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 KingmanHighborn wrote:
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.

Well, at least against a low-end civilization where human-piloted fighters are relevant at all.

human-piloted fighters will ALWAYS be relevant.

Da krimson barun wrote:
That chart has the eclipse smaller then a super star destroyer.I don't trust it.

GW has pulled back on most their ridiculous superlative ship sizes from early fluff and FFG has resized almost all of them to be more reasonable. Since everything FFG does gets the blessing of GW, FFG sizes being most recent, they supercede the old BFG sizes.

DirkLoechel 4 days ago
Me too. Soon as FFG decides they release the new sizings (they resized all ships from BFG, and BL and GW go with it, so my hands are kinds tied there D: ) they'll be added. Same for 'cron, 'nid and Tau ships.

http://dirkloechel.deviantart.com/art/Size-Comparison-Science-Fiction-spaceships-398790051?offset=20#comments

He has a couple other images on there and is rather well versed in 40K fluff, so I dont think he is trying to short change 40K ship sizes in their general ridiculousness.

I was talking about star wars.

At least I should say 'humanoid' one-two man fighter craft will be relevant in any situation. High or low tech, the one with the best fighter and fighter/bomber craft win. This is way Star Trek universe would get wiped out hard and early.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
At least I should say 'humanoid' one-two man fighter craft will be relevant in any situation. High or low tech, the one with the best fighter and fighter/bomber craft win. This is way Star Trek universe would get wiped out hard and early.

The Star Trek Universe has manned fighters. They show them during the Dominion Wars and cadets are trained on them in the Academy(there's even a TNG episode centered around an "accident" involving one, it's Wesley heavy).

The REAL reason Star Trek would be wiped out fast is because their ships are small and under gunned for their size(mostly due to Star Fleet not really being a military).

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
At least I should say 'humanoid' one-two man fighter craft will be relevant in any situation. High or low tech, the one with the best fighter and fighter/bomber craft win. This is way Star Trek universe would get wiped out hard and early.

Lol, no. When battles are fought at high-FTL speeds in fractions of a second a fighter becomes completely irrelevant. By the time the human pilot's brain can even process the fact that a battle is happening it's already over. Meanwhile a fighter doesn't have enough firepower to compete with bigger ships, and the whole "hard to hit" thing only works against mechanical turrets that care about having to aim at you. And of course in harder scifi universes a fighter is stupid because it has to spend mass on life support, fuel to return to base, etc. A missile of equivalent mass does everything better since it doesn't have to keep a pilot alive or return from its mission.

If a human brain can't hold together at high-FTL speeds in a fighter it sure as heck can't do it in a capital ship. The human mind will be the best at making split second decisions over a computer, because learned talent, and instinct are not programmable. I give the mind a lot more credit, then your seeming to give.

As far as firepower goes most fighters carry payloads of missiles and torpedoes that strike vulnerable spots or in numbers simply mass fire and overwhelm a larger ship. Or you have a fighter like the Black Lance Dragon, that is invisible to both sensors and visual, carries a one hit, one kill weapon against anything it attaches to, AND a main weapon in dual fission cannons that can destroy targets with ease.

Hard to hit applies also to the fact that a fighter can dink and dunk, jink and move away from threats that a missile couldn't do. (Though to be fair Wing Commander does have skipper missiles that are cloaked, and can jump like a fighter or cap ship) They usually have countermeasures to foil missiles and speed and maneuverability that large ships just don't have.

Fighters also can come in a range of different types for different roles, such as scouting, recon, bombing/torpedoing targets. The level of versatility is staggering.

Trying to read into it but.. whats the point of the culture? if everything is provided for you and you no longer have to do anything as everything is replaced with AI whats the point of organic life? why would the AI even bother with keeping it around when the AI could focus on more important matter than keeping a worthless organic being alive?

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
If a human brain can't hold together at high-FTL speeds in a fighter it sure as heck can't do it in a capital ship. The human mind will be the best at making split second decisions over a computer, because learned talent, and instinct are not programmable. I give the mind a lot more credit, then your seeming to give.

You're forgetting that most high-end scifi civilizations have AIs that make humans look like insects (or worse) in comparison. For example, a Culture warship is a god-like sentient ship whose Mind considers simulating entire universes from fundamental principles to be light entertainment and can handle space battles that happen in fractions of a second.

As far as firepower goes most fighters carry payloads of missiles and torpedoes that strike vulnerable spots or in numbers simply mass fire and overwhelm a larger ship.

You know what carries even more missiles? Replacing the fighter with more missiles and shooting the whole blob of them at the enemy.

Or you have a fighter like the Black Lance Dragon, that is invisible to both sensors and visual, carries a one hit, one kill weapon against anything it attaches to, AND a main weapon in dual fission cannons that can destroy targets with ease.

At least in its own universe. Against other civilizations you can't just declare a one-hit kill, especially when even civilian ships in those civilizations carry planet-destroying firepower (and can presumably defend against those guns).

Hard to hit applies also to the fact that a fighter can dink and dunk, jink and move away from threats that a missile couldn't do.

Why exactly is a fighter able to evade better than a missile that doesn't have to carry extra mass for the fuel to return home safely or worry about acceleration limits for its fragile human pilot?

Fighters also can come in a range of different types for different roles, such as scouting, recon, bombing/torpedoing targets. The level of versatility is staggering.

You know what's better than using a fighter for that? Using a battleship. Or better, a whole fleet of battleships. Remember, there are scifi civilizations that deploy squadrons of mile-long planet killer battleships as effortlessly as other civilizations deploy squadrons of fighters.


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 Ninjacommando wrote:
Trying to read into it but.. whats the point of the culture? if everything is provided for you and you no longer have to do anything as everything is replaced with AI whats the point of organic life? why would the AI even bother with keeping it around when the AI could focus on more important matter than keeping a worthless organic being alive?

One of the major themes of the books is answering that question.

The Q continium would win if they actually bothered to make war...

I still hold with the old BFG sizes.
And as such that chart is heresy and must :flame:
As it is though GWs sizes are the relevant ones as they are the actual ones in the fluff.
So the Cobra class are still 1.5-1.6 miles in length (which, when you think of what they carry, is reasonable. They can fit whole regiments inside themselves)

 Ninjacommando wrote:
Trying to read into it but.. whats the point of the culture? if everything is provided for you and you no longer have to do anything as everything is replaced with AI whats the point of organic life? why would the AI even bother with keeping it around when the AI could focus on more important matter than keeping a worthless organic being alive?

Living, experiencing stuff. What's the point of super-intelligent AI life, really?

The Culture AIs keep people around because killing them would be wrong, and they're as deserving of existence as everyone else. Plus we do funny/interesting stuff that amuses them. There is a certain amount of lip-service to humans doing the liaison-work with other races because making diplomatic deals with near-godlike AI starships is 'intimidating.'

Ennui is actually a problem in the Culture universe for both humans and Minds. There's a section in one book that mentions that Minds sometimes spend massive amounts of time in 'Infinite Fun Space', a VR world. Humans have occasional issues as well, with some taking long sojourns. There's a character in one book that was an outsider and chose to live in a remote outpost for decades. He was perfectly happy, despite probably being near-insane by a lot of standards.

Another aspect is that while everything is 'free' that doesn't mean it's easy. One notable example in one book is a tale told to an immigrant to the Culture to explain this: Some guy decided he wanted a bunch system of cable cars to make it more fun and interesting to cross a mountain range. The Mind that was the Orbital the mountain range was on didn't really see this as important, but didn't really see the need to block it either. He provided the materials: pre-fab supports, tools, cable, etc.The human had to put in the labor to build the cable-cars himself which involved a lot of hard work and getting other people on board with his idea.... And a few decades later, the system of cable-cars was failing due to neglect, as the guy who built it had long since moved on to something else.

Or to put it another way, any Culture citizen can certainly live like a king by our standards. Massive house, entertainment on-tap, etc. The big 'goals' tend to be either mega-projects, art and culture, or excitement. The last is most often seen by joining Contact (the Culture's "star fleet" that goes out and studies new life) or Special Circumstances (that kills the new life when necessary). If you ask for a bigger house, you'll probably get it. Food, no problem. Drugs? Sure... Destroying yourself is possible, although most Culture 'humans' are pretty sturdy and have drug glands that can dump various substances into the human's blood-stream on command.

Ask for something big, like a Starship: Here's where it gets interesting. Is a Culture Human capable of handling all the maintenance, astrogation, and other tasks without help? Unlikely... It would not surprise me if 'tin can' ships going on short trips through a solar system is common. However, a 'real' ship is going to need a lot more intelligence to control weapons (especially if we're talking combat at light speed) manage pulling power from another dimension, and countless other tasks. So you'd need a Mind to control it, and that likely does hit some of the Culture's rules, as the Mind controlling your new starship would be sentient, and thus 'controlling' it would be akin to slavery, so 'your' starship would now need to be an independent entity... So hopefully it agrees with you.

It's a weird system, but it works in context.

Please, the United Federation of Planets would win, clearly. They send in 'Ambassador' James T Kirk who proceeds to sleep with every intelligent life form (and some of the less intelligent ones, and some of the ones which may not be considered 'life forms'), and spread some unholy genetically modified STI forcing. Everyone to... Talk like. THIS

Communication breaks down, anarchy everywhere, Kirk takes over as Galactic Emperor.

In that scenario every robot enemy(Necrons etc) win because well...Where's he gonna stick it into?And I support the old battlefleet Gothic sizes.EMPIRE state building windows for everyone!

Dude it's Kirk...he will find something on a Cron to stick it into. Might even cause a massive upheaval of reprogramming to make it so they can get 'something' stuck in them afterwards because it's Kirk.

Though I did think about one thing, how would the Culture deal with Tenga Toppa Gurrenn Lagaan? Cause at its height it's....insane.

It's gunna be da Orkz dat come owt on da top of dis foit! Cuz da Orkz ur da bestest and dey haf da Powah of Mork AND Gork on der side!!


Honestly, I have found that brute force and ignorance usually sees you through any problem, so I will assume it will see da Orkz through universal domination...

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

Though I did think about one thing, how would the Culture deal with Tenga Toppa Gurrenn Lagaan? Cause at its height it's....insane.

Offer it membership? The Culture is pretty pro-life, despite the Minds being in control.

 davou wrote:
The Q continium would win if they actually bothered to make war...

The Q have made war. With themselves.

It damaged subspace and caused stars to go supernova in "real space".

Mantrid drones and insect form replicators would be my top two most dangerous lifeforms.
In SG-1 the replicators should have won. The ancient superweapon was only useful against replicators that were near planets with gates. replicator controlled ships in deep space would have survived to start again.

Nuzzgrund wrote:
It's gunna be da Orkz dat come owt on da top of dis foit! Cuz da Orkz ur da bestest and dey haf da Powah of Mork AND Gork on der side!!


Honestly, I have found that brute force and ignorance usually sees you through any problem, so I will assume it will see da Orkz through universal domination...

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!
Orkzalt!

One common method to measure the power level of a civilisation is the Kardashev scale, which looks at amount of energy under its control.

On this scale 40k's Imperium of Man would probably qualify as a Type II, while the Culture are a high Type III.

My personal (fairly obscure) suggestion would be the Xeelee from Stephen Baxter's novels - they're a Type IV with the ability to construct trans-galactic galactic-scale objects.

in that case the civilisations from the Orion's arm universe trump everything.

 Hedgehog wrote:
One common method to measure the power level of a civilisation is the Kardashev scale, which looks at amount of energy under its control.

On this scale 40k's Imperium of Man would probably qualify as a Type II, while the Culture are a high Type III.

My personal (fairly obscure) suggestion would be the Xeelee from Stephen Baxter's novels - they're a Type IV with the ability to construct trans-galactic galactic-scale objects.

That's a good assumption. But one of the distinguishing traits of the 40k universe is the lack of a deterministic drive towards progress. Societies can devolve. Mankind arguably reached Type III at some point in history, but the Age of Strife undid everything we had gained so far, sending the species back to level 0, I in some cases. From the Great Crusade onwards, the Imperium has been a Type II wielding the odd remants of a Type III and, despite it all, still facing the risk of devolving to a series of isolated Level I and 0 civilizations.

 Hedgehog wrote:
One common method to measure the power level of a civilisation is the Kardashev scale, which looks at amount of energy under its control.

On this scale 40k's Imperium of Man would probably qualify as a Type II, while the Culture are a high Type III.

My personal (fairly obscure) suggestion would be the Xeelee from Stephen Baxter's novels - they're a Type IV with the ability to construct trans-galactic galactic-scale objects.

Michio Kaku, in a lecture, said that in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the god-like Q Continuum could be considered above Type Ⅳ, drawing their energy from outside the universe.

Its not fair, but they have 'magic'.

I find it rather odd that nobody has yet to mention the Vorlons.

 judgedoug wrote:
Minmei.

Good choice.

Maybe Zapp Brannigan?

The Vogons would just tie everyone up in red tape then demolish all of the planets in the cosmos to make way for a Hyperspace Bypass.

Hallowed are the Ori!

I must put this one out there, as I feel they are a strong contender. They manage to take over most of the milky way galaxy, and a host of other galaxy's without using any force what so ever, they just land on a planet and use their technology to convert everyone. Only when they come against Earth do they feel they need to build warships capable of destroying planets (and they have a lot of these ships) After building a supergate they come past and destroy and scatter the allied fleet (cannot remember the names of all involved) It is only the Ancients who give the humans the technology to enable the humans to be slightly effective against the Ori.

So i'd join these dudes.

From Stargate if you're not sure

I'm going to have to say the Orks, simply because they can do excellent warfare with mere junk that other factions can do with technology. A few victories in, and da Boyz have got that nice technology as well. Game over, da greenskins win da WAAAGH!!!