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I think I am going to have to read about this "culture", it sounds cool.

I like how there is always a few poor souls that take these seriously thinking their arguments actually mean anything lol.

I'll go for a new guy. If everyone is fighting, the veer-myn numbers will go unchecked and unbalanced, and with so much interstellar and inter dimensional travel, they will spread like rats did on earth throughout the entire "super space" and destroy everything.

Squats.Someone had to say it.

Does each faction fight in their own make belief universe or they all meet in the real universe?

The more models a science fiction background is, the more possible it is to exist, the more probability it has to win in the real universe against a more impossible to exist background.

Most space opera fictional universes are prone to at best odd things that do not stand to reality and themselves are self contained and prone to conflicting background with each other.

I would really like to know the Physics behind the necron thingy that makes stars go Supernova, does it introduce a few solar masses or iron to the star in order to make it go Type 2?

Likewise what would the Q be in 40k? a lesser warp denizen race? what would 40k things be in another universes background, were firepower for example works as intended? how does a universe were psychic powers exist and a universe were the above mentioned are definitely not in existence compare with each other?

I usually try to avoid comparing Sci fi backgrounds with each-other or with reality because once you do that, they start falling apart.

To be honest if most of them met in the 'Real Universe' then they would kind of fall apart when all their FTL tech stopped working, it many years to reach other, inertia ripped ships and missiles and stuff apart etc etc

Assuming all factions are opposed to alliances, what would I do? I would beg the Culture for refuge and then try and avoid the fighting as long as possible. They might win but if they don't I might as well live out my last in style.

As for cool sci fi factions, I suggest people look up the Concordiat or more specifically their tanks, called bolos. They make baneblades look like kinder surprise toys. They're not major players and wouldn't win this scrap but they do have some cool toys.

my vote goes for the deathstalker universe
specifically, the baby that yawned or whatever and caused a section of the galaxy to go dark (at least, i think that was basically how it went, its been years since i read the books)

 Paradigm wrote:
DALEKS ARE THE SUPREME BEINGS! DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF ALL! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!

That is all I have to say. Any other questions, see 'Reality Bomb'.

That, or they'd just time travel back to when the most powerful civilisations were crawling from the oceans and exterminate all of them.

RESISTANCE IS USELESS! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

The Dalek Empire is temperamental as hell. It gets wiped out and reformed on the daily. In any case, the Reality bomb is not a valid argument as it was a one-off by Davros.

The current Dalek Empire is total trash too.

 Rayvon wrote:
I think I am going to have to read about this "culture", it sounds cool.

You won't regret it. Start with The Player of Games or Consider Phlebas.

 Peregrine wrote:


You mean it attempts to transform it. Let's say a Culture human gets infected. They get aboard a ship, the ship detects the infection, removes the infected material, and drops it into the core of the nearest star where it is instantly reduced to its component atoms. That kind of plague only works when you're limited to 1500s medical technology, high-end scifi civilizations just don't care about things like that.

Except Phyrexia dominated everything in its' path... it took the COMBINED efforts of godlike beings to stop it and even then, it was a 1 in a million chance that they'd prevail... They had to use a gigantic well of white mana to just eradicate Yawgmoth...

And Phyrexia conquered Mirrodin as well, Mutation is fairly quick actually.

Plus, The oil is kind of very, VERY difficult to get rid of, the only thing known to repel it is the Planeswalker Spark...

Also, Phyrexians have access to planar portal technology. They're not limited by space transport and thusly can conquer the known universe fairly quickly... There's a reason that by the time Phyrexians perfected portal tech, the Heroes of the story would beat them with plot armor... (A moon of white mana... Pure White Mana, think of it like using a nuclear missile to kill a cockroach..)

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
Except Phyrexia dominated everything in its' path... it took the COMBINED efforts of godlike beings to stop it and even then, it was a 1 in a million chance that they'd prevail... They had to use a gigantic well of white mana to just eradicate Yawgmoth...

Again, you're talking about a world where generic sword and bow fantasy armies fight on equal terms with Phyrexia. They die in seconds against scifi civilizations that can obliterate entire planets with a trivial effort.

Plus, The oil is kind of very, VERY difficult to get rid of, the only thing known to repel it is the Planeswalker Spark...

It's only difficult to get rid of when you're limited to fantasy-level technology. When you consider atomic-scale construction/modification to be a trivial feat removing Phyrexian corruption is a joke. Physically take it out of the victim, isolate it in a force field where it has no contact with anything else, and drop it into the nearest star.

Also, Phyrexians have access to planar portal technology.

So what? Against a high-end scifi civilization that just means it saves them the trouble of having to chase after the Phyrexians before killing them. If they portal onto a Culture orbital or ship they'll be teleported into the core of the nearest star before their brains have time to process the fact that they've arrived at their destination.

Pure White Mana, think of it like using a nuclear missile to kill a cockroach..)

That's a pretty good analogy for what happens when Phyrexia encounters a high-end scifi civilization. Remember, a disarmed Culture ex-warship considers "able to destroy a planet" an insultingly low estimate of its firepower, and battles are fought at high FTL speeds within fractions of a second. You're talking about a civilization where the equivalent of a modern cruise ship is capable of destroying the entire 40k galaxy, and the only question is whether the ship will get bored of the whole thing and delegate it to a less-intelligent ship/fleet so it can go do something interesting instead.

Toss-up between the Culture and the Eschaton. One because it's in the best interest of everyone for them to win (and they have the tech to back it up), and the other because it's going to tear causality a new one and iron bomb your local star(s) when your politicians start deciding that war with it is a good idea.

So to the answer the question who would I join, well I'd join the Ancients. And then ascend. Job done I survive.

However since most of this discussion seems to be heading towards who would win, people have to realise that she you get the big boys of sci-fi together, there is no use in being the biggest army or the greatest warriors in all the universe, when every worthwhile battle will be fought in space, and any planet could just be vaporized.

The Culture has abandoned planets (and even orbitals) at its "current" incarnation, with most of its population living on General Systems Vehicles - large "spaceship worlds" akin to Eldar Craftworlds, but considerably larger and mainly composed of the sort of far-future high tech solid force fields the Culture likes to play around with. Oh yes, they can also convert themselves to factory world-ships or warships if necessary.

...it will probably come as no surprise to anyone that most Culture novels are set outside their own space on somewhate less advanced worlds, orbitals and ships...

Eldercaveman wrote:
So to the answer the question who would I join, well I'd join the Ancients. And then ascend. Job done I survive.

However since most of this discussion seems to be heading towards who would win, people have to realise that she you get the big boys of sci-fi together, there is no use in being the biggest army or the greatest warriors in all the universe, when every worthwhile battle will be fought in space, and any planet could just be vaporized.

Depends on the objective of the war, if it is to eradicate everything leaving a single system in existence then planets could be blown, but is the objective is to conquer everything, then planets cannot be blown because they are strategic assets, the reason why the war is done, and ground combat will happen, because regardless of what you do and how bad you bomb a planet there will be survivors ready to fight.

I still maintain that each make belief race cannot exist or combat outside their own make belief universe without falling apart.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:
So to the answer the question who would I join, well I'd join the Ancients. And then ascend. Job done I survive.

However since most of this discussion seems to be heading towards who would win, people have to realise that she you get the big boys of sci-fi together, there is no use in being the biggest army or the greatest warriors in all the universe, when every worthwhile battle will be fought in space, and any planet could just be vaporized.

Depends on the objective of the war, if it is to eradicate everything leaving a single system in existence then planets could be blown, but is the objective is to conquer everything, then planets cannot be blown because they are strategic assets, the reason why the war is done, and ground combat will happen, because regardless of what you do and how bad you bomb a planet there will be survivors ready to fight.

I still maintain that each make belief race cannot exist or combat outside their own make belief universe without falling apart.

Like I said, I'll just ascend and leave the rest of you guys to it.

Farscape.

Just unleash your wormhole weapon. Profit.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:
The Culture has abandoned planets (and even orbitals) at its "current" incarnation, with most of its population living on General Systems Vehicles - large "spaceship worlds" akin to Eldar Craftworlds, but considerably larger and mainly composed of the sort of far-future high tech solid force fields the Culture likes to play around with. Oh yes, they can also convert themselves to factory world-ships or warships if necessary.

...it will probably come as no surprise to anyone that most Culture novels are set outside their own space on somewhate less advanced worlds, orbitals and ships...

Well, not entirely. Orbitals are still a big part of the Culture because they're aesthetically pleasing and an efficient use of materials if you want to provide a few square miles of living space to every single person. After all, it's just so tasteless to dismantle whole planets to build a ringworld or Dyson sphere when you can just take all the "waste" material in a system (comets, asteroids, etc) and build orbitals.

(Of course it's also stated that orbitals can act as giant ships if needed.)

I may have misremembered it, but I think Culture Orbitals are out by the time of Surface Detail (the next to last book, set around 3000AD), having been replaced by the largest mentioned GSVs entirely. They do use them earlier, of course.

 warboss wrote:

 pities2004 wrote:
There seems be to tons of doomsday weapons in the star wars universe, I mean how would a space marine fleet take on a super star destroyer plus a death star?

Terra go boom

In 40k fluff, they'd finish both off with just a single previously unheard of chapter which would die in the process except for a few token marines. GW has been there and done that. Or Draigo...

Wrong actually. Please remember that even the much dreaded Super Star Destroyer is only 1 mile long....... about half a mile shorter than the Cobra class Frigate, the smallest ship in the imperial navy.
The Imperium would line up and level the entirety of the Star Wars fleets in one.

As it is though I would like to see the Borg join. And the Tyranids and Necrons. Just for the sheer hell of a 3 way clash that would be.

I would join with the machine race that built v'ger in Star Trek motion picture if they knock that up for a lost little probe what could they do for war? Or I would hide in the slow zone from fire upon the deep where nobody's doomsday weapons or ftl drives work anyway

 wildphilldude wrote:
I would join with the machine race that built v'ger in Star Trek motion picture if they knock that up for a lost little probe what could they do for war? Or I would hide in the slow zone from fire upon the deep where nobody's doomsday weapons or ftl drives work anyway

I vaguely remember seeing some reference that there was, at least, an attempt to connect the V'ger aliens with one of the entities that eventually became the Borg.

Anyway, seems like this'd have to be divided into some weight-classes to be reasonable. At the top we have actual no-fooling 'gods', then 'galaxy-spanning civilizations' down to one-on-one combatants.

 Balance wrote:

 wildphilldude wrote:
I would join with the machine race that built v'ger in Star Trek motion picture if they knock that up for a lost little probe what could they do for war? Or I would hide in the slow zone from fire upon the deep where nobody's doomsday weapons or ftl drives work anyway

I vaguely remember seeing some reference that there was, at least, an attempt to connect the V'ger aliens with one of the entities that eventually became the Borg.

Yup, there's speculation by fans that they were proto-Borg or inspired by what they did with V'ger to create proto-Borg. Nothing I've seen official links them, though.

Factions?Does this mean da orkz are united.....WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA........AAAAAAAAGHH!All da orkz.

Spoiler because of huge image

That chart has the eclipse smaller then a super star destroyer.I don't trust it.

But? it shows it is bigger.

Shows those Wing Commander vessels though. A lot smaller, but their fighter craft is still universally superior. To any other fighter craft the others could bring. One dragon with a flash pack could ice the Eclipse and do it before it could even notice the dragon.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
But? it shows it is bigger.

It looks shorter.

Da krimson barun wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
But? it shows it is bigger.

It looks shorter.

It shows its shorter from Executor, which is true.