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A large part of the GW 40K universe is made up by the Black Library pulications on the stories, battles, and generall fluff. I'm wondering if BL has written enough stories and background to raval Star Wars? Thoughts?

Star Wars has a much bigger library and the Star Wars universes is a lot more developed.

But more developed is not necessarily better. 40k makes good use of unreliable narration, so discontinuity and plot holes are part of the fun. No matter what you read in 40k you never really know if you are getting the “real” story.

Since Star Wars has tight creative controls over the license you can’t have nearly as much creative freedom in that universe as you can in 40K.

What Zookie said.

The authors of the Black Library are given pretty much free reign to write whatever they want in their stories, and are not constrained by the information provided in the Codices or in any other BL novel, FW publication, White Dwarf, Citadel Journal or any other source of 40K information.

If a BL author wants to write a love story between an Eldar Farseer and a Space Wolf, resulting in furry cubs with pointy ears, s/he can totally do that. If a BL author wants to have the Rhinos driven by wise-cracking servitors that pop wheelies (trackies?) and do sick... and by "sick" I mean "totally sweet"... jumps, s/he can.

Star Wars writers? They can't really do that in most cases. There are well-established boundaries of what things can and cannot do. AT-STs don't tap-dance, for example. The tech is, within the universe, fairly well-established and categorized around what it can and cannot do.

Most importantly, the Star Wars fandom has an established order of canon, based on sources, of what overwrites what. It starts at things George Lucas says and goes down to things like video games, comic books, and other, third-party products. Basically, though, something in Star Wars is canon until something with a higher rank in the canon comes along and contradicts it. Some things, though, like the Star Wars Infinities comic books, are universally non-canon.

Star Wars fluff has superior consistency by virtue of its canon organization. That doesn't stop huge swaths of it from being utter crap though. Pretty much everything post-RotJ is garbage with the exception of a few novels.

The Star Wars EU has plenty of good books, certainly better than most stuff from BL.

So, The Galactic Empire declares war on the Imperium of Man, and marches on the Milky Way through a Time Rift.

What happens?

 Psienesis wrote:
What Zookie said.

The authors of the Black Library are given pretty much free reign to write whatever they want in their stories, and are not constrained by the information provided in the Codices or in any other BL novel, FW publication, White Dwarf, Citadel Journal or any other source of 40K information.

If a BL author wants to write a love story between an Eldar Farseer and a Space Wolf, resulting in furry cubs with pointy ears, s/he can totally do that. If a BL author wants to have the Rhinos driven by wise-cracking servitors that pop wheelies (trackies?) and do sick... and by "sick" I mean "totally sweet"... jumps, s/he can.

Star Wars writers? They can't really do that in most cases. There are well-established boundaries of what things can and cannot do. AT-STs don't tap-dance, for example. The tech is, within the universe, fairly well-established and categorized around what it can and cannot do.

Most importantly, the Star Wars fandom has an established order of canon, based on sources, of what overwrites what. It starts at things George Lucas says and goes down to things like video games, comic books, and other, third-party products. Basically, though, something in Star Wars is canon until something with a higher rank in the canon comes along and contradicts it. Some things, though, like the Star Wars Infinities comic books, are universally non-canon.

This. Actually, because of the amount of free reign in the BL novels, it can even make certain fan created works and other stuff seem credible.

 IHateNids wrote:
So, The Galactic Empire declares war on the Imperium of Man, and marches on the Milky Way through a Time Rift.

What happens?

Horrible slaugther of the GE fleets because they have no hyperspace routes here.

IssacClarkeisBatman99 wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
So, The Galactic Empire declares war on the Imperium of Man, and marches on the Milky Way through a Time Rift.

What happens?

Horrible slaugther of the GE fleets because they have no hyperspace routes here.

Oh god, it sounds like this all over again, only replacing Federation with Imperium of man.

The biggest issues would be figuring out the following:
Industrial Capacity and Territory holdings (how fast does it take to make ships/weapons and how many planets can provide men)
Propulsion Technology (how quickly can they traverse the galaxy)
Weapons (This includes all ship-based weapons, not including things like torpedoes or missiles)
Torpedoes (would also include missiles)
Shields (what protects the ship)
Sensors (self-explanatory)
Communications (range and other limitations)
Power Generation (self-explanatory)
Special Technology (includes things not listed in the above categories)

The Necron fleet in IA 12 trumps pretty much anything anywhere. With the exception of nonsence wave motion gun type weapons.

There's at least some variety in the Star Wars EU, compared to the biillion Bolter Porn novels that bury the few decent reads in Black Library.

 IHateNids wrote:
So, The Galactic Empire declares war on the Imperium of Man, and marches on the Milky Way through a Time Rift.

What happens?

Byebye Galactic empire fleet, the moment they go to hyperspace they die because in the 40k Hyperspace is the warp, Geller field is different than normal shield! Darth vader will become a demon prince "Feel the dark chaos!"

Hyperspace is not a dimension change. They literally just go just faster than the speed of light, so no Deamons for trouble.

Star Destroyers will more than give a Cruiser a run for its money surely.

Honestly we can't really say. Would the force exist? Would it not? Would by arriving they would be a heard of foolish humans and Xenos easy to get claimed by the gods of chaos? Do they register in the warp? Is the warp only in the galaxy or is it the universe but only concentrate where life is so they are split apart? Would they run into a Tyranid rush, would Eldar IG and even tau temporarily unite to Devestate them? What planet are they attacking (many have crazy anti space), is the warp in the mood to help, would the empire break down in panic?

Also does the GE have time to set up travel points?

I was just picturing what would happen on a battlefield XD

but, all of the above points considered, the GE gets at arse handed to it on a silver platter

The problem is we don't have the necessary information.

For example, how powerful is a Las-shot? Can it make it through Stormtrooper armour? What about a Lascannon? Can it puncture an AT-AT's heavy armour plating? How will IoM deal with planet destroyers such as the Death Star, or even the Sun Crusher? How quickly can the IoM respond to attacks half-way across the galaxy?

Assuming a stable wormhole opened up, how soon would anyone know about it and be able to respond? If the opening is in a remote enough area, the Empire would easily be able to send millions of probes and within a few days have a map of the Milky Way. They would then be able to jump from planet to planet and due to the fickle nature of the Warp, who knows when the Imperium will be able to respond.

It would be an interesting battle thats for sure. but, I think las-shots can penetrate stormtrooper armor, I don't see the blasters that they use as much better than the lasuns the IG use. lascannons would probably penetrate the armor of the AT-AT but not the bigger ones and god save me I for the life of me cannot remember what they are called.

The AT-AT is the big one, the little chicken walker is the AT-ST.

 Happyjew wrote:

IssacClarkeisBatman99 wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
So, The Galactic Empire declares war on the Imperium of Man, and marches on the Milky Way through a Time Rift.

What happens?

Horrible slaugther of the GE fleets because they have no hyperspace routes here.

Oh god, it sounds like this all over again, only replacing Federation with Imperium of man.

The biggest issues would be figuring out the following:
Industrial Capacity and Territory holdings (how fast does it take to make ships/weapons and how many planets can provide men)
Propulsion Technology (how quickly can they traverse the galaxy)
Weapons (This includes all ship-based weapons, not including things like torpedoes or missiles)
Torpedoes (would also include missiles)
Shields (what protects the ship)
Sensors (self-explanatory)
Communications (range and other limitations)
Power Generation (self-explanatory)
Special Technology (includes things not listed in the above categories)

And then added to this, how long would it take to retro-engineer the clever/unique gubbins of the other side and either create a hard counter, or just nick the technology and put it into general use. Invariably it falls down to which universe a correspondant prefers and how much handwavium they need to expend in justifying the comparison of oranges to neutron stars.

Well, interestingly, the Imperium doesn't seem to be able to respond to things very quick. I think it was one of your posts that said they take on average 100 days to retaliate with a sizable force, which in most cases is too late.

And yes, it is the problem with 40k as a whole that not enough information is given.

But, I do think we can assume that a Lasgun is slightly weaken than a GE Blaster Rifle, due to the fact that Lasbolts don't leave 8" wide craters on walls that they have hit.

The force would exist because AFAIK it comes from the midichlorians that are within every living thing.

Warp Presence, not sure. I would assume so. A small one, like an individual Guardsman

A Lascannon would be at least equal to if not have more hitting power than the weaponry on an AT-ST, and as seen in RotJ, on AT-ST can easily take out another.

The Imperium would deal with the planet killers much like it deals with everything else big and dangerous: sending something bigger and dangerouser (totally a word)



I think its the rest of the races in 40k that the GE would have the trouble with.

Tau weapons will easily tear through the armour of the GE

Necrons will have the GE gakking its pants, due to the fact they don't fight stuff that just doesnt die.

Space Marines might be able to get a decent strike off, but after that, they fall to greater numbers.

And then, the weapons themselves: Will Battle Cannon shells do anything at all to AT-AT/STs? Will the power field on a power weapon stop a Lightsabre? Will Bolts pierce Stormtrooper armour?

many many things to consider

 IHateNids wrote:
Hyperspace is not a dimension change. They literally just go just faster than the speed of light, so no Deamons for trouble.

Star Destroyers will more than give a Cruiser a run for its money surely.

Eh... pretty sure it says everywhere that Hyperspace is a sort of an alternate dimension or parallel universe, because the writers are smart/lazy enough not to make starships go over the speed of light, lest they be dealing with massive unanswerable scientific and technological difficulties relating to FTL travel.

 raiden wrote:
It would be an interesting battle thats for sure. but, I think las-shots can penetrate stormtrooper armor, I don't see the blasters that they use as much better than the lasuns the IG use. lascannons would probably penetrate the armor of the AT-AT but not the bigger ones and god save me I for the life of me cannot remember what they are called.

Blasters have an effective range of 100m with a maximum range of about 300m (SW Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology)
M36 Lasgun has an effective range of 100m with a maximum range of 400m (Only War)
Blaster clips have 100 shots and can either be fired in semi-auto or full auto (though full auto is not recommended, as it throws the alignment out of whack).
Lasgun clips have 60 shots and can either be fired as single shot or semi-auto (Only War). According to Lexicanum and Wahammer 40K wiki it is single shot or Full auto.

Power is harder to quantify. The only known power output of a lasgun is 19 Megathules. But nobody knows what a megathule is.
Blasters on the other hand...The power of this gun is nearly difficult to quantify, but we've seen that it has much more knock-down power than a modern SMG or even a carbine. It can heat stormtrooper chest-plate armour to red-hot, it can blast grapefruit-sized chunks out of the Bespin walls and small pockmarks out of Death Star bulkheads, and it can even kill a man with the explosive shockwave from a near-miss. This latter capability indicates high-velocity fragmentation from the explosive power of the impact, and it was demonstrated twice in ANH: once during the Death Star detention centre break-in, when an officer was killed by a hit to the wall behind him, and once during the "Tarzan scene", when Leia fired at a stormtrooper on the upper level, hit the wall directly behind his head, and killed him with the resulting shrapnel (it must have pierced the large flexible rubber section just beneath the back of his helmet). However, it can't penetrate the armour of Death Star blast doors or the forcefields used in Death Star garbage compactors. The explosive power of a blaster rifle shot may explain the utility of stormtrooper armour; like modern infantry body armour, it protects against shrapnel and glancing hits (unless they happen to hit a flexible joint area), but it can't stop a direct hit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lcmiracle wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
Hyperspace is not a dimension change. They literally just go just faster than the speed of light, so no Deamons for trouble.

Star Destroyers will more than give a Cruiser a run for its money surely.

Eh... pretty sure it says everywhere that Hyperspace is a sort of an alternate dimension or parallel universe, because the writers are smart/lazy enough not to make starships go over the speed of light, lest they be dealing with massive unanswerable scientific and technological difficulties relating to FTL travel.

It is unknown how Hyperspace works. It has alternately been described as a parallel universe, an extra dimension of space, an alternate mode of physical existence, or simply the universe as viewed traveling faster than the speed of light.

What about Blasters and Turbolasers? Many blasters use plasma based technology, so would that factor into their damage potential?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What about Blasters and Turbolasers? Many blasters use plasma based technology, so would that factor into their damage potential?

The stormtroopers got beaten by Ewoks with sticks and stones.. lasguns can't be worse thenn that.

 IHateNids wrote:
A Lascannon would be at least equal to if not have more hitting power than the weaponry on an AT-ST, and as seen in RotJ, on AT-ST can easily take out another.

I agree that a lascannon would have no problem with AT-STs. Even without actual numbers, I'm fairly certain it would have more energy then two swinging tree trunks. AT-ATs are a horse of a different colour. Those are the massive 4-legged walkers whose only known weak point would be the neck joint (and even then it required the rebels to trip them up to get a clean shot)

The Imperium would deal with the planet killers much like it deals with everything else big and dangerous: sending something bigger and dangerouser (totally a word)

What though? The first Death Star only had a single flaw, a small thermal exhaust port. Even then it was only through the Force that Luke was able to make the shot. The Death Star II was incomplete when it was attacked. Had it been completed there would have been no chance to destroy it. The Suncrusher on the other hand is a very small ship that was designed to withstand anything thrown at it, including a blast from the Death Star (which puts out 1E38 joules in a single shot. For those who don't know that is a 1 followed by 38 0's (100000000000000000000000000000000000000) joules).

And then, the weapons themselves: Will Battle Cannon shells do anything at all to AT-AT/STs?

AT-STs definitely see above regarding lascannons. AT-ATs who knows.

Will the power field on a power weapon stop a Lightsabre?

Without knowing the properties of how power weapons work this cannot be determined.

Will Bolts pierce Stormtrooper armour?

If they hit in the black rubber joint sections, definitely. If they hit the white armour, more than likely not.



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By the way, I hope everyone is having as much fun with this as I am.

The GE doesn't have any capable enemies in its setting with which to wage a war where as the IoM has multiple opponents so the GE would be at one disadvantage due to it not being in the practice of waging war in the first place. This would be a mental set back instead of a physical one. They are essentially just a police force but the GE setting isn't grim dark enough to compare with the 40k one.

Mellow wrote:
The GE doesn't have any capable enemies in its setting with which to wage a war where as the IoM has multiple opponents so the GE would be at one disadvantage due to it not being in the practice of waging war in the first place. This would be a mental set back instead of a physical one. They are essentially just a police force but the GE setting isn't grim dark enough to compare with the 40k one.

Actually the GE does have a capable enemy in its setting - the Rebel Alliance (aka traitors).

Fluffwise, EU is more specific. But its full of greater artistic license and poor quality writing. BL has better quality control.



As for the GE vs Imperium, Imperium all the way.

The GE has a silly small army. We're talking numbers only in the low millions. You want writers with no sense of scale, Star Wars makes GW numbers seem plausible.


The GE is also NOT a totally unified place. Even at it's height, the Empire didn't have anywhere near the proper utilization of resources that the Imperium has.

If the Imperium needs an army, they can raise billions of Guardsmen within a few years. Only slowed down by communication and bureaucracy. But once the wheels are turning there is no stopping them.

The GE doesn't have the political clout to raise an army of trillions, which is what would be required to even stand a snowflake's chance in hell against the Imperium in open battle. In the Imperium, they raise billions of new soldiers each day. Soldiers who are utterly dedicated and fanatical. Nothing in Star Wars can compare.


Also discounting the difference in ship size and armament. The main ship of the line of the GE is barely pulling the same tonnage as an Imperial Escort. Imperial ships fight opponents at distances of millions of kilometers. The GE ships would be taking fire before they even knew what was happening. Not to mention being unable to track the Imperium's ships, who would literally be popping out of nowhere.

The Imperium does have poor reaction time to threats, but that wouldn't be a problem. The GE might have some successes for a few years until the Imperial counter-blow arrives and smashes the GE forces like tin cans.


The best weapon the entire GE could make was the Death Star. A single space station capable of destroying an entire planet.

In the Imperium, any ship with Torpedo tubes is capable of destroying a planet provided they have access to Cyclonic Torpedoes. A couple skyscraper sized missiles can accomplish the same thing as a moon sized battle-station.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:

Mellow wrote:
The GE doesn't have any capable enemies in its setting with which to wage a war where as the IoM has multiple opponents so the GE would be at one disadvantage due to it not being in the practice of waging war in the first place. This would be a mental set back instead of a physical one. They are essentially just a police force but the GE setting isn't grim dark enough to compare with the 40k one.

Actually the GE does have a capable enemy in its setting - the Rebel Alliance (aka traitors).

Which really just says how sad the affairs in the GE are.

They were brought down by at most a few million active dissidents when they had an entire Galaxy at their disposal.

It could, and should, have taken centuries of warfare to overthrow the Galactic Empire given the scale of things.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Fluffwise, EU is more specific. But its full of greater artistic license and poor quality writing. BL has better quality control.

Better quality control? Do I need to mention C.S. Goto and his infamous Eldar steal tanks, and worship Slaanesh (including Eldrad). What about his Landraider to Razorback conversion? EU has very tight restrictions on SW.

If the Imperium needs an army, they can raise billions of Guardsmen within a few years. Only slowed down by communication and bureaucracy. But once the wheels are turning there is no stopping them.

And how quickly can they get them to where they need to be? The IoM might have the manpower, but when the enemy can jump across the galaxy in a matter of hours, no matter how many men you have you'll never be able to react in a timely fashion.

Also discounting the difference in ship size and armament. The main ship of the line of the GE is barely pulling the same tonnage as an Imperial Escort. Imperial ships fight opponents at distances of millions of kilometers.

The problem is ISDs jump right to within weapons range, so there is no shooting from millions of kilometers.

The best weapon the entire GE could make was the Death Star. A single space station capable of destroying an entire planet.

And the Sun Crusher which destroys whole systems. I've yet to hear of any IoM weapon capable of causing a star to go nova.

In the Imperium, any ship with Torpedo tubes is capable of destroying a planet provided they have access to Cyclonic Torpedoes. A couple skyscraper sized missiles can accomplish the same thing as a moon sized battle-station.

Do said torpedoes make the planet inhabitable, or does it completely destroy the planet into asteroid sized chunks? How well does it handle planetary shields? How quickly does it destroy the planet?

Which really just says how sad the affairs in the GE are.

They were brought down by at most a few million active dissidents when they had an entire Galaxy at their disposal.

First the movies only show a small portion of the war. Even then, the only reason the Emperor dies was due to his own overconfidence. And some luck on the side of the rebels. Even then it was years before the "Galactic Alliance" finally took control of Coruscant and even longer before they completely defeated the Galactic Empire (which really ended in a truce).

 Happyjew wrote:
The problem is we don't have the necessary information.

For example, how powerful is a Las-shot? Can it make it through Stormtrooper armour?

I should hope so, considering 2 foot teddy bears with rocks and sticks managed to trash a battalion of stormtroopers