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Asukane wrote:Any fictional race or civilization that passes the Imperium on this scale would more or less beat the Imperium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/kardashev_scale

Anything tier 3 and up would simply stomp the Imperium.

Best contributing post in 24 pages.

that scale is bad

going from 1 Planet, to 1 star is fine, but to jump from 1 star to the several Billion Stars that make up a Galaxy is a massive leap.


IDK of any Sci-fi universe that can harness that kind of power that can be taken seriously(weather it just shows them doing it because its cool or they just want to imply it)


anything that can harness the power of billions of stars pretty much curb stomps anything.

Grey Templar wrote:that scale is bad

going from 1 Planet, to 1 star is fine, but to jump from 1 star to the several Billion Stars that make up a Galaxy is a massive leap.

Right... so going from 10^16 -> 10^26 (increase by factor of 10) is fine but going from 10^26 to 10^37 (increase by factor of 11) is a massive leap.

the physical difference is just so massive.


Civilizations don't expand by factors of 10(the article admits that Humans arn't even a Level 1 yet)


Civiliazations will expand by addition rather then multiplication. 1 star at a time.

I dunno if this has already been mentioned (I don't have time right now to read 25 pages) but the Halo array wipes out all sentient life from the galaxy, pretty sure that would be made of win in a war against the IoM (just use the Ark as a safe house and ignite the halos, destroying the galaxy except for those on Shield Worlds and the Ark.)

Also, Covenant ships are fairly powerful, and their Spartans (while in no way as numerable as the SM) are certainly strong enough, combined with Covenant firepower. The Covenant are VERY precise in their Slipspace movements, and thus can maneuver around the Warp-based IoM ships easily and have highly advanced tech. They've also got good point-defense guns, and heavy shields. Not to mention their Exterminatus capabilities with a just a ship or two rather than a whole fleet and their heavy firepower.

If they teamed up with the UNSC (after the Covenant-Human Wars), they could do some good damage to stall for time before the Halos fire. (This is all pure conjecture, based on my knowledge of the Halo universe and the IoM, I may have missed something there.)


I would also say the Reapers from Mass Effect, they've been annihilating galaxies of life and civilizations for eons, and I seriously think they could do this...the innumerable ground forces of the IoM can't do anything if the Reapers are all spaceships, and An entire race of Reapers could kick total a$$

Wow, after re-reading this, I sound like a total Halo fanboy

the Halo rings arn't a very scientific weapon. How does it differentiate all sentient life from non-sentient?

it really is just another sci-fi "God" weapon.

keezus wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:that scale is bad

going from 1 Planet, to 1 star is fine, but to jump from 1 star to the several Billion Stars that make up a Galaxy is a massive leap.

Right... so going from 10^16 -> 10^26 (increase by factor of 10) is fine but going from 10^26 to 10^37 (increase by factor of 11) is a massive leap.

The scale works by adding the power of ten (About that at least) to the last level. Though the power of a star is great, in order to gain that power of 10, you have to go massive. The scale works out fine.

That being said, the scale does not mean that they HAVE to use those means, but as to their total ability to generate energy.
The Imperium can generate massive amounts of power, but still nowhere near the level of a tier 3 civilization. The wiki page also says that to get to a Tier 3 level takes hundreds of thousands of years.

For fun here is a more detailed list of what diffrent groups would be. I will say that this one seems off in some places.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main?AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit

Grey Templar wrote:the Halo rings arn't a very scientific weapon. How does it differentiate all sentient life from non-sentient?

it really is just another sci-fi "God" weapon.

Ok, good point, so I looked it up on Halopedia (Halo wiki) and apparently: "When activated, the Halo rings would wipe out all sentient life within three radii of the Milky Way's Galactic center, by sending out radiation, targeting certain cells in the nervous system, which includes, but is not limited to, neurons, by harmonizing all neurological frequencies."

But yes, it is "just another sci-fi God weapon", just as with the Shadow/Vorlon planet-killers, Exterminatus, the Death Star, the Reapers, the Flood, the Yuuzhan Vong, mass drivers or any sort of orbital bombardment, the Tyranid Hive Fleets, the Q continuum (literally beings with god powers)...if we discount all God weapons, what's the point of this argument? The God weapons are the best weapons/dudes available in their respective universes. Ignore them, and IoM generally=win.

Also, I think the Q could hands-down win the battle, even just one of them. ("Oooooh a million marines and tens of thousands of billions of IG? Ok, they're gone now.") They don't use psychic powers to win things, they just have complete control over time, space, and matter, and as such I doubt even the Chaos Gods of the Emperor fight back. (The Chaos Gods are powerful, but not omnipotent, and even if they were, Qs together can wipe out another Q, perhaps the same with Chaos?)

EDIT: also, according to Halopedia, "Each Installation has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light-years, and is apparently of the "highest possible threat assessment from biological contamination and radiological annihilation".The pulse is designed to kill all sentient life in the Installation's three-dimensional radius, with the entire array covering the entire galaxy"

And can be destroyed by the meltdown of a ship based nuclear reactor before it can fire.

Also I know WHO can defeat the IoM!

Elector wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:the Halo rings arn't a very scientific weapon. How does it differentiate all sentient life from non-sentient?

it really is just another sci-fi "God" weapon.

Ok, good point, so I looked it up on Halopedia (Halo wiki) and apparently: "When activated, the Halo rings would wipe out all sentient life within three radii of the Milky Way's Galactic center, by sending out radiation, targeting certain cells in the nervous system, which includes, but is not limited to, neurons, by harmonizing all neurological frequencies."

thats a whole lotta bull. all life with a central nervous system will have those neurons and it would take many centuries for the radiation to cover the whole galaxy.


Exterminatus certaintly has a little stretching of science in it as far as the speed goes(hours for the virus to do its work) and it would necessitate certain atmospheric variables, but is 100% sound in principal.

there are many flesh eating Bacteria. an advanced enough society with proper tech could engineer a virus that causes mass cell death in all living tissue(plant and animal), eventually resulting in the entire planet being swathed in organic gases with no life remaining to decompose these gases. when torched these gases will combust effectivly setting the planet on fire.

The Lensman universe actually has more respect for brute force than the Imperium - instead of using wimpy asteroids for a kinetic strike, they'll use an entire planet. When they run into a planet shielded enough to stand up to that, they'll annihilate two planets, one of them made of of negative matter and one normal. They handle galactic-scale organization and conquest of a second galaxy, so don't have any problems of scale. Most critically, they're one of the few universes that could not only defeat the Imperium, but occupy it, and finally could avoid becoming raving slaves to the chaos powers afterwards, since Lensmen are absolutely incorruptible.

Grey Templar wrote:

Elector wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:the Halo rings arn't a very scientific weapon. How does it differentiate all sentient life from non-sentient?

it really is just another sci-fi "God" weapon.

Ok, good point, so I looked it up on Halopedia (Halo wiki) and apparently: "When activated, the Halo rings would wipe out all sentient life within three radii of the Milky Way's Galactic center, by sending out radiation, targeting certain cells in the nervous system, which includes, but is not limited to, neurons, by harmonizing all neurological frequencies."

thats a whole lotta bull. all life with a central nervous system will have those neurons and it would take many centuries for the radiation to cover the whole galaxy.


Exterminatus certaintly has a little stretching of science in it as far as the speed goes(hours for the virus to do its work) and it would necessitate certain atmospheric variables, but is 100% sound in principal.

there are many flesh eating Bacteria. an advanced enough society with proper tech could engineer a virus that causes mass cell death in all living tissue(plant and animal), eventually resulting in the entire planet being swathed in organic gases with no life remaining to decompose these gases. when torched these gases will combust effectivly setting the planet on fire.

Ok, seriously dude, we're discussing a universe where people are literally eaten alive by a Hive Fleet of planet-eating bugs and are tortured living, breathing Daemons, and where we have a million super-powered "Incredible Hulk in Iron Man suits" running around....and you're arguing about realism? Are the SM, the Q, the Death Star, the Shadows/Vorlons, or anything else here more plausible?

The topic of this thread is "IoM vs anything", so that's what I put forward, I was just doing what everyone else, pitching an idea about a sci-fi universe vs the Imperium, cuz, lets be honest, most of sci-fi can be described as "a whole lotta bull", but we enjoy because of that, that it's a universe outside our own without our rules.

I reckon Daleks could win, assuming they were at the 'height' of their power. They could travel back in time to when the Emperor was a baby and kill him. Otherwise if they started losing, they could build their super-weapon shown in the episode, "Journey's End", which would destroy all life in the universe, while they stayed safe in their pocket of time.

I still also reckon that the Replicators of Stargate would win. Have a look at this thread in which 40K vs. Replicators has also been discussed:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=3a2192bd14146eb010871f3be14e8d08&t=90914

And, do you think the Ori, Goa'uld and Ancients would stand a chance? The Replicators would have beaten all of them, so I guess it's up to the Replicators to hold the day for Stargate.

(Lol, first post)

Any post-time war Dalek empire should win; the Doctor mentioned them annihilating entire timelines, and they fought the Timelords on an equal scale (Who have the ability to become sentient godlike beings temporarily by looking into the TARDIS). The reality bomb is major overkill.

Grey Templar wrote:the Halo rings arn't a very scientific weapon.

Sci-fi is usually not scientific, no matter how hard it tries to be. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are just that: Exceptions.

Not to mention that Warhammer 40K isn't scientific in the least.

Necroman wrote:Any post-time war Dalek empire should win; the Doctor mentioned them annihilating entire timelines, and they fought the Timelords on an equal scale (Who have the ability to become sentient godlike beings temporarily by looking into the TARDIS). The reality bomb is major overkill.

Grey Templar wrote:the Halo rings arn't a very scientific weapon.

Sci-fi is usually not scientific, no matter how hard it tries to be. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are just that: Exceptions.

Not to mention that Warhammer 40K isn't scientific in the least.

most of the weapons in 40k are somewhat scientific.

Bolters use real tech so could be made right now..

Plasma weapons utilize the Magnetic envelope theory which, if true and assuming Plasma could be created and contained in a man-portable device, would make an effective weapon.

Laz weapons work on the same theory as Plasma weapons as they are really plasma pulses rather then any type of Coherent Light.


40k does a very good job of explaining the things that arn't scientific. many other sci-fi universes don't even attempt to explain how they work. or they come up with a very bizarre explanation on the edge of comprehention. "Halo rings work by destroying the Neurons in all sentient life durr" = lame. a better weapon would be that it wipes out all animal life, that would be within the realm of possability, but to desire your viewer to belive that a weapon/computer system can distinguish between sentient and non-sentient life is rediculous.

keezus wrote:Wait... you mean in BFG, shields only help against weapon batteries? By what mechanism are torpedoes immune to shields? Why would the solid projectiles from the weapon batteries be stopped? Why aren't lances stopped...

Void shields = WTF.

you got it.

I always get a little peeved reading these discussions, and it never gets anywhere and no-one changes anyone's opinions but I will say the imperium of man, if they took on any other universe/race/anything, would win...seriously, you can argue maneuverability all you want but in the end the size and manpower of the imperium would overcome anything

Grey Templar wrote:40k does a very good job of explaining the things that arn't scientific. many other sci-fi universes don't even attempt to explain how they work. or they come up with a very bizarre explanation on the edge of comprehention.

I hope you are kidding... 40k does a very good job of explaining the things that aren't scientific - in a way that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.

EXHIBIT A: Stated method of function is contradicted by all depictions of operation.
Bolters fire mini-rockets. Rocket weapons are caseless. Bolters have case ejection ports and are shown to eject cases in all official artwork.

EXHIBIT B: Equipment's nomenclature is improperly applied due to difference in function or depictions of operation.
Gauss weapons are stated as working by stripping molecules from the target "layer by layer". In described effect, they seem to work as a directed disintegration beam. Nevermind that the stated function and effect are different - but the title GAUSS is a misnomer as well! Also, lasguns apparently don't shoot lasers (although lascannons seem to!)

EXHIBIT C: Stated method of function is incapable of performing depicted mode of operation.
Plasma reactors are stated in GW publications as FUSION BASED. They ignore the laws of conservation of energy, fuel consumption and are afforded efficiency greater than the limits of energy production possible using fusion as a process. Supporters state this is due to being "super advanced". That's like saying that a "super advanced" piston driven internal combustion engine can provide enough energy to launch your propeller driven airplane into orbit because it's very high tech.

EXHIBIT D: Mode of operation is unclear, stated method of function is not indicated.
Void shields and warp travel are "super technologies" which are never defined.

keezus wrote:EXHIBIT A: Stated method of function is contradicted by all depictions of operation.[/b]
Bolters fire mini-rockets. Rocket weapons are caseless. Bolters have case ejection ports and are shown to eject cases in all official artwork.

wrong

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/323719.page

keezus wrote:

EXHIBIT A: Stated method of function is contradicted by all depictions of operation.
Bolters fire mini-rockets. Rocket weapons are caseless. Bolters have case ejection ports and are shown to eject cases in all official artwork.

Nowhere are bolters ever claimed to be caseless(in current fluff) Bolters have 2 stages, an initial Explosive stage(identical to current solid slug firearms) and a rocket stage that ignites after leaving the barrel

EXHIBIT B: Equipment's nomenclature is improperly applied due to difference in function or depictions of operation.
Gauss weapons are stated as working by stripping molecules from the target "layer by layer". In described effect, they seem to work as a directed disintegration beam. Nevermind that the stated function and effect are different - but the title GAUSS is a misnomer as well! Also, lasguns apparently don't shoot lasers (although lascannons seem to!)

Gauss is an inconsistancy, but they are called Gauss "Flayers" so this is forgivable. Las weaponry(lascannons and guns) do NOT, and never are claimed, to use Lasers. they are plasma pulse weapons much like T'au pulse rifles and use a Tech similer to Plasma weapons

EXHIBIT C: Stated method of function can not performed depicted mode of operation.Plasma reactors are stated in GW publications as FUSION BASED. They ignore the laws of conservation of energy, fuel consumption and are afforded efficiency greater than the limits of energy production possible using fusion as a process. Supporters state this is due to being "super advanced". That's like saying that a "super advanced" piston driven internal combustion engine can provide enough energy to launch your propeller driven airplane into orbit because it's very high tech.

How do the Fusion reacters violate the Conservation of energy? Modern day Fission reacters can go 20 years without refueling, i would imagine Fission would be similer

EXHIBIT D: Mode of operation is unclear, stated method of function is not indicated.
Void shields and warp travel are "super technologies" which are never defined.

Warp travel is intra-dimentional. it rips a hole in reality to allow a solid object(or energy) to pass into the other dimention. Void shields work the same way by using a power source to teliport incoming energy and solid objects into the Warp. when the power source is overloaded the shield ceases to function. naturally these can't be explained scientifically as they involve a spiritual plane(the warp) where no scientific principals apply. the same thing applies to subatomic paritcles. they don't follow any scientific laws.

Necrons- pfft.
Tau- C'mon. Of course.
Chaos- Tried it. failed.
Eldar- Endangered species.
Dark Eldar- Endangered species+.
Orks- too disorganised.
Tyranids- most likely to do it.

Grey Templar wrote:Nowhere are bolters ever claimed to be caseless(in current fluff) Bolters have 2 stages, an initial Explosive stage(identical to current solid slug firearms) and a rocket stage that ignites after leaving the barrel[/size]

Hmmm... the official diagram here would beg to differ. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Bolter_Ammunition

Grey Templar wrote:Gauss is an inconsistancy, but they are called Gauss "Flayers" so this is forgivable. Las weaponry(lascannons and guns) do NOT, and never are claimed, to use Lasers. they are plasma pulse weapons much like T'au pulse rifles and use a Tech similer to Plasma weapons

Good to see you hold them to the high standards of "doing a pretty good job explaining" things... I suppose as a lasgun is a "plasma weapon" - this explains why you can recharge the damned thing in a fire, because clearly, something that fires plasma wouldn't need something as mundane as uh... ammunition.

Grey Templar wrote:How do the Fusion reacters violate the Conservation of energy? Modern day Fission reacters can go 20 years without refueling, i would imagine Fission would be similer

Well, that wouldn't be a problem if the Plasma reactors were to output a reasonable amount of energy - but I guess you didn't read any of the preceeding posts noting that starship reactors put out anywhere from 0.1-1.0 solar output/s level energy while being less than 10^14x smaller. That's a minor detail though... right?

Grey Templar wrote:Warp travel is intra-dimentional. it rips a hole in reality to allow a solid object(or energy) to pass into the other dimention. Void shields work the same way by using a power source to teliport incoming energy and solid objects into the Warp. when the power source is overloaded the shield ceases to function. naturally these can't be explained scientifically as they involve a spiritual plane(the warp) where no scientific principals apply. the same thing applies to subatomic paritcles. they don't follow any scientific laws.

You were doing great until the "subatomic particles don't follow scientific laws part". So basically you've just confirmed that none of how it works is really explained. It's a good thing that GW does a good job 'splaining these technologies... not like:

Grey Templar wrote:many other sci-fi universes don't even attempt to explain how they work. or they come up with a very bizarre explanation on the edge of comprehention. "

Oh wait...

keezus wrote:EXHIBIT C: Stated method of function is incapable of performing depicted mode of operation.
Plasma reactors are stated in GW publications as FUSION BASED. They ignore the laws of conservation of energy, fuel consumption and are afforded efficiency greater than the limits of energy production possible using fusion as a process. Supporters state this is due to being "super advanced". That's like saying that a "super advanced" piston driven internal combustion engine can provide enough energy to launch your propeller driven airplane into orbit because it's very high tech.

Last time this came up, no one was able to actually tell what GW publications say they're FUSION BASED. None of the BFG books do, nor any 40k books, or any RPG books. I think someone found a mention of a non-technical character in a BL book using the word fusion in relation to one, but that's just a case of a non-technical character using a technical word loosely. The thought process seems to be 'plasma is used in fusion reactors, therefore plasma reactors must be fusion reactors, but plasma reactors don't act like fusion reactors, therefore GW screwed up the terminology!' which is circular reasoning.

keezus wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Nowhere are bolters ever claimed to be caseless(in current fluff) Bolters have 2 stages, an initial Explosive stage(identical to current solid slug firearms) and a rocket stage that ignites after leaving the barrel[/size]

Hmmm... the official diagram here would beg to differ. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Bolter_Ammunition

again though, I direct you to my earlier post...

Grey Templar wrote:How do the Fusion reacters violate the Conservation of energy? Modern day Fission reacters can go 20 years without refueling, i would imagine Fission would be similer

If you run the numbers on what ships do, 40k Plasma reactors produce far more energy than 100% efficient conversion of their fuel into energy would provide. Whatever they actually do isn't anything in real physics, most likely they don't burn fuel for energy but burn fuel to hold open a conduit to drag energy out of the warp or something along those lines. FYI, Pretty much all SF spaceship drive and power systems are completely outside of modern physics, remotely realistic drives just don't give the kind of sustained accelerations on negligible fuel supplies. Realistic self-contained space drives end up needing fuel massing 10 or more times the rest of the ship just to get up to and back down from a small fraction of c one time.

It's unlikely that fusion reactors would go for so long without fueling, because their fuel is hydrogen (maybe helium) not the uranium that a fission reactor uses. Fission reactors have a long lifespan because fission fuels like uranium are extremely dense, so it's easy to fit a given mass of uranium into a fairly small area. Packing hydrogen that densely would be difficult and pointless, especially since we currently care about tracking nuclear material (so like having it in one place) but not hydrogen. And again, 40k (and most SF) ships consume power that dwarfs the lifetime power output of any modern power plant in a typical fight.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:

keezus wrote:Plasma reactors are stated in GW publications as FUSION BASED...

Last time this came up, no one was able to actually tell what GW publications say they're FUSION BASED. None of the BFG books do, nor any 40k books, or any RPG books. I think someone found a mention of a non-technical character in a BL book using the word fusion in relation to one, but that's just a case of a non-technical character using a technical word loosely. The thought process seems to be 'plasma is used in fusion reactors, therefore plasma reactors must be fusion reactors, but plasma reactors don't act like fusion reactors, therefore GW screwed up the terminology!' which is circular reasoning.

It's not quite circular, but it is a better baseline than the "it works because we said so". There is no other description to go by, which causes a lot of the problems. You suggest that the generators hold open a conduit to the warp to access energy, but there is nothing there to support that assumption. It's not called a warp reactor is it? We shouldn't just create something to prop up a viewpoint, and both parties can be accused of that, if there is evidence of something by all means use it, but if there isn't... Terminology aside, using either fusion, fission, or plasma reactors none of them are capable of producing the amount of energy required by some of the 'claimed' wepons stats. As I said earlier, based on what we know now, there is insufficent fuel on the entire planet earth to create enough energy for one lance shot.

Spaceship drives.
Another bugbear. Based on what I can find and infer from various sources, BFG, Warp Rift, some BL.
Tau create a gravitational point infront of their ships and that pulls them along, something akin to rolling down a hill.
Eldar. Solar winds.
Necron. Inertialess drives, (and I shudder to suggest it) seems to be a version of ST warp/impulse
Dark eldar. ?
Nids. Flatulence?
IoM/Chaos. Reaction drives.

All these ships move, accelerate, brake at the same rate, ignoring Necrons. All of these drives seem capable of the same results, but only at the very lower end of the scale, not the 9000Gs some would suggest.

Cheers

Andrew

@Frazzled, whats happened? You're pink!!!!

starhawks1 wrote:I always get a little peeved reading these discussions, and it never gets anywhere and no-one changes anyone's opinions but I will say the imperium of man, if they took on any other universe/race/anything, would win...seriously, you can argue maneuverability all you want but in the end the size and manpower of the imperium would overcome anything

Not really. Like in the previous post I made, the Daleks would win. They have a massive technology advantage (except against Necrons who are pure awesome) and would easily overwhelm the Imperium. They could just hop back in time and blow Terra to smithereens. There goes your Imperium problem

Also, again. What do you guys think of the Replicators vs. IOM? I still really think the Replicators would win.

@Frazzled, whats happened? You're pink!!!!

Breast cancer awareness month.

Good answer, good cause.

Andrew

Q from star trek. He uses his powers to make everyone in the imperium kill themselves. the end.