IOM,then we have Xeelee,Downstreamers and Star Wars.
I still don't see how starwars can beat IoM... seeriously how the hell do they?
Similar firepower disparity,greater strategic mobility and industrial capacity.
Stormtroopers suck in movies because good characters have plot armor,if we go by book Luke and the company would be already dead.
Stormtroopers number in trillions and are really accurate,again the books.
They can go toe to toe with each other,but SW has Hyperdrive which allows them to engage any target as they please.
Problem is the IOM reaction time.
Here's a quote about Terra's defenses,Sol system planets have armor plating and there are rumours of Luna having some huge Nova cannon.
He [Ragnar] considered their approach. He knew that they had passed countless fleets and fortresses as they had swung in from the ultra-solar jump points. They had passed the armoured moons of Jupiter and the forge world of Mars. They had been subjected to hundreds of challenges and scans and they had been boarded twice. It had been a long drawn out process but it was only to be expected.
The world down there was better protected than any other in human history. There would not be a Second Battle of Earth if the terrible lords of the Imperium could help it. Even now the sky was filled with satellite fortresses; great weapon installations with enough firepower to destroy battle fleets. The whole of sublunar space was crowded with warships.
- Space Wolf: The Second Omnibus, pg. 56
Storm troopers number in the trillions? Has it been stated how many there are somewhere?
Wookieepedia doesn't mention exact numbers for their Strength.
a Battalion consists of 820 troopers.
it is mentioned that after the fall of the republic the impierial army began recruiting millions of non-clones to fill its ranks.
eventually the army became almost completely normal humans(some regiments like the 501st remained "Pure")
this suggests that the actual fighting strength of the Empires army couldn't number more then a few billion at most(and that is being extreamly generous)
the IG numbers in the Billions. this number doesn't count in PDF forces, the Adeptus Soritius, the Titan Legions, and the roughly 1 million Adeptus Astartes.
1) the different ST factions would never unite. and assuming they did they wouldn't support each other very well. little to no cordination of forces, "failing" to come to the others aid( , we had to, um, refuel the fleet. sorry the 3rd fleet and those star systems got boned )
2) the IoM is 1, very diverse, faction so no fair using multiple factions.
I would believe that guardsman would be superior then storm trooper. I mean, wouldn't guardsman be trained to the level of special forces nowadays? And then you have the lasgun, which I also see as superior. Then there's armour... I'm pretty sure this is the only area where stormtroopers beat IG. Then we go to vehicles, which is an epic win to the IG.
Melissia wrote:I'm not even sure stormtrooper armor beats flak armor. The Empire often went with cheap over effective.
Stormtrooper armour could stop 1 maybe 2 blaster bolts. Flack armour is terrible but the IG have what stormies don't....Numbers.
In most SW's engagements (that I have read about in books) its a few squads not an entire regiment. WHile when you read about the guard, its whole armies, with supporting tanks, etc.
Its a numbers game, in a ground fight IoM vs the Empire or the Old or New Republic. IoM wins, they just have more bodies to throw at the opposisition. In a space battle it might be closer but I still think IoM would win. Sure the Empire has SSD's but they dosn't mean much when you think about it, Rouge Squadron, two squadrons of "Uglies", a Imperial class star destroyer, about 10 frieghters loaded with proton torpedos, an out dated Alderiaanian War Cruiser, another Imperial star destroyer and 3 squadrons of A-wings (which arrived late to the party) can pretty much destroy The Lusankya, a Executor-class Star Dreadnought. I would like to see those same forces go up against a similair IoM ship and see who wins...
Edit: The Lusankya didn't have her compliment of TIE squadrons os that affect the outcome of the battle, but still, the lusankys could have won, just take out the frieghters, followed by the Freedom (the 1st star destroyer), then the war cruiser, wait for the 2nd star destroyer and take it out, ignore the fighters until the reinforcement TIE's fromthe planet arrive and mop up the fighters.
I still maintain that the Solar Deliberative could beat the IOM... they can travel dimensions with impunity - the IOM has at best 2. They can make entire populations betray everything they've ever loved with a smile, wink and an essence expenditure. They can parry lance strikes with a sword, and rape destiny to give them whatever result they want, and throwing space marines at them would be like dumping buckets of hamsters into an incinerator.
Bromsy wrote:I still maintain that the Solar Deliberative could beat the IOM... they can travel dimensions with impunity - the IOM has at best 2. They can make entire populations betray everything they've ever loved with a smile, wink and an essence expenditure. They can parry lance strikes with a sword, and rape destiny to give them whatever result they want, and throwing space marines at them would be like dumping buckets of hamsters into an incinerator.
Bromsy wrote:I still maintain that the Solar Deliberative could beat the IOM... they can travel dimensions with impunity - the IOM has at best 2. They can make entire populations betray everything they've ever loved with a smile, wink and an essence expenditure. They can parry lance strikes with a sword, and rape destiny to give them whatever result they want, and throwing space marines at them would be like dumping buckets of hamsters into an incinerator.
BURN
I don't even know what the Solar Deliberative is but the bit in bold sounds awesome so I'm going to use it as my sig.
Bromsy wrote:I still maintain that the Solar Deliberative could beat the IOM... they can travel dimensions with impunity - the IOM has at best 2. They can make entire populations betray everything they've ever loved with a smile, wink and an essence expenditure. They can parry lance strikes with a sword, and rape destiny to give them whatever result they want, and throwing space marines at them would be like dumping buckets of hamsters into an incinerator.
BURN
I don't even know what the Solar Deliberative is but the bit in bold sounds awesome so I'm going to use it as my sig.
Have we discussed the Combine yet, or am I late to the party?
Regardless, I like to imagine the Combine waging a sort of "guerilla" war on the Imperium. Popping in from another dimension, providing a more friendly enviroment for Imperial citizens to live in, and stealing all the water before buggering off to another dimension.
In open combat, I can safely say that the Combine would lose. What has been seen of their weapons have been a few laser weapons and some shell throwers. That said, whatching a strider go toe-to-toe with a wraithlord would be awesome.
alexwars1 wrote:Have we discussed the Combine yet, or am I late to the party?
Regardless, I like to imagine the Combine waging a sort of "guerilla" war on the Imperium. Popping in from another dimension, providing a more friendly enviroment for Imperial citizens to live in, and stealing all the water before buggering off to another dimension.
In open combat, I can safely say that the Combine would lose. What has been seen of their weapons have been a few laser weapons and some shell throwers. That said, whatching a strider go toe-to-toe with a wraithlord would be awesome.
That wouldn't work you see we have Inquisitors,then we have psykers who will notice what's wrong.
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Grey Templar wrote:Since when has the number of Stormtroopers been put at Trillions?
The Star Wars empire was beat by a handfull of rebels and teddy bears.
the Star Wars empire collapsed into many factions upon the death of the emperor.
the IoM lost the emperor, kicked the traitors butts back to the EoT and have kept them there for 10,000 years.
Read Expanded Universe books then read Incredible Cross Sections:Attack of the Clones.
The Stormtrooper, the elite shock troopers of the Galactic Empire, the right hand of the Emperor himself; trained in a gravity well that could crush the average human, these bad boys of the Empire are the toughest, meanest and most zealously loyal troops in the Imperial military. Numbering in the trillions and carrying the deadliest weapons into battle, the Stormtrooper Corps is the furled fist of the Empire, coiled and ready to sucker punch the Galaxy in her Ovaries.
Yet despite their unit-for-unit reliability, detractors continue to lambaste the performance of the overall Corps for one distinct reason known by all as the Teddy Bear incident™. The Battle of Endor proved to be a disaster for the Empire, which despite only a limited loss in material and manpower sparked an internal power struggle that came close to toppling the regime only until recently. Yet despite her continued perseverance, despite the countless successful engagements and occupations; the storming of Hoth, the capture of the Tantive IV and the occupation of a Galaxy over 120,000 light years in diameter, the Stormtrooper Corps will never live down the single blemish known colloquially by cynics and fans alike as “That bit with the Teddy Bears”. In fact the overall incident came to be known as the Stormtrooper effect, also called Stormtrooper syndrome, an expression used to describe the cliché phenomenon in works of fiction of minor cannon fodder characters being completely ineffective in combat against characters important to the plot (protagonists). This ineffectiveness is typically visible as an inability to successfully strike the target with ranged weapons, even at close range. Though obviously unrealistic, the effect is common in many stories and movies.
Ultimately this leads us to narrow down the phenomenon to only a few select properties:
A) Are Stormtroopers incompetent? No, they’ve repeatedly demonstrated their title as elite shock troopers.
B) Are Stormtroopers well equipped/trained? Of course, they receive the best possible training/equipment available to a military unit several trillion strong.
C) Are Stormtroopers human? Mostly, thus the mistakes that they make are dependent on naturally occurring flaws, despite their intensive training.
During the Endor battle, the most likely reason for their loss is simple overconfidence. Outside the bunker, they were felled by simple plain old Jane overconfidence, no tricks or techno babble, they were simply destroyed by their underestimation of enemy strength. Their light armament reveals deplorable overconfidence (The scout troopers had handguns, the Stormtroopers had carbines, and they didn’t bother carrying any of the heavy weapons we saw in previous films), so it’s really no surprise that they were so easily ambushed and overwhelmed when a third of their military forces were armed with nothing more than Pistols.
But before we leap to the conclusion that such foolishness is impossible in the Emperor’s “finest troops”, I would urge readers to study the example of the US Army’s elite Rangers, S.E.A.L., and Delta Force commandos in Somalia. Think back to 1993, the 1980’s was long gone, Jurassic Park had just been released and the Berlin wall saw some new and interesting renovations; the world was a better place for it. Yet during a disastrous mission in which two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down, U.S. Special Forces units demonstrated exactly the kind of overconfidence that bought disaster to Endor. They arrogantly performed what should have been a night operation in broad daylight, and they didn’t bother bringing any “unnecessary” dead weight, such as water canteens, bayonets, or night-sight equipment. Some of them even removed the armour plates from their flak jackets, so they would be more comfortable in the heat. Worse yet, mission security was horrendous; Somali staff at the U.S. Embassy easily discovered the time and place of the mission, and forwarded this information to Somali militia. The entire mission was a mess long before Delta Force could pick the Camel turds from their boots.
Unfortunately for those men lost in the fray of poor military planning, the problems didn’t even stop there; they had no heavy reinforcements or armour in case of serious resistance, and they only had one rescue team, which became a huge problem when not one, but two choppers went down. They couldn’t even co-ordinate their activities; the Rangers and Delta Force commandos continuously butted heads over tactics and chain of command, and an Orion spy plane wasn’t permitted to give direct instructions to the men on the ground even though it was the only platform with a clear view of what was happening. The litany of mistakes continued with the rescue convoys, which literally got lost and ambushed en route to the crash site because of unfamiliarity with the city streets and poor direction from the helicopters above. In the confusion, the Americans fired on anyone with a gun, and then anyone who was around someone with a gun, and eventually, at anything that moved, thus causing thousands of civilian casualties. A simple mission to kidnap two men turned into a chaotic twelve hour firefight, in which nearly a hundred American soldiers were killed or wounded. If this were a fictional war story, it would have been lambasted for being hopelessly unrealistic. People would say “no real soldiers would be so incompetent”. But these men were not incompetent; they were overconfident and inadequately prepared. They demonstrated to the world (At least, the part of the world that reads books instead of getting all their information from action movies) that even the best trained, best equipped soldiers can still can be stymied by poor preparation and the inherent difficulties of combat in difficult and unfamiliar terrain.
Likewise the forces at Endor were deployed in an effort to ambush Rebel forces attempting to seize the bunker facility. They did not anticipate that the native inhabitants (Who up until that point appeared to be Neolithic mammals of little intelligence) could possibly deploy traps ahead of time, they could not even fathom that Rebel Commandos would work in conjunction with said primitives and at no point would it have been practical to employ planetary suppression forces for a relatively simple ambush. Thus they were greatly outnumbered, underequipped, unprepared and were being ensnared by an enemy who knew the terrain intimately, utilized this knowledge to great effect and garnered assistance from heavily armed Commando units. In retrospect we should be even more impressed by the fact that the heavily outnumbered and surrounded Imperial forces managed to go on the offensive and rout the enemy until one of their support vehicles was hijacked by a famous Wookie veteran.
Callously, history only ever recalls our greatest failures, but should we chastise the entire Roman Military for their losses at Teutoburg? Should U.S. Special Forces be held accountable for time immemorial for the failure in Somalia? Likewise should the reputation of the Stormtrooper Corps, an organization composed of billions of men, be tarnished due to the overconfidence of a vastly small minority?
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Golden Sabres wrote:We need to remember though, a 13 megajoule laser is ap - in the 40k universe...
What about 19 Megathule range?It seems like a corrupted version of Megajoule.
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Grey Templar wrote:you can't pit the entire ST universe vs the IoM.
2 reasons
1) the different ST factions would never unite. and assuming they did they wouldn't support each other very well. little to no cordination of forces, "failing" to come to the others aid( , we had to, um, refuel the fleet. sorry the 3rd fleet and those star systems got boned )
2) the IoM is 1, very diverse, faction so no fair using multiple factions.
Not to mention that they suck on space and on ground.
i just love a intelligent discussion.
I still think that the IOM space forces still hold greater power. the smaller ship are the size of star destroyers.
I dont know how many star destroyers there would have been or how many ships the IOM had in there service but im shore that on a one on one battle, SW would lose
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
IvanTih wrote:
Yes,sources tell us that,but they vary.Still ST is screwed in ship to ship combat.That is the energy which impact target,what is wrong with that?
What's right with it?
This is my bugbear about discussions such as these. If someone argues that IoM has greater manpower and equipment numbers than (insert opposing factions name here) then fine. But when they argue that IoM beats X because their weapons output huge numbers of 0's in damage, I have difficulty in accepting that, because there is no way that those figures can be relied upon as being correct, not because the individual making those calculations are wrong, but because the base foundation, ie a bit of fiction, is shaky to say the least.
Lets take the lasgun. 13MJ of energy hits the target so the initial enrgy to create that shot will be higher. How many shots does a lasgun pack hold? One of the facts proffered is that such a powerpack can be recharged in a wood fire. How much energy does a fire give off? I bet you that it doesn't even reach enough to make one shot let alone recharge an entire powerpack.
IoM ship power supplies. Fusion reactor. Someone somewhere said that a ships reactor gave 1e26 joules. The equivalent to the sun. I'm going to ignore the disparity of sizes here. The sun uses 4,000,000 tons of fuel a second. What fuel does the reactor use. Because to the best knowledge/searching by me (get out clause) there is no fuel that can meet that requirement.
Breaking the laws of science/physics. Another bugbear. I'm going to use a ST photon torpedo here. The good old 64MT vs 690GT.
The photon torpedo has a stated payload of 1.5kg antimatter. It has also been stated that that payload can be amended in some way to either act as a harmless firework display or a destructive yeild of 690GT. If someone wants to argue that their universe can break, to us, unmutable laws, then they also have to allow the same laxity to their opponents.
Using the last two points, our knowledge says that fusion reactors require fuel. 4MT roughly. 40K would argue that they provide it through some unstated/unidentified process unkown to us. So ST should be able to argue that through some unstated/unidentifed process 1.5kg of antimatter can be augmented to 690GT. What is so difficult about accepting that equality?
Actually the burning of organic chemicals produces MUCH more energy than we harvest from said chemicals. A lot of it is lost via heat, because our methods of harvesting energy from them are inefficient.
I'm not saying laspacks are necessarily scientifically sound in their ability to recharge, only that it's not as illogical as it sounds (by the way,throwing a laspack in the fire to recharge permanently damages it and halves its ability to hold a charge).
IvanTih wrote:
Yes,sources tell us that,but they vary.Still ST is screwed in ship to ship combat.That is the energy which impact target,what is wrong with that?
Cheers
Andrew
Because that contradict everything we see on screen.
Here are some examples:
Die is cast-Planetary destruction: 30-ship bombardment in "The Die is Cast" (surface-level explosions create fireballs in the megaton range at most, judging from fireball duration).
Pegasus-Asteroid destruction: according to Riker, it would take the entire photon torpedo payload to destroy a single 5km wide hollow asteroid.
Then we have kiloton in event in Nemesis which is caused by Enterprise when ramming Scimitar.
Enough proof.
IOM ships have multiple plasma reactors,one cruiser has five.
We have examples from Dawn of War novel(Cyrene crust melting),Caves of Ice and other sources.
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
And how many body armours besides kevlar from late sixties do you actually know? Not even considering several special types of ammunition which are known and were successfully used in past several years. And ask not about things which we actually do know, but about stuff we do not - as it is still kept secret.
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
...about stuff we do not - as it is still kept secret.
Amaya wrote:How the hell is SW going to deal with Space Marines?
Simple, in the grim darkness of the far future only space battles mean . Threy'd blow the marine fleet out of the sky.
They are fairly similar in firepower,but SW has better FTL and better industrial capacity(Starship construction).
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Jolrael wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Commissar Agro wrote:Flack armour is terrible
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
And how many body armours besides kevlar from late sixties do you actually know? Not even considering several special types of ammunition which are known and were successfully used in past several years. And ask not about things which we actually do know, but about stuff we do not - as it is still kept secret.
Surprise me with your knowledge.
Read the books and then say that flak armor sucks.That thing isn't made from kevlar IIRC.
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
...about stuff we do not - as it is still kept secret.
This day in age? We'd know...
Sorry but I fail to understand context, or possibly meaning, of your response.
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
...about stuff we do not - as it is still kept secret.
This day in age? We'd know...
Sorry but I fail to understand context, or possibly meaning, of your response.
"They" don't keep things secret is what I was saying.
You live in a world where "know how" does not exist? We all share food, clothes and accommodations for free...and this especially works for goverment budgets!
Amaya wrote:How the hell is SW going to deal with Space Marines?
Simple, in the grim darkness of the far future only space battles mean . Threy'd blow the marine fleet out of the sky.
and Star Destroyers are between Escort and cruiser classes in size.
Tactical range of SW space battles is within visual distances of each other.
IoM ships are many times larger and yet battle each other 1,000s of kilometers apart.
SW fleets would get blasted before even in effective range of their guns and once they did close they would be at point blank range of the weapons batteries on the IoM ships(which, being solid slugs, will pass right through SW energy shields)
Emperor class battleships are around 20-30% larger then Super Stardestroyers and have a crew of millions.
IvanTih wrote:
Because that contradict everything we see on screen.
Here are some examples:
Die is cast-Planetary destruction: 30-ship bombardment in "The Die is Cast" (surface-level explosions create fireballs in the megaton range at most, judging from fireball duration).
Pegasus-Asteroid destruction: according to Riker, it would take the entire photon torpedo payload to destroy a single 5km wide hollow asteroid.
Then we have kiloton in event in Nemesis which is caused by Enterprise when ramming Scimitar.
Enough proof.
Not quite
Die is cast - can we prove one way or another that explosions were MT range? No as its a matter of perspective. Was there a suppression system that may have reduced/contained the explosion? We dont know.
Pegasus, good example. Voyager dial the PT up to 50 Isotons, can destroy a small planet. Who's fact is the correct one?
Explosions in episodes. Various people had cited small explosions as proof that PT are not effective. However, beyond visual representation there is no supporting proof. For example most/all ST ships used force fields to strengthen/protect bulkheads, AM is commonly stored within forcefields to contain it. Who is to say whether or not a structual force field does not repell AM and so there is a limited amount of AM detonating. Answer we don't know.
Nemesis, can't remember that any more info?
IOM ships have multiple plasma reactors,one cruiser has five.
Which means that they require 20MT per second.
We have examples from Dawn of War novel(Cyrene crust melting),Caves of Ice and other sources.
I'm working through those links
Cheers
Andrew
And before anyone says I'm arguing for SF, I'm not, I'm arguing the level of proof required to debate.
Have you ever considered that IOM has more advanced fusion tech,that doesn't require massive amount of fuel?
That thing in VOY is just a hyperbole.
First,We don't know what is isoton so we use visuals.
Second, the TM gave an upper limit of 64 (or 128?) megatons - based upon the amount of antimatter in those torpedoes. However, that assumes a reaction with perfect efficiency. Furthermore, not all the products of such a reaction would be dangerous (e.g. neutrinos, alpha-radiation) and since they are not shape-charged only half of the energy would even hit the ship.
Third,traditionally, people tend to allow information from the TNG and DS9 Technical manuals so long as it's shedding light on something that an episode doesn't make clear, and doesn't contradict information elsewhere in the Trek canon, purely because it's a better solution than just saying "No-one knows! Move along, nothing to see here."
Fourth,the TM is less cannon than movies and series.
IvanTih wrote:
Have you ever considered that IOM has more advanced fusion tech,that doesn't require massive amount of fuel?
But the basic reaction requires mass, it doesn't matter what fuel goes into it. At the end of the day it requires a set amount of mass 4,000,000 tons of mass in order to work. Which means that the IoM ship is very screwed. It uses mass reaction in order to accelerate, and it's going to take a lot of reaction mass to make it move.
That thing in VOY is just a hyperbole.
Is it? is there ever a depiction of a 50 Isoton explosion? Until there has been we have no proof to discount the statement.
First,We don't know what is isoton so we use visuals.
Second, the TM gave an upper limit of 64 (or 128?) megatons - based upon the amount of antimatter in those torpedoes. However, that assumes a reaction with perfect efficiency. Furthermore, not all the products of such a reaction would be dangerous (e.g. neutrinos, alpha-radiation) and since they are not shape-charged only half of the energy would even hit the ship.
Third,traditionally, people tend to allow information from the TNG and DS9 Technical manuals so long as it's shedding light on something that an episode doesn't make clear, and doesn't contradict information elsewhere in the Trek canon, purely because it's a better solution than just saying "No-one knows! Move along, nothing to see here."
In order of your points, yes we have no idea of what a isoton is. However there has never been a depiction of a 50 isoton explosion
The TM never gave a yield it merely gave a payload size, with a conflicting 'effect' statement. The MT range was worked out by someone else, along with the greater figure as well.
Agreed.
Fourth,the TM is less cannon than movies and series.
True but is it as acceptable as using information as canon when the authors/publishers admit that two thirds of it are lies and/or exaggerations?
About plasma reactors.
It is strongly implied that they are powered by the warp (if not outright stated, but i don't recall such a source right now). They are certainly not fusion reactors - the Imperium has those as normal power generators (Astartes Power Armor is powered that way), and they are nowhere near as violent and actually behave like actual fusion reactors (albeit very compact ones). They are not creating giant explosions or any of the other sci-fi brainworms regarding reactors. Unlike plasma reactors, who do just that if sufficiently damaged.
Fuel consumption and exact mechanism are pretty much unknown, but the former appears to be low and the plasma is not actually used up but merely used to channel power from the warp trough it.
IvanTih wrote:About plasma reactors.
It is strongly implied that they are powered by the warp (if not outright stated, but i don't recall such a source right now). They are certainly not fusion reactors - the Imperium has those as normal power generators (Astartes Power Armor is powered that way), and they are nowhere near as violent and actually behave like actual fusion reactors (albeit very compact ones). They are not creating giant explosions or any of the other sci-fi brainworms regarding reactors. Unlike plasma reactors, who do just that if sufficiently damaged.
Fuel consumption and exact mechanism are pretty much unknown, but the former appears to be low and the plasma is not actually used up but merely used to channel power from the warp trough it.
No, power armor has a high density battery not a generator(dreadnoughts are powered by fusion)
IoM star ships have 2 drives.
Warp drives for traveling through the warp(these are powered by plotdust)
and Fusion reactors(called plasma because its cool) for in-system propulsion.
the theorized power output of fusion is massive, but the actual output isn't fully known as we have never made a real one that has a sustained reaction.
Yes, they do require alot of fuel, but only every 20 years or so.
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
And how many body armours besides kevlar from late sixties do you actually know?
I was comparing it to the Improved Outer Tactical Vest used by the US Army and Marines Corps.
edit: Some notes:
The IOTV body armor vest used by the US Army weighs about 30-35 depending on which version. The MTV body armor vest used by the Marine Corps weighs about thirty pounds. These do not include the weight of the helmets used, or any other equipment or clothing.
A full set of Guard Flak Armor (gauntlet, helmet, chest/stomach/back armor, greaves, boots, pauldrons) weighs 11 kilograms, or 24 pounds. This doesn't include clothing. Flak armor is INCREDIBLY light for the amount of protection it gives, which is enough to stop most modern weapons from penetrating and doing any real damage more often than not.
edit2: More stuff on Flak Armor:
In the Dark Heresy system, Guard Flak Armor provides 4 armor value across the entire body. This combined with the average Human's toughness bonus of 3 (humans commonly have 25-35 toughness in the setting) and average total wounds of 10-12 means that with Guard Flak Armor, most characters can resist multiple direct hits from lasguns/autoguns without serious injury.
Lasguns/autoguns do 1d10+3 damage. So 4-13. The armor and toughness reduce this by seven to 0-6 damage (with four chances to roll zero out of ten) barring a lucky shot. Stub weapons (the equivalent of modern weaponry) do typically one less damage except for "hand cannons", IE, magnum weapons, and "hunting rifles", IE bolt action rifles.
And against anything which is a blast, such as a frag grenade, this is increased to armor value 5-- so a frag grenade does 0-5 damage, with 1/2 of all frag grenades doing no damage whatsoever.
This is an incredibly good piece of armor compared to modern armor if this level of effectiveness is intended-- and it is not counteracted by other pieces of fluff, so I do believe it is.
Another note.
Warhammer 40K plasma reactors explicitly tap into the warp, which is known to be a power source. No such external source exists for Star Trek, nor is it ever mentioned. Nor does it have to be assumed, since the observed effects can be readily explained by matter-antimatter reactions.
In the end, you can NOT disprove observed effects by talking about how realistic they are. By that logic,Ii could throw out pretty much all of sci-fi - but by suspension of disbelief, i have to accept that an observed effect is possible in that specific sci-fi universe.
Lets take the lasgun. 13MJ of energy hits the target so the initial enrgy to create that shot will be higher. How many shots does a lasgun pack hold? One of the facts proffered is that such a powerpack can be recharged in a wood fire. How much energy does a fire give off? I bet you that it doesn't even reach enough to make one shot let alone recharge an entire powerpack.
Let's do a calculation. Take a large fire and several hours (at least 8.). Place the object (about as large as a modern rifle magazine, but a cube) into the hottest place of the fire. Calculate the energy put into the power pack.
Note that this does not necessarily recharge the power-pack fully.
Grey Templar wrote:The theorized power output of fusion is massive, but the actual output isn't fully known as we have never made a real one that has a sustained reaction.
The theorized power output of fusion is only massive compared to our current levels of power generation. Fusion is markedly inferior when compared to other theoretical processes such as antimatter/matter drives and singularity engines.
@Grey Templar / Ivan: With all due respect: Even if the IoM fusion process were somehow more efficient to generate a greater quantity of energy from each reaction, no matter what fuel is used, the base system still involves smashing two atoms together into a larger one. One might expect that due to the nature of the process, a probable fuel would have a the low atomic weight (in order to have the most atoms to fuse), just like how Fission uses atoms with a high atomic weight to smash into smaller atoms. The sun uses H, which is an abundant and naturally occuring element with -you guessed it- the number 1 spot in the peroidic table meaning that it has the lowest atomic weight of all known elements. Considering that the sun uses a staggering amount of fuel (by weight - this means that more reactions are generated by weight than if other fuel was substituted), absent any "magic" (read WARP) interactions, all calcs for IoM reactor outputs are complete bull-pucky.
Grey Templar wrote:The theorized power output of fusion is massive, but the actual output isn't fully known as we have never made a real one that has a sustained reaction.
The theorized power output of fusion is only massive compared to our current levels of power generation. Fusion is markedly inferior when compared to other theoretical processes such as antimatter/matter drives and singularity engines.
@Grey Templar / Ivan: With all due respect: Even if the IoM fusion process were somehow more efficient to generate a greater quantity of energy from each reaction, no matter what fuel is used, the base system still involves smashing two atoms together into a larger one. One might expect that due to the nature of the process, a probable fuel would have a the low atomic weight (in order to have the most atoms to fuse), just like how Fission uses atoms with a high atomic weight to smash into smaller atoms. The sun uses H, which is an abundant and naturally occuring element with -you guessed it- the number 1 spot in the peroidic table meaning that it has the lowest atomic weight of all known elements. Considering that the sun uses a staggering amount of fuel (by weight - this means that more reactions are generated by weight than if other fuel was substituted), absent any "magic" (read WARP) interactions, all calcs for IoM reactor outputs are complete bull-pucky.
They're not considering the use of warp(that's not any magic,but technology).
The reactors aboard ships, titans etc. are called plasma reactors, NOT fusion reactors. Just because something involves plasma, it does not have to be fusion. We also know that they effectively draw energy from the warp - therefore, no fuel consumption has to be necessary.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here are some Imperial combat speeds.
Page 893/894 of the Saint Omnibus, by Dan Abnett.
“They did not slow down. They were moving at cruise speed. Attack Speed.”
“Four Ships, one of them very large. And they were moving. Point seven five light at least, cutting straight toward Herodor ”
A Frigate crossed 9 AU in about 93 Minutes, from geostationary orbit. It is also mentioned a few pages later that there were no visuals and that it was a “striated blur” all navigation etc was done by sensors.
Okay, the fusion reactors seems to have come from my side of the fence, but the argument that plasma reactors are fueled by warp energy seems a ... grasping.
Since all the authors seem to be 'english' speakers by birth normal convention would be ingrained into them. An engine is described primarily by what powers it. Petrol, diesel, electric, steam etc. By convention the authors are stating it is a plasma reactor, not a warp reactor. It is fueled using plasma.
The Stormtrooper, the elite shock troopers of the Galactic Empire, the right hand of the Emperor himself; trained in a gravity well that could crush the average human, these bad boys of the Empire are the toughest, meanest and most zealously loyal troops in the Imperial military. Numbering in the trillions and carrying the deadliest weapons into battle, the Stormtrooper Corps is the furled fist of the Empire, coiled and ready to sucker punch the Galaxy in her Ovaries.
Yet despite their unit-for-unit reliability, detractors continue to lambaste the performance of the overall Corps for one distinct reason known by all as the Teddy Bear incident™. The Battle of Endor proved to be a disaster for the Empire, which despite only a limited loss in material and manpower sparked an internal power struggle that came close to toppling the regime only until recently. Yet despite her continued perseverance, despite the countless successful engagements and occupations; the storming of Hoth, the capture of the Tantive IV and the occupation of a Galaxy over 120,000 light years in diameter, the Stormtrooper Corps will never live down the single blemish known colloquially by cynics and fans alike as “That bit with the Teddy Bears”. In fact the overall incident came to be known as the Stormtrooper effect, also called Stormtrooper syndrome, an expression used to describe the cliché phenomenon in works of fiction of minor cannon fodder characters being completely ineffective in combat against characters important to the plot (protagonists). This ineffectiveness is typically visible as an inability to successfully strike the target with ranged weapons, even at close range. Though obviously unrealistic, the effect is common in many stories and movies.
Ultimately this leads us to narrow down the phenomenon to only a few select properties:
A) Are Stormtroopers incompetent? No, they’ve repeatedly demonstrated their title as elite shock troopers.
B) Are Stormtroopers well equipped/trained? Of course, they receive the best possible training/equipment available to a military unit several trillion strong.
C) Are Stormtroopers human? Mostly, thus the mistakes that they make are dependent on naturally occurring flaws, despite their intensive training.
During the Endor battle, the most likely reason for their loss is simple overconfidence. Outside the bunker, they were felled by simple plain old Jane overconfidence, no tricks or techno babble, they were simply destroyed by their underestimation of enemy strength. Their light armament reveals deplorable overconfidence (The scout troopers had handguns, the Stormtroopers had carbines, and they didn’t bother carrying any of the heavy weapons we saw in previous films), so it’s really no surprise that they were so easily ambushed and overwhelmed when a third of their military forces were armed with nothing more than Pistols.
But before we leap to the conclusion that such foolishness is impossible in the Emperor’s “finest troops”, I would urge readers to study the example of the US Army’s elite Rangers, S.E.A.L., and Delta Force commandos in Somalia. Think back to 1993, the 1980’s was long gone, Jurassic Park had just been released and the Berlin wall saw some new and interesting renovations; the world was a better place for it. Yet during a disastrous mission in which two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down, U.S. Special Forces units demonstrated exactly the kind of overconfidence that bought disaster to Endor. They arrogantly performed what should have been a night operation in broad daylight, and they didn’t bother bringing any “unnecessary” dead weight, such as water canteens, bayonets, or night-sight equipment. Some of them even removed the armour plates from their flak jackets, so they would be more comfortable in the heat. Worse yet, mission security was horrendous; Somali staff at the U.S. Embassy easily discovered the time and place of the mission, and forwarded this information to Somali militia. The entire mission was a mess long before Delta Force could pick the Camel turds from their boots.
Unfortunately for those men lost in the fray of poor military planning, the problems didn’t even stop there; they had no heavy reinforcements or armour in case of serious resistance, and they only had one rescue team, which became a huge problem when not one, but two choppers went down. They couldn’t even co-ordinate their activities; the Rangers and Delta Force commandos continuously butted heads over tactics and chain of command, and an Orion spy plane wasn’t permitted to give direct instructions to the men on the ground even though it was the only platform with a clear view of what was happening. The litany of mistakes continued with the rescue convoys, which literally got lost and ambushed en route to the crash site because of unfamiliarity with the city streets and poor direction from the helicopters above. In the confusion, the Americans fired on anyone with a gun, and then anyone who was around someone with a gun, and eventually, at anything that moved, thus causing thousands of civilian casualties. A simple mission to kidnap two men turned into a chaotic twelve hour firefight, in which nearly a hundred American soldiers were killed or wounded. If this were a fictional war story, it would have been lambasted for being hopelessly unrealistic. People would say “no real soldiers would be so incompetent”. But these men were not incompetent; they were overconfident and inadequately prepared. They demonstrated to the world (At least, the part of the world that reads books instead of getting all their information from action movies) that even the best trained, best equipped soldiers can still can be stymied by poor preparation and the inherent difficulties of combat in difficult and unfamiliar terrain.
Likewise the forces at Endor were deployed in an effort to ambush Rebel forces attempting to seize the bunker facility. They did not anticipate that the native inhabitants (Who up until that point appeared to be Neolithic mammals of little intelligence) could possibly deploy traps ahead of time, they could not even fathom that Rebel Commandos would work in conjunction with said primitives and at no point would it have been practical to employ planetary suppression forces for a relatively simple ambush. Thus they were greatly outnumbered, underequipped, unprepared and were being ensnared by an enemy who knew the terrain intimately, utilized this knowledge to great effect and garnered assistance from heavily armed Commando units. In retrospect we should be even more impressed by the fact that the heavily outnumbered and surrounded Imperial forces managed to go on the offensive and rout the enemy until one of their support vehicles was hijacked by a famous Wookie veteran.
Callously, history only ever recalls our greatest failures, but should we chastise the entire Roman Military for their losses at Teutoburg? Should U.S. Special Forces be held accountable for time immemorial for the failure in Somalia? Likewise should the reputation of the Stormtrooper Corps, an organization composed of billions of men, be tarnished due to the overconfidence of a vastly small minority?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Golden Sabres wrote:We need to remember though, a 13 megajoule laser is ap - in the 40k universe...
What about 19 Megathule range?It seems like a corrupted version of Megajoule.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote:you can't pit the entire ST universe vs the IoM.
2 reasons
1) the different ST factions would never unite. and assuming they did they wouldn't support each other very well. little to no cordination of forces, "failing" to come to the others aid( , we had to, um, refuel the fleet. sorry the 3rd fleet and those star systems got boned )
2) the IoM is 1, very diverse, faction so no fair using multiple factions.
Not to mention that they suck on space and on ground.
In Somalia the Rangers were outnumbered 5000-1. On Endor I think The stormtroopers actually outnumbered the teddy bears. So I don't think that really explains it.
@Ivan: GW publications appear to use the terms interchangably. They describe plasma reactors as "fusion based". Ergo, even if they aren't fusion reactors - (which the term "fusion based" seems to imply) they at least have some fusion component. While I don't have the books to verify, this seems to suggest that plasma/fusion is interchangable in GW canon.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy wrote:Every Imperial starship is equipped with a fusion-based plasma drive for normal propulsion through the depths of space. Running up to a third of the ship's length, the aft section is a mass of drive tubes, engine compartments and plasma reactors.
Torpedoes are long-range missiles carried by many Imperial Navy vessels. From ~60 feet (on destroyers) to ~200 feet (on cruisers) to ~300 feet (on battleships) in length, these weapons are powered by a fusion-based plasma reactor which also doubles as its warhead.
I will stand by my statement that IoM plasma reactors are MAGIC per Clarke's Third Law. GW publications make no attempts to explain how any of it works. This is compounded by standardized misuse of actual scientific terms by the GW writers - e.g. gauss rifles that have nothing to do with gauss technology.
IvanTih wrote:Let's do a calculation. Take a large fire and several hours (at least 8.). Place the object (about as large as a modern rifle magazine, but a cube) into the hottest place of the fire. Calculate the energy put into the power pack.
Note that this does not necessarily recharge the power-pack fully.
I am completely speechless.
1kg of a hardwood completely converted to energy, does actually provide enough power (for one shot )
However, from what I could find, (and understand) an open fire is not that efficient. 70% seemed to be the top figure I could find. eg charcoal fires, cremation bonfires.
Then of course there would be the efficiency of transfer of energy against lost/radiated energy. But yes a lasgun pack could be recharged from a fire.
keezus wrote:@Ivan: GW publications appear to use the terms interchangably. They describe plasma reactors as "fusion based". Ergo, even if they aren't fusion reactors - (which the term "fusion based" seems to imply) they at least have some fusion component. While I don't have the books to verify, this seems to suggest that plasma/fusion is interchangable in GW canon.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy wrote:Every Imperial starship is equipped with a fusion-based plasma drive for normal propulsion through the depths of space. Running up to a third of the ship's length, the aft section is a mass of drive tubes, engine compartments and plasma reactors.
Torpedoes are long-range missiles carried by many Imperial Navy vessels. From ~60 feet (on destroyers) to ~200 feet (on cruisers) to ~300 feet (on battleships) in length, these weapons are powered by a fusion-based plasma reactor which also doubles as its warhead.
I will stand by my statement that IoM plasma reactors are MAGIC per Clarke's Third Law. GW publications make no attempts to explain how any of it works. This is compounded by standardized misuse of actual scientific terms by the GW writers - e.g. gauss rifles that have nothing to do with gauss technology.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote:Has anyone mentioned The Culture?
Indeed they have.
They also mentioned the ensuing bootstomp.
That's all right then.
It's nice to know that people understand there are some things the Isle of Man wouldn't stand a rat in Hell's chance against.
The whole lasgun pack thing is a perfect example of the GW writer's "it's cool - so I'll write it" mentality. So while AndrewC has shown that energy from an ongoing fire CAN generate equivalence to a lasgun bolt we have the following problems:
1. To maximize energy transfer, we need a highly localized, (preferably lasgun pack sized), continuous, intense fire. Unfortunately, fires aren't usually that localized, nor are they that continuous, due to consumable fuel - suggesting a less than optimum charging situation, lowering efficiency. S'ok though. We'll assume an ideal fire.
2. A fire generates energy mostly through HEAT and LIGHT. Considering that a lasgun pack doesn't seem to have any light capturing properties, we'll have to go with HEAT transfer as the primary mode of recharge. This means the process is less than 100% efficient as energy from light is lost... S'ok though... we'll assume that the amount of light energy is negligible.
3. As we've established that the lasgun pack recharges through heat transfer - this clearly happens through the entire surface area of the pack as having it perform heat transfer over a portion would lower efficiency. For sake of arguement, we will assume that the lasgun pack can not be damaged by the heat generated through this process. We'll also assume that the shell contains all necessary components for lossless conversion of heat energy (though no "scrubbing" of the power seems to take place, as this dirty power damages the capacitors), as to assume otherwise would also lower efficiency by a significant amount.
Unfortunately, the process is probably taking significant hits at each stage of the above list, meaning that the actual amount of energy being generated would probably be a small percentage of the ideal case... But over time, it will recharge. There's no instances of Guardsmen throwing their packs into a fire, and then using them hours later (or possibly even less) is there? Oh wait...!
keezus wrote:@Ivan: GW publications appear to use the terms interchangably. They describe plasma reactors as "fusion based". Ergo, even if they aren't fusion reactors - (which the term "fusion based" seems to imply) they at least have some fusion component. While I don't have the books to verify, this seems to suggest that plasma/fusion is interchangable in GW canon.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy wrote:Every Imperial starship is equipped with a fusion-based plasma drive for normal propulsion through the depths of space. Running up to a third of the ship's length, the aft section is a mass of drive tubes, engine compartments and plasma reactors.
Torpedoes are long-range missiles carried by many Imperial Navy vessels. From ~60 feet (on destroyers) to ~200 feet (on cruisers) to ~300 feet (on battleships) in length, these weapons are powered by a fusion-based plasma reactor which also doubles as its warhead.
I will stand by my statement that IoM plasma reactors are MAGIC per Clarke's Third Law. GW publications make no attempts to explain how any of it works. This is compounded by standardized misuse of actual scientific terms by the GW writers - e.g. gauss rifles that have nothing to do with gauss technology.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote:Has anyone mentioned The Culture?
Indeed they have.
They also mentioned the ensuing bootstomp.
That's all right then.
It's nice to know that people understand there are some things the Isle of Man wouldn't stand a rat in Hell's chance against.
keezus wrote:@Ivan: GW publications appear to use the terms interchangably. They describe plasma reactors as "fusion based". Ergo, even if they aren't fusion reactors - (which the term "fusion based" seems to imply) they at least have some fusion component. While I don't have the books to verify, this seems to suggest that plasma/fusion is interchangable in GW canon.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy wrote:Every Imperial starship is equipped with a fusion-based plasma drive for normal propulsion through the depths of space. Running up to a third of the ship's length, the aft section is a mass of drive tubes, engine compartments and plasma reactors.
Torpedoes are long-range missiles carried by many Imperial Navy vessels. From ~60 feet (on destroyers) to ~200 feet (on cruisers) to ~300 feet (on battleships) in length, these weapons are powered by a fusion-based plasma reactor which also doubles as its warhead.
I will stand by my statement that IoM plasma reactors are MAGIC per Clarke's Third Law. GW publications make no attempts to explain how any of it works. This is compounded by standardized misuse of actual scientific terms by the GW writers - e.g. gauss rifles that have nothing to do with gauss technology.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote:Has anyone mentioned The Culture?
Indeed they have.
They also mentioned the ensuing bootstomp.
That's all right then.
It's nice to know that people understand there are some things the Isle of Man wouldn't stand a rat in Hell's chance against.
IOM loses against Galactic Empire from Star Wars.
@AndrewC/keezus
You:Claim that these limits therefore apply to 40K-technology. Ignores all possible way they could circumvent those.
Claim that the observed feats of 40K are therefore impossible. Doesn't work, technological conjecture does not override observation.
These power generation feats are consistent with Cyrene crust melting and Caves of Ice bombardment.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Nemesis describing the armaments of the Vengeful Spirit as "torpedo arrays filled with warshots capable of atomising continents in single strikes, energy cannon capable of boiling off oceans", to take the nearest book to hand.
So power feats are meshing good.
IvanTih wrote:@AndrewC/keezus
You:Claim that these limits therefore apply to 40K-technology. Ignores all possible way they could circumvent those.
Please. Enlighten me on how they circumvent these "imposed limits". Actual processes please, and not some "advanced technology" argument.
All I've stating is that given the limits of fusion technology, IoM reactors can NOT be completely reliant on fusion as a process. As long as you can't produce any counterargument as to how the "demonstrated yields" are achieved - I stand by my statement that the IoM plasma reactors are magic.
IvanTih wrote:@AndrewC/keezus
You:Claim that these limits therefore apply to 40K-technology. Ignores all possible way they could circumvent those.
Please. Enlighten me on how they circumvent these "imposed limits". Actual processes please, and not some "advanced technology" argument.
All I've stating is that given the limits of fusion technology, IoM reactors can NOT be completely reliant on fusion as a process. As long as you can't produce any counterargument as to how the "demonstrated yields" are achieved - I stand by my statement that the IoM plasma reactors are magic.
Then we have an agreement.I have misunderstood you.
Basically a lot of Imperial tech shows middle finger to the science,again we have warp.
IvanTih wrote:energy cannon capable of boiling off oceans", to take the nearest book to hand.
Please. The energy needed for this "power feat" as you state - using figures from your posted "EXTERMINATUS" thread put the total energy needed is on the magnitude of the energy produced by the sun per second - even if it took a sustained 6 hours to achieve this, this would put the gun's output at 0.001% solar outputs / second - or around 100x the total power annual generation of Earth, circa 2005.
Considering that this gun, and other weapons are all powered off the weapon systems grid (ships systems stated as separate power grid), unless the reactors are MAGIC, the fuel expenditures should be enormous, considering that the most efficient known reaction: antimatter/matter would need 3x10e^10kg (1.5x10e^10 of each type) of reagents to generate the same energy output (assuming 100% efficiency).
IvanTih wrote:energy cannon capable of boiling off oceans", to take the nearest book to hand.
Please. The energy needed for this "power feat" as you state - using figures from your posted "EXTERMINATUS" thread put the total energy needed is on the magnitude of the energy produced by the sun per second - even if it took a sustained 6 hours to achieve this, this would put the gun's output at 0.001% solar outputs / second - or around 100x the total power annual generation of Earth, circa 2005.
Considering that this gun, and other weapons are all powered off the weapon systems grid (ships systems stated as separate power grid), unless the reactors are MAGIC, the fuel expenditures should be enormous, considering that the most efficient known reaction: antimatter/matter would need 3x10e^10kg (1.5x10e^10 of each type) of reagents to generate the same energy output (assuming 100% efficiency).
You've read the analysis,the guy posted the evidence and calcs.
We know that Plasma reactors can't rely on fusion(there are references on warp plasma somewhere).
IvanTih wrote:Then we have an agreement.I have misunderstood you.
The only agreement is with respect to the stated yields based on effect.
I have a huge problem when anyone tries to justify these huge yields by falling back on the "advanced technology" argument. Given that the writers have given the "middle finger" to physics as you state - no limits have been stated, and any suggested limits can not be proven or dis-proven. As such, in my view,it is all inadmissible as supporting evidence. Putting the onus on other posters to provide a proof of the unprovable belittles the intelligence of the other debaters and is usually the last resort of the uneducated. You are better than this.
-edit-
This cuts both ways. All that gak about how ST couldn't improve the yields of their torpedoes? Maybe they can... through the miracle of ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY.
Golden Sabres wrote:We need to remember though, a 13 megajoule laser is ap - in the 40k universe...
What about 19 Megathule range?It seems like a corrupted version of Megajoule.
Yeah it does actually... woah. Thats on par with a... Nuclear Reactor (Energy produced every second) ... omg. Ok, so these guys are running around with something that is on par with the main turret of a main battle tank.
IvanTih wrote:Then we have an agreement.I have misunderstood you.
The only agreement is with respect to the stated yields based on effect.
I have a huge problem when anyone tries to justify these huge yields by falling back on the "advanced technology" argument. Given that the writers have given the "middle finger" to physics as you state - no limits have been stated, and any suggested limits can not be proven or dis-proven. As such, in my view,it is all inadmissible as supporting evidence. Putting the onus on other posters to provide a proof of the unprovable belittles the intelligence of the other debaters and is usually the last resort of the uneducated. You are better than this.
There's an official yield from Space Hulk 610 gigaton Hellfire torpedo.That's from 1st edition of Space Hulk.
I know,but Connor took a lot of 40k material and calced it.
Ask the Connor if you want to solve the issue.
Oh, there are calcs alright... it just turns all to crap soup as soon as you start to put all the different yields together. The differing weapon systems on an Imperial Cruiser are evidence of this, considering that they're ALL designed to battle ships of similar class, but have yields MAGNITUDES apart - like massed ordinance being at GT level (meaning that the individual guns are probably at low GT/high MT) and main guns being at TT level.
And don't even start with that cumulative damage crap. You can shoot a tank all day long with an AK47 but cumulative damage isn't going to do GAK to it.
keezus wrote:Oh, there are calcs alright... it just turns all to crap soup as soon as you start to put all the different yields together. The differing weapon systems on an Imperial Cruiser are evidence of this, considering that they're ALL designed to battle ships of similar class, but have yields MAGNITUDES apart - like massed ordinance being at GT level (meaning that the individual guns are probably at low GT/high MT) and main guns being at TT level.
And don't even start with that cumulative damage crap. You can shoot a tank all day long with an AK47 but cumulative damage isn't going to do GAK to it.
I asked Connor himself and he said that the evidence is the problem.To quote him.
The calcs themselves? Well that depends on whether you're asking me for what I think, or what the evidence can show. My belief leans towards 40K being around SW level of firepower (which IMHO means petaton range) based on my own analysis, but that isnt the same as what it COULD be. In theory you could argue 40K firepower as gigaton range teraton range, or petaton range. Hell you probably could go higher (I never really cared to bother trying to work it higher than somewhere in petaton range.. that's insanely high enough for 40K.) Most people I know tend to settle just for teraton range at that so for whatever common opinion is worth.
Anyhow, the evidence itself has enough leeway for the possibility of lower yields, and anyone making firepower claims is well advised to keep that in mind when debating (The same should be true with Star wars firepower. Far too many people mindlessly just assume a certain firepower level without actually digging, even though there's still a fair bit of variation and problems associated there. The ICS did not "fix" everything, or hell even most things.)
keezus wrote:Considering that a lasgun pack doesn't seem to have any light capturing properties
What?
The primary method of recharging a laspack in the field is through exposing it to sunlight. It absorbs both heat and light energy. Secondary is by charging it inside of a Chimera, I believe (it can be hooked up to any electrical outlet and charged up that way). Recharging it via fire is a risky and ill-advised maneuver.
I cant quite see the arguement about how such weapions work. this discussion is about how SW would or would not defeat IOM regardless of how BS weapions behave
Yes, and hush about the Feds from ST now, we all know that IoM would win even if ST ships could empty their bays and one shot an imperial ship, and were 100% untouchable by using technobabble. The IoM could (and would!) suicide banzai charge crusiers and battleships INTO the fed worlds untill they were all ashes. Just by weight of numbers and stupid huge firepower.
In my opinion, ST would win against 40K, if only because of godmode races like the Q. LOL I thought you were gone and *BAMF* you were! GG GG
SW is the only universe that is near the IoM in power, (that is, to way WAY WAAAAY above it, but not on par with ST either) but I am 100% certain that if their places were switched, the SW universe woulden't last a week against CSM, 'Nids, and Orks. A single WAAAAGH could ruin them. JUST ONE. On the other hand, the IoM would have a jolly old time with some new xenos to purge, without having to deal with chaos. They just arnt very militarized, with something like 20 stormtroopers per planet.
Probably has been mentioned already, but a full strength Dalek Empire would tear the Imperium a new one. Mastery of time travel, hundreds of thousands of soldiers that rival Space Marines in terms of sheer brokeness, the universe destroying Reality Bomb, the fact that the Daleks could easily go to before the Emperor was even born and slaughter the entire population of Earth...
And if you were to make it a galaxy vs galaxy match... The Doctor Who universe has being who can MAKE universes. I think the winner is clear.
Here's a thought: How well would the Shrike (From the Hyperion Cantos) do if it was plopped right into the 40K galaxy?
Monster Rain wrote:
Necroman wrote:And Star Trek's "omnipotents" are overrated.
Q can own anything except something that can also completely alter reality to the same level he can.
Which there's plenty of in Doctor Who.
See: Omega, the Guardians, the Celestial Toymaker, the Timelord empire and their TARDIS's...
Monster Rain wrote:I think the Daleks would even have a hard time with him, considering he could just change how physics works and make all of their equipment break.
Well, the Daleks probably would have a hard time with him, but that's just because they're a tech based empire.
Doctor Who's one of the more ridiculously broken Sci-fi verses anyway. The only one I can think of that might be above it is the Cultureverse.
I thought that we had already discussed this. If a race can time travel, theres no point in arguing for them. they could just go back in time and destroy there home planet before they even evolved. there is no point in discussing them
Necroman wrote:Probably has been mentioned already, but a full strength Dalek Empire would tear the Imperium a new one. Mastery of time travel, hundreds of thousands of soldiers that rival Space Marines in terms of sheer brokeness, the universe destroying Reality Bomb, the fact that the Daleks could easily go to before the Emperor was even born and slaughter the entire population of Earth...
And if you were to make it a galaxy vs galaxy match... The Doctor Who universe has being who can MAKE universes. I think the winner is clear.
And Star Trek's "omnipotents" are overrated.
and we agreed earlier that any race capable of time travel is out because time travel is cheating.
Time Travel is impossable because if the Dalek traveled back in time to erase the IoM from existing then they wouldn't have needed to travel back in time to erase them. Therefore the IoM exists.
Flak armor is NOT terrible by any means. It's infinitely superior to anything we have in the modern world, and extremely light to boot (an entire suit of Guard flak armor, protecting almost the entire body, weighs far less than merely the chest piece of the best modern armor available).
The problem is that tabletop is an MEQ-oriented game.
And how many body armours besides kevlar from late sixties do you actually know?
I was comparing it to the Improved Outer Tactical Vest used by the US Army and Marines Corps.
edit: Some notes:
The IOTV body armor vest used by the US Army weighs about 30-35 depending on which version. The MTV body armor vest used by the Marine Corps weighs about thirty pounds. These do not include the weight of the helmets used, or any other equipment or clothing.
A full set of Guard Flak Armor (gauntlet, helmet, chest/stomach/back armor, greaves, boots, pauldrons) weighs 11 kilograms, or 24 pounds. This doesn't include clothing. Flak armor is INCREDIBLY light for the amount of protection it gives, which is enough to stop most modern weapons from penetrating and doing any real damage more often than not.
edit2: More stuff on Flak Armor:
In the Dark Heresy system, Guard Flak Armor provides 4 armor value across the entire body. This combined with the average Human's toughness bonus of 3 (humans commonly have 25-35 toughness in the setting) and average total wounds of 10-12 means that with Guard Flak Armor, most characters can resist multiple direct hits from lasguns/autoguns without serious injury.
Lasguns/autoguns do 1d10+3 damage. So 4-13. The armor and toughness reduce this by seven to 0-6 damage (with four chances to roll zero out of ten) barring a lucky shot. Stub weapons (the equivalent of modern weaponry) do typically one less damage except for "hand cannons", IE, magnum weapons, and "hunting rifles", IE bolt action rifles.
And against anything which is a blast, such as a frag grenade, this is increased to armor value 5-- so a frag grenade does 0-5 damage, with 1/2 of all frag grenades doing no damage whatsoever.
This is an incredibly good piece of armor compared to modern armor if this level of effectiveness is intended-- and it is not counteracted by other pieces of fluff, so I do believe it is.
Sorry, but you have not answered my question in your 6 paragraphs.
Briefly and on topic - my limited knowledge goes on something like this:
If we will stay around the kevlar - more modern versions, even experimental exist, like GF microcomposites or added PE fibres(and so on and so on- I am not an expert) - and this stuff is from nineties. So it could actually mean nothing now.
If we will stay around your "expertise" of modern USS marine armour have you at least considered that it covers MORE % of body than guardsman flak armour? Simply said it is larger - so it could actually weigh more.
If we will stay around your "damage" math have you heard about 101 bullet test? It was commercial test so information could not be too hard to find - and you mentionned hunting rifles and magnum weapons so you could check it out. And no love for .50 caliber?
And btw you cannot be really serious about d6 math. It goes something like this : weeeell average human has S3 so non average space marine will be S4 - its fun but where is logic in this? What is average strenght? When someone benchpresses 80 kilos? But there are people who can press 150 pretty easily. As they are even those who press over 300 killos without problems. And mankind should have evolved a bit. So average space marine benchpresses 375 kilos while 80 kilos benchpressing human represents S 0,85?
Whole idea around flak armour is to create easily produced (thanks to sufficient raw materials), manufactured(simplicity) and transported(weigh). Mass production = many, many, MANY guardsman covered. I would not be so fast to underestimate our prototypes - yes they are nearly impossible to produce en masse - but are they strictly worse?
From this point I think comes weaknes of the IOM - supplying. But as some mentionned guirella war - easier to be said than done. Yes you could successfully make several raids without any significant response from the IOM. But IOM can afford losses, sooner or later direct confrontation will be imminent...and then another and another...My point is that actually to be more advanced is not enough. You need someone who is prepared to wage centuries - if not millenias of conflict wihout pause. Then you have found a match for IOM.
Btw Melissia I am not trying to annoy you or confront you in any manner, but to make a solid statement you need more than few undirect sentences without synergy. Power of statement comes from solid sources. And source can be solid either by importance of an author or by mere existing quantity.
Necroman wrote:Probably has been mentioned already, but a full strength Dalek Empire would tear the Imperium a new one. Mastery of time travel, hundreds of thousands of soldiers that rival Space Marines in terms of sheer brokeness, the universe destroying Reality Bomb, the fact that the Daleks could easily go to before the Emperor was even born and slaughter the entire population of Earth...
And if you were to make it a galaxy vs galaxy match... The Doctor Who universe has being who can MAKE universes. I think the winner is clear.
And Star Trek's "omnipotents" are overrated.
and we agreed earlier that any race capable of time travel is out because time travel is cheating.
Time Travel is impossable because if the Dalek traveled back in time to erase the IoM from existing then they wouldn't have needed to travel back in time to erase them. Therefore the IoM exists.
Necroman wrote:Probably has been mentioned already, but a full strength Dalek Empire would tear the Imperium a new one. Mastery of time travel, hundreds of thousands of soldiers that rival Space Marines in terms of sheer brokeness, the universe destroying Reality Bomb, the fact that the Daleks could easily go to before the Emperor was even born and slaughter the entire population of Earth...
And if you were to make it a galaxy vs galaxy match... The Doctor Who universe has being who can MAKE universes. I think the winner is clear.
And Star Trek's "omnipotents" are overrated.
and we agreed earlier that any race capable of time travel is out because time travel is cheating.
Time Travel is impossable because if the Dalek traveled back in time to erase the IoM from existing then they wouldn't have needed to travel back in time to erase them. Therefore the IoM exists.
exactly
I agree,not to mention that they have weapons that crack planets like eggs.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Jolarel
Supply lines can be problem that's why the Imperial Guard are designed to operate better as possible without them.
Tau on the other hand are highly reliant of them.
alexwars1 wrote:Have we discussed the Combine yet, or am I late to the party?
Regardless, I like to imagine the Combine waging a sort of "guerilla" war on the Imperium. Popping in from another dimension, providing a more friendly enviroment for Imperial citizens to live in, and stealing all the water before buggering off to another dimension.
In open combat, I can safely say that the Combine would lose. What has been seen of their weapons have been a few laser weapons and some shell throwers. That said, whatching a strider go toe-to-toe with a wraithlord would be awesome.
That wouldn't work you see we have Inquisitors,then we have psykers who will notice what's wrong.
...wut?
It takes a long time for messages to be sent in the Imperium, and even longer for actual orders to be given, and ships dispatched. The Combine would probably have invaded, won, nicked all the organic matter, fought off a crowbar wielding techpriest and disapeared by the time Inquisitor Awesome McCoolname finished his Exterminatus requisition order or even found out unless he was already stationed there.
alexwars1 wrote:Have we discussed the Combine yet, or am I late to the party?
Regardless, I like to imagine the Combine waging a sort of "guerilla" war on the Imperium. Popping in from another dimension, providing a more friendly enviroment for Imperial citizens to live in, and stealing all the water before buggering off to another dimension.
In open combat, I can safely say that the Combine would lose. What has been seen of their weapons have been a few laser weapons and some shell throwers. That said, whatching a strider go toe-to-toe with a wraithlord would be awesome.
That wouldn't work you see we have Inquisitors,then we have psykers who will notice what's wrong.
...wut?
It takes a long time for messages to be sent in the Imperium, and even longer for actual orders to be given, and ships dispatched. The Combine would probably have invaded, won, nicked all the organic matter, fought off a crowbar wielding techpriest and disapeared by the time Inquisitor Awesome McCoolname finished his Exterminatus requisition order or even found out unless he was already stationed there.
It doesn't take long time to send them.
Problem is the time dilation because of the warp(FTL speed,not communication).
Still Warp drive can cross 10k ly in 10-40 days.
Planets have PDFs.
Necroman wrote:Probably has been mentioned already, but a full strength Dalek Empire would tear the Imperium a new one. Mastery of time travel, hundreds of thousands of soldiers that rival Space Marines in terms of sheer brokeness, the universe destroying Reality Bomb, the fact that the Daleks could easily go to before the Emperor was even born and slaughter the entire population of Earth...
And if you were to make it a galaxy vs galaxy match... The Doctor Who universe has being who can MAKE universes. I think the winner is clear.
And Star Trek's "omnipotents" are overrated.
and we agreed earlier that any race capable of time travel is out because time travel is cheating.
Time Travel is impossable because if the Dalek traveled back in time to erase the IoM from existing then they wouldn't have needed to travel back in time to erase them. Therefore the IoM exists.
exactly
I agree,not to mention that they have weapons that crack planets like eggs.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Jolarel
Supply lines can be problem that's why the Imperial Guard are designed to operate better as possible without them.
Tau on the other hand are highly reliant of them.
LOL the first thing that can to mind was a planet crackin in half with a gaint chicken noice.
IvanTih wrote:Nemesis describing the armaments of the Vengeful Spirit as "torpedo arrays filled with warshots capable of atomising continents in single strikes, energy cannon capable of boiling off oceans", to take the nearest book to hand.
So power feats are meshing good.
Ivan,
Now I'm even more confused.
Are you saying that in Nemesis the description of the weapons were as above, and that when destroyed the ensuing explosion was a lot smaller? ergo the weapons don't have those yeilds?
Cheers
Andrew
I'm amazed, 20 pages and no Mod warnings.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sniperjolly wrote:Yes, and hush about the Feds from ST now, we all know that IoM would win even if ST ships could empty their bays and one shot an imperial ship, and were 100% untouchable by using technobabble. The IoM could (and would!) suicide banzai charge crusiers and battleships INTO the fed worlds untill they were all ashes. Just by weight of numbers and stupid huge firepower.
Don't start. I think that this topic has finally moved to something the is bothering the likes of Keezus and myself. What is the standard of evidence required in order to make such claims.
And I don't think anyone here would agree with your thought that IoM would deliberately crash a cruiser/battleship into a world. Afterall such a tactic would effectively stop the 'nids from invading. And they haven't done that, have they?
Necroman wrote:And Star Trek's "omnipotents" are overrated.
Q can own anything except something that can also completely alter reality to the same level he can.
I think the Daleks would even have a hard time with him, considering he could just change how physics works and make all of their equipment break.
Or turn their weaponry into bananas. He's "different" like that.
Just from STOS:
Organians
the "family" of energy buildings that built planets for fun
The energy beings (notice a trend) that stopped the Enterprise and the Organians.
Any refernece for this "Culture" sounds interesting to read.
There are nine "Culture" novels so far, in case you get hooked on them, and he has written several non-Culture SF books and a number of conventional novels too.
Grey Templar wrote:and we agreed earlier that any race capable of time travel is out because time travel is cheating.
Time Travel is impossable because if the Dalek traveled back in time to erase the IoM from existing then they wouldn't have needed to travel back in time to erase them. Therefore the IoM exists.
The Daleks don't need time travel to win.
They already have a weapon that rips apart every atom in the universe. I'd say that's enough.
The Reapers from the "Mass effect" universe. An entire race consisting of 10s (hundreds?) of thousands of sentient battleships.
Each ship seens to have a latent psychic ability to subvert other sentient creatures to their will that continues to broadcast even after they have been technically dead for thousands of years.
They have the ability to convert their slaves, or anyone who is subsiquently killed by those slaves, into fearless bio-mechanical footsoldiers. A single major hiveworld attacked has billions of potential converts.
Now granted we dont know how 1 surly marine and his gang of outcasts are going to win this one, but thinking of say Soverign from ME1 I would be worried about that invasion
IvanTih wrote:Nemesis describing the armaments of the Vengeful Spirit as "torpedo arrays filled with warshots capable of atomising continents in single strikes, energy cannon capable of boiling off oceans", to take the nearest book to hand.
So power feats are meshing good.
Are you saying that in Nemesis the description of the weapons were as above, and that when destroyed the ensuing explosion was a lot smaller? ergo the weapons don't have those yeilds?
Actually, now that you point it out, the power feats are not meshing good, considering that according to that description torpedos are now (much) more powerful than the energy cannons. Ignoring the atomising part intially (as it involves shearing all molecular bonds into composite components after vaporisation) - vaporising a solid > vaporising a liquid. Considering that boiling oceans is a sustained action over time and takes a cumulative 10e^26-27J (equal to one second solar output), this would suggest that a torpedo strike is able to produce magnitudes more power instantaneously. This would easily make them 10e^6+ times more powerful (atomising a solid vs boiling a liquid, instantaeous energy output vs cumulative)
Since it is widely stated (multiple sources) that void shields blunt energy cannons but can't stop torpedoes and it is also stated in multiple sources that capital ship beam weapons > torpedos - IMO, this quotation is inadmissable as supporting evidence as it is a single instance which runs contrary to multiple instances. The description is at best hyperbole, a complete disregard for continuity or at worst, a fundamental misunderstanding of matter states.
And please: No "special" torpedo arguements. Cyclonics don't atomise continents. The whole standard torpedo arguement is especially prickly considering that they are stated in multiple sources to be fusion warheads (with no mention of Plasma).
I think that we're all getting bogged down in a pointless argument which is common to sci fi debates. If anyone actually knew how the A C Clarke 'magic' happened in any of these franchises he or she would be laughing all the way to the patent office. The common line of debate is that - 'the tech from the franchise I oppose is impossible, while the tech from the franchise I support need not be explained at all' in many cases - and while most every good sci fi series, movie, book or graphic novel contains wildly advanced technology, none of it works on real world rules.
I put it to you that the rule of cool is the only one that applies - because for example while BOTH the Emperor-class battleship and the Death Star are pretty much unworkable with known tech, they are both kick arse awesome. And no, ST doesn't get away clean - the whole trope about 'reversing the polarity' comes from there!
Back to the point in hand though - while the IoM would surely be ground into a fine paste by the Culture and used as grimdark pate, what about the Polity? I always saw them as an emergent version of the Culture, with their A.I. rule and sentient ships etc...
IvanTih wrote:Nemesis describing the armaments of the Vengeful Spirit as "torpedo arrays filled with warshots capable of atomising continents in single strikes, energy cannon capable of boiling off oceans", to take the nearest book to hand.
So power feats are meshing good.
Are you saying that in Nemesis the description of the weapons were as above, and that when destroyed the ensuing explosion was a lot smaller? ergo the weapons don't have those yeilds?
Actually, now that you point it out, the power feats are not meshing good, considering that according to that description torpedos are now (much) more powerful than the energy cannons. Ignoring the atomising part intially (as it involves shearing all molecular bonds into composite components after vaporisation) - vaporising a solid > vaporising a liquid. Considering that boiling oceans is a sustained action over time and takes a cumulative 10e^26-27J (equal to one second solar output), this would suggest that a torpedo strike is able to produce magnitudes more power instantaneously. This would easily make them 10e^6+ times more powerful (atomising a solid vs boiling a liquid, instantaeous energy output vs cumulative)
Since it is widely stated (multiple sources) that void shields blunt energy cannons but can't stop torpedoes and it is also stated in multiple sources that capital ship beam weapons > torpedos - IMO, this quotation is inadmissable as supporting evidence as it is a single instance which runs contrary to multiple instances. The description is at best hyperbole, a complete disregard for continuity or at worst, a fundamental misunderstanding of matter states.
And please: No "special" torpedo arguements. Cyclonics don't atomise continents. The whole standard torpedo arguement is especially prickly considering that they are stated in multiple sources to be fusion warheads (with no mention of Plasma).
How are they aren't meshing good,we have Caves of Ice,Cyrene crust melting and Siege of Terra where Horus boiled Terra's oceans and cracked tectonic plates.
You also forget that those are cyclonic torpedoes who are essentially technobabble weapons,who can be fitted with melta charge to rip planet apart and with warheads used to destroy the atmosphere.
And we have official 610 gigaton torpedo calc.
I admit that torpedoes are weaker,I know that they penetrate void shields,but Cyclonic torpedoes use different armaments.
@AndrewC
About those 610 gigaton photon torpedoes.
There's a problem here, because they are clearly ignoring the "Rate" part of the statement, and assuming it means higher energy release.
This is clearly not the case, not just from on screen footage, or even from the fact that the TM is non-canon. The Rate part is not an insignificant detail. It means that Photon torpedoes release their energy faster than the detonation of an antimatter storage pod, which makes perfect sense since Photon torpedoes are supposed to store matter and antimatter in pellets rather than a big crate, these pellets stored in a matter/antimatter/matter/antimatter alternating fashion. An antimatter storage pod has more antimatter than matter in the casing, and would of course be extremely inefficient by default.
IE Photon Torpedoes simply release their energy faster, they do not release more energy than a storage pod, even with taking into account the fact that a storage pod doesn't have enough matter to react with even half it's antimatter, so even it's max theoretical energy yield would be measured by it's casing's dry mass, not by it's antimatter mass.
By using generous TNG:TM payload of 1.5kg and the DS9:TM efficiency of 74% combined with the omni-directional blast factor halving the value, we get 24 megatons effective yield when fired in vacuum and 48 megatons if used in an orbital bombardment against a planet with an atmosphere.
I think the TMs are best treated as background material to fill gaps in our knowledge, but we should be leery of relying on them or elevating them as a go-to source.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:Cyclonic torpedoes are designed to destroy worlds, not melt continents or boil oceans.
A sane captain wouldn't use one on a ship except as a last resort... because it probably wouldn't work, as it's designed against a planet, not a ship.
Nemesis said that they attack continents not oceans,we have energy cannons for that.
They don't attack continents. They utilize a two-stage delivery system which uses a melta charge to burrow into the planet's core. There, it detonates in such a fashion as to destabilize the planet and cause it to shatter and tear itself apart.
Mind you, this is old fluff. They may have decided to change it. But I like this better. Cyclonic Torpedos are an Exterminatus-exclusive weapon.
Melissia wrote:They don't attack continents. They utilize a two-stage delivery system which uses a melta charge to burrow into the planet's core. There, it detonates in such a fashion as to destabilize the planet and cause it to shatter and tear itself apart.
Mind you, this is old fluff. They may have decided to change it. But I like this better. Cyclonic Torpedos are an Exterminatus-exclusive weapon.
That's what I said,they rip planets apart,they didn't change it.
We're getting into the minutia that always seems to bog this down. I'm not trying to say that the torpedo must have that figure, I'm using it as the classic point of disagreement between both sides.
Firstly we really can't say what is or isn't inefficient as a weapon. To me, antimatter can only be 100% efficient, as it can only exist as a binary state. ie 100% there or 100% not. I understand what you are saying with the rate part and can see your line of reasoning, however I feel it is self defeating, in that one statement contradicts the other. If a torpedo has half of its' force dissapated by a slow rate of reaction, ie half of the energy can be reflected away from the direction of travel then it disagrees with your statement that "its a small explosion it's just really quick", if the anhialation(sp) of the antimatter is to run so quickly, then the explosion doesnt have time to reflect. All force would be transmitted into the target.
I think that we're all getting bogged down in a pointless argument which is common to sci fi debates. If anyone actually knew how the A C Clarke 'magic' happened in any of these franchises he or she would be laughing all the way to the patent office. The common line of debate is that - 'the tech from the franchise I oppose is impossible, while the tech from the franchise I support need not be explained at all' in many cases - and while most every good sci fi series, movie, book or graphic novel contains wildly advanced technology, none of it works on real world rules.
a down bottom in the form of a lance... the equivalent of a solar flare... nasty.
, we had to, um, refuel the fleet. sorry the 3rd fleet and those star systems got boned 
And before anyone says I'm arguing for