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The Empire also possesses Interdictor star destroyers which could disrupt warp travel and trap the Federation's smaller numbers.

 Frazzled wrote:
Well the Fed is weak against more evolved races. Against those of equal or near equal level they are very tough.

Remember the Fed had advanced sufficient ly that it developed Shields and weaponry such that a mid-level ship could destroy multiple cubes with one or two shots (series end of Voyager).
If voyoger can take out a cube with a shot, what can it do to a Star Destroyer?

That Voyager tech was the result of Admiral Janeway violating the Temporal Prime Directive and bringing in weapons from a timeline that will never exist. And that was just over losing Seven. Imagine what Janeway, now an admiral, would do if the Empire killed her whole crew.

The Federation has a lot more advanced technology than many others, yes, but as YE showed, they would lose a prolonged war with the Klingons. The Dominion is very much like the Federation without it's morals, and we saw how that translated into a vast empire with a crazy industrial base. The Federation's main weakness is their morality based restraint. However, it is also one of their greatest assets, as that is no doubt why all the godlike beings seem to keep them around.

If the Federation ever went for an all out war of annihilation, it could raise an insane force in just a few years. Industrial replicators, exocomp and nanite labor ers, holocrew, Soong type androids... Look out.


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Alpharius Walks wrote:
The Empire also possesses Interdictor star destroyers which could disrupt warp travel and trap the Federation's smaller numbers.

Are those canon in Disneywars?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Well the Fed is weak against more evolved races. Against those of equal or near equal level they are very tough.

Remember the Fed had advanced sufficient ly that it developed Shields and weaponry such that a mid-level ship could destroy multiple cubes with one or two shots (series end of Voyager).
If voyoger can take out a cube with a shot, what can it do to a Star Destroyer?

That Voyager tech was the result of Admiral Janeway violating the Temporal Prime Directive and bringing in weapons from a timeline that will never exist. And that was just over losing Seven. Imagine what Janeway, now an admiral, would do if the Empire killed her whole crew.

The Federation has a lot more advanced technology than many others, yes, but as YE showed, they would lose a prolonged war with the Klingons. The Dominion is very much like the Federation without it's morals, and we saw how that translated into a vast empire with a crazy industrial base. The Federation's main weakness is their morality based restraint. However, it is also one of their greatest assets, as that is no doubt why all the godlike beings seem to keep them around.

If the Federation ever went for an all out war of annihilation, it could raise an insane force in just a few years. Industrial replicators, exocomp and nanite labor ers, holocrew, Soong type androids... Look out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius Walks wrote:
The Empire also possesses Interdictor star destroyers which could disrupt warp travel and trap the Federation's smaller numbers.

Are those canon in Disneywars?

Yes. They were in Rebels, and a number of new canon books.

Honestly, who wins is entirely down to the parameters the person asking the question sets up.

Do SW shields block transporters like ST shields do or not? Can the Empire track ships moving at Warp speeds? Does the Empire have to bother with mapping hyperlanes or not? How do Imperial weapons interact with Federation shields? And so on and so on. How you answer these questions will decide who wins.

I tend to follow Stardestroyer.net's numbers more when it comes to the debate, so in a straight up match the Empire would likely crush the Federation. However, Star Trek is a show all about exploring special circumstances and unique people, so it seems a waste not to consider them. more fully. Also, while the Empire might be under-militarized for a war with another galactic rival, the Federation is practically sitting on its hands when it comes to combat potential. The UFP has at least a half dozen planet killers, some of which can be delivered from light years away (like the soliton wave, or a better version of the Cardassian dreadnought torpedo). They have the technology to expand their forces extremely rapidly and effectively if they ever went that route (industrial replicators and Holofactories, holocrew and android clones, see below). They have the ability to turn any warp capable vessel into a time machine. They have the potential to become an unstoppable foe if the Empire hits them hard enough to break their principles. Would it be in the spirit of the show? No, but it would be fun to think about.

 Vaktathi wrote:
There are so many plot and science holes in both universes that either would instantly implode the second you tried to compare them realistically.

For instance, with Start Trek and the concept of transporters, basically anything that isnt actively shielded could be instantly obliterated at will if they so chose (oh look your shields are down, I can beam your crew off the ship and into space, or just say screw it and molecularly disassemble the ship and the crew and just not rematerialize it all in the blink of an eye) and yet...they never do that. Transporters by themselves basically break most of Star Trek when looked at critically

Eh. Transporters have trouble beaming through certain rocks. I have no problem assuming Stardestroyer hulls would block transporter beams. Besides, there's a good chance that a phaser set to disintegrate is using the same basic technology in a more efficient method for weaponry.

The real potential with transporters is what they can do strategically. We've seen them clone brilliant officers (or at least William Riker), heal the terminally ill (Pulaski) and store patterns indefinitely (Scotty). They should by all rights be capable of resurrecting the dead (Thomas Riker or William Riker was created from unliving matter, after all, and Pulaski was restored to her previous pattern of existence), likely only prevented from doing so out of moral concerns or squeamishness. Imagine a clone army of Soong type Androids pumped out as fast as you can transport some ingots into a padful of Datas. Imagine the industrial applications--transporting most of a starship's components into existence and into place at the same time.

You could create a ship and veteran crew faster than I can type this...imagine building a word vli e army in a few minutes. Or never, just have them in the memory bank and transport millions whenever desired.

Still need time to gather that infrastructure.

Torture droids should prove most effective at obtaining that information, no?

All goes back to one of my first points. The Federation never, ever, shoots first. That means The Empire has all the time it needs to do proper, efficient recon.

But then you get into an Angel's Pencil situation where most Fed members have no idea what Starfleet is capable of or even what its weapons are. A torture droid can ask about the Federation's deadliest weapons but it won't learn anything beyond photon torpedoes or tricobalt devices because every member thinks their actual deadliest weapons are really things that just make crops, or deliver packages to neighboring stars, or learn jokes from Joe Piscopo.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
But then you get into an Angel's Pencil situation where most Fed members have no idea what Starfleet is capable of or even what its weapons are. A torture droid can ask about the Federation's deadliest weapons but it won't learn anything beyond photon torpedoes or tricobalt devices because every member thinks their actual deadliest weapons are really things that just make crops, or deliver packages to neighboring stars, or learn jokes from Joe Piscopo.

Not seeing how the empire is going to be able to go ranging through Fed space with torture bots. That's a pretty heavy cassus belli.


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Also if they are now bordering the Empire their threat level assessment would undoubtedly rise to hyper Cold War level. Production of "peaceful" ships would rise substantially with contingencies in place for total war



Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the flip side if the Empire could identify key Federal planets before the Feds ramp production it could hyperspace in overwhelming forces for each location. Even if local forces fight well they would still be pinned in place or the fixed manufacturing plant (ie planet and satellite s) obliterated from orbit.


On the flip side...why would they. Other powers exist in the Empire's Galaxy.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Again. We are closing over the fact Federation ships move and fight at speed where SW weapons literally can't hit them. It is the ultimate stealth tech.

This is not technically true. The warp fields move that fast, but they are permeable to various natural phenomena and can be affected by gravitational fields and the like.

Which means a humble Interdictor Cruiser puts those tactics right out.

One should also remember that warp speed sniping is a hit-and-run tactic. The IDS's are designed to take damage, from weapons of similar demonstrated destructive power, over and over and OVER again in a flat-out point-blank slugging match. It's quite possible that by the time a warp-speed sniper gets back into firing position the ISD's shields have already regenerated the damage done in the first pass....


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I tend to follow Stardestroyer.net's numbers more when it comes to the debate, so in a straight up match the Empire would likely crush the Federation. However, Star Trek is a show all about exploring special circumstances and unique people, so it seems a waste not to consider them. more fully. Also, while the Empire might be under-militarized for a war with another galactic rival, the Federation is practically sitting on its hands when it comes to combat potential. The UFP has at least a half dozen planet killers, some of which can be delivered from light years away (like the soliton wave, or a better version of the Cardassian dreadnought torpedo). They have the technology to expand their forces extremely rapidly and effectively if they ever went that route (industrial replicators and Holofactories, holocrew and android clones, see below). They have the ability to turn any warp capable vessel into a time machine. They have the potential to become an unstoppable foe if the Empire hits them hard enough to break their principles. Would it be in the spirit of the show? No, but it would be fun to think about.

True, but what they lack is any way to reach the Imperial home galaxy. Remember, Imperial ships can go intergalactic in a reasonable time and cross the whole Federation within days at most. It takes Fed ships weeks to months to cross the Federation, and going intergalactic would take a generation ship. And if the Imperials have even half a brain, the Federation won't even have any idea WHICH other galaxy they come from. Heck, it's quite likely that until they get proof to the contrary, they'll believe the Empire is in some unknown portion of their own galaxy...

Alpharius Walks wrote:
The Empire also possesses Interdictor star destroyers which could disrupt warp travel and trap the Federation's smaller numbers.

Doesn't work. The interdictors work by creating a gravity field, which the Federations warp drive ignores.

However that piece of info comes from a very early source and might well have been retconned by Lucas/Disney.

Cheers

Andrew


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 Vulcan wrote:

One should also remember that warp speed sniping is a hit-and-run tactic. The IDS's are designed to take damage, from weapons of similar demonstrated destructive power, over and over and OVER again in a flat-out point-blank slugging match. It's quite possible that by the time a warp-speed sniper gets back into firing position the ISD's shields have already regenerated the damage done in the first pass....

This came up in an earlier iteration of this subject, but the winner is a humble Runabout with a cloaking device and transphasic torpedoes. Exploding inside the ISD will hollow the entire thing out and no need for a slugging match.

Cheers

Andrew

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
There are so many plot and science holes in both universes that either would instantly implode the second you tried to compare them realistically.

For instance, with Start Trek and the concept of transporters, basically anything that isnt actively shielded could be instantly obliterated at will if they so chose (oh look your shields are down, I can beam your crew off the ship and into space, or just say screw it and molecularly disassemble the ship and the crew and just not rematerialize it all in the blink of an eye) and yet...they never do that. Transporters by themselves basically break most of Star Trek when looked at critically

Eh. Transporters have trouble beaming through certain rocks. I have no problem assuming Stardestroyer hulls would block transporter beams.

Shouldnt be an issue, they transport through hulls all the time and in this instance you wouldnt need to be maintaining any sort of signal coherency or transmissions, if nothing else, just turn the transporter on the hull, and molecularly disassemble it, or transport material out to poke a bunch of holes in the hull

Besides, there's a good chance that a phaser set to disintegrate is using the same basic technology in a more efficient method for weaponry.

It is difficult to imagine a more efficient weaponry than a ranged ability to simply disassemble matter. Phasers are still ostensibly merely directed energy weapons, albeit apparentlt orders of magnitude more powerful than lasers in ST.

The one exception would be photon torpedoes armed with antimatter warheads, given that matter-antimatter interactions have a perfect energy conversion rate. These are another thing ST portrays...poorly. a torpedo with a kilogram of antimatter would displace most of earths atmosphere and obliterate any ship, but are often portrayed as being no more powerful than something like a modern artillery shell, even against planetary targets

The real potential with transporters is what they can do strategically. We've seen them clone brilliant officers (or at least William Riker), heal the terminally ill (Pulaski) and store patterns indefinitely (Scotty). They should by all rights be capable of resurrecting the dead (Thomas Riker or William Riker was created from unliving matter, after all, and Pulaski was restored to her previous pattern of existence), likely only prevented from doing so out of moral concerns or squeamishness. Imagine a clone army of Soong type Androids pumped out as fast as you can transport some ingots into a padful of Datas. Imagine the industrial applications--transporting most of a starship's components into existence and into place at the same time.

theres all sorts of things that largely go unexplored. You could create infinite clones (once its in the buffer...just re-energize as nausem), rip critical components from other vessels, send the same thing different places, etc.

But the main point was that the transporter (and replicator) basically breaks most of ST by itself, and both franchises have weird stuff that rapidly causes analysis and compariaon of them to collapse.

 Vulcan wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Again. We are closing over the fact Federation ships move and fight at speed where SW weapons literally can't hit them. It is the ultimate stealth tech.

This is not technically true. The warp fields move that fast, but they are permeable to various natural phenomena and can be affected by gravitational fields and the like.

Which means a humble Interdictor Cruiser puts those tactics right out.

One should also remember that warp speed sniping is a hit-and-run tactic. The IDS's are designed to take damage, from weapons of similar demonstrated destructive power, over and over and OVER again in a flat-out point-blank slugging match. It's quite possible that by the time a warp-speed sniper gets back into firing position the ISD's shields have already regenerated the damage done in the first pass....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I tend to follow Stardestroyer.net's numbers more when it comes to the debate, so in a straight up match the Empire would likely crush the Federation. However, Star Trek is a show all about exploring special circumstances and unique people, so it seems a waste not to consider them. more fully. Also, while the Empire might be under-militarized for a war with another galactic rival, the Federation is practically sitting on its hands when it comes to combat potential. The UFP has at least a half dozen planet killers, some of which can be delivered from light years away (like the soliton wave, or a better version of the Cardassian dreadnought torpedo). They have the technology to expand their forces extremely rapidly and effectively if they ever went that route (industrial replicators and Holofactories, holocrew and android clones, see below). They have the ability to turn any warp capable vessel into a time machine. They have the potential to become an unstoppable foe if the Empire hits them hard enough to break their principles. Would it be in the spirit of the show? No, but it would be fun to think about.

True, but what they lack is any way to reach the Imperial home galaxy. Remember, Imperial ships can go intergalactic in a reasonable time and cross the whole Federation within days at most. It takes Fed ships weeks to months to cross the Federation, and going intergalactic would take a generation ship. And if the Imperials have even half a brain, the Federation won't even have any idea WHICH other galaxy they come from. Heck, it's quite likely that until they get proof to the contrary, they'll believe the Empire is in some unknown portion of their own galaxy...

I didn't mention interdictions because I wasn't sure they were canon. Although we don't know how effective they would be against warp drives, I'm fine assuming a Starfleet captain won't risk causing a STTMP style warp imbalance.

Most Federation weapons probably won't harm a Stardestroyer....but if they go all out with transphasic or protomatter/Genesis torpedoes? Ouch.


As for the distance...neither entity is likely to start a war in a distant galaxy. Most VS scenarios assume some sort of space time connection or wormhole connecting the two galaxies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
There are so many plot and science holes in both universes that either would instantly implode the second you tried to compare them realistically.

For instance, with Start Trek and the concept of transporters, basically anything that isnt actively shielded could be instantly obliterated at will if they so chose (oh look your shields are down, I can beam your crew off the ship and into space, or just say screw it and molecularly disassemble the ship and the crew and just not rematerialize it all in the blink of an eye) and yet...they never do that. Transporters by themselves basically break most of Star Trek when looked at critically

Eh. Transporters have trouble beaming through certain rocks. I have no problem assuming Stardestroyer hulls would block transporter beams.

Shouldnt be an issue, they transport through hulls all the time and in this instance you wouldnt need to be maintaining any sort of signal coherency or transmissions, if nothing else, just turn the transporter on the hull, and molecularly disassemble it, or transport material out to poke a bunch of holes in the hull

Besides, there's a good chance that a phaser set to disintegrate is using the same basic technology in a more efficient method for weaponry.

It is difficult to imagine a more efficient weaponry than a ranged ability to simply disassemble matter. Phasers are still ostensibly merely directed energy weapons, albeit apparentlt orders of magnitude more powerful than lasers in ST.

The one exception would be photon torpedoes armed with antimatter warheads, given that matter-antimatter interactions have a perfect energy conversion rate. These are another thing ST portrays...poorly. a torpedo with a kilogram of antimatter would displace most of earths atmosphere and obliterate any ship, but are often portrayed as being no more powerful than something like a modern artillery shell, even against planetary targets

The real potential with transporters is what they can do strategically. We've seen them clone brilliant officers (or at least William Riker), heal the terminally ill (Pulaski) and store patterns indefinitely (Scotty). They should by all rights be capable of resurrecting the dead (Thomas Riker or William Riker was created from unliving matter, after all, and Pulaski was restored to her previous pattern of existence), likely only prevented from doing so out of moral concerns or squeamishness. Imagine a clone army of Soong type Androids pumped out as fast as you can transport some ingots into a padful of Datas. Imagine the industrial applications--transporting most of a starship's components into existence and into place at the same time.

theres all sorts of things that largely go unexplored. You could create infinite clones (once its in the buffer...just re-energize as nausem), rip critical components from other vessels, send the same thing different places, etc.

But the main point was that the transporter (and replicator) basically breaks most of ST by itself, and both franchises have weird stuff that rapidly causes analysis and compariaon of them to collapse.

1. According to the ICS, an ISD's hull is full of neutronium or something like it. Transporters have trouble with Neutronium. Now, those space cancer-causing dimensional shifters the space terrorists use on TNG, on the other hand....

2. Phasers are said to work by causing a nadion pulse. We don't know what that is, but they clearly disassemble matter without having to pump explosive amounts of heat into it...like a transporter. In that way, they are more than just directed energy weapons, causing damage in excess of the sheer heat pumped into a target. Transporter confinement beams seem to use sub space pockets to bypass barriers like starship hulls, yea, but that just makes them more finicky to use, and apparently easier for random ion storms or kelvinite rocks to block.

Photon torpedoes are in the tens of megaton range per blast. Quantum and tricobalt torpedoes are supposedly an order of magnitude more powerful (I guess. Have we seen any difference?). Even if we go with the crazy The Die Is Cast torpedoes, it would still take an huge number of them to hurt an ISD. The Federation won't be one-shooting the Imperial ships without breaking a dozen treaties.

3. The transporter pretty much does break the setting.

Nice response I think I hit a nerve

First off yes, I give the Empire numbers, I give it to them in the first post and make it clear I'm assuming more of a ship to ship situation.

Let's look at the supposed advantages of the Empire:

Speed - this is a tough one since both warp and hyperspace are made up and used inconsistantly. Generally hyperspace seems faster, but as mentioned many, many times you need to stick to known routes and calculate your jumps carefully. In a new galaxy the Empire's ability to move would be sharply restricted to what they'd mapped out. Plus it can't be used in combat. Warp speed can be used in real space, can be used in battle. The Federation has a history of tracking ships going FTL, the Empire explicitly cannot.

Fighters and bombers-Unshielded, slower than light sleds. They'd just be targets for the Federations' weapons. Imperial ships seem to run on a WWII style system where a human has to aim and fire the guns. Federation weapons are auto-targeting and would munch through them pretty fast.

Numbers - Something to keep in mind, the Federation is not afraid that Vulcan will rise in rebellion if the USS Yorktown leaves orbit. The Empire is. In fact the Empire never really fought a war of conquest, they were installed by a coup, replaced the Clone Force and mainly focused on internal security. Which they failed at miserably. The Empire would never be able to bring the full force of its numbers to bear without losing control of its own empire. The Federation's worlds are there because they want to be, to work together for a better galaxy. They can focus. Moreover the Federation's tech edge makes this something like the First Gulf War or some even bigger mismatch.

Firepower - The idea of just using transporters to disassemble a ship is nothing new. I always assumed phasers (which I remind you disintegrate matter!) were just unambitious transporters. They don't care about armor (barring super special plot armor stuff like the Doomsday Machine's neutron star hull) either you have shields or you are ash. Period. I've never seen anything to imply SW weapons (barring maybe lightsabres) play at anything like that level.

Adaptation - The Empire will reverse engineer Federation tech? The Empire will reverse engineer? The Empire? The Empire is a racist, mono-culture dictatorship against people who have a proven track record of sciencing their way past vastly superior forces and minor gods. If anyone's going to be reverse engineering stuff, coming up with new defenses, hacking the enemy's systems etc. it'll be the Federation.

So barring a 1000 to 1 numerical superiority I just don't see the Empire winning.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Nice response I think I hit a nerve

First off yes, I give the Empire numbers, I give it to them in the first post and make it clear I'm assuming more of a ship to ship situation.

Let's look at the supposed advantages of the Empire:

Speed - this is a tough one since both warp and hyperspace are made up and used inconsistantly. Generally hyperspace seems faster, but as mentioned many, many times you need to stick to known routes and calculate your jumps carefully. In a new galaxy the Empire's ability to move would be sharply restricted to what they'd mapped out. Plus it can't be used in combat. Warp speed can be used in real space, can be used in battle. The Federation has a history of tracking ships going FTL, the Empire explicitly cannot.

Fighters and bombers-Unshielded, slower than light sleds. They'd just be targets for the Federations' weapons. Imperial ships seem to run on a WWII style system where a human has to aim and fire the guns. Federation weapons are auto-targeting and would munch through them pretty fast.

Numbers - Something to keep in mind, the Federation is not afraid that Vulcan will rise in rebellion if the USS Yorktown leaves orbit. The Empire is. In fact the Empire never really fought a war of conquest, they were installed by a coup, replaced the Clone Force and mainly focused on internal security. Which they failed at miserably. The Empire would never be able to bring the full force of its numbers to bear without losing control of its own empire. The Federation's worlds are there because they want to be, to work together for a better galaxy. They can focus. Moreover the Federation's tech edge makes this something like the First Gulf War or some even bigger mismatch.

Firepower - The idea of just using transporters to disassemble a ship is nothing new. I always assumed phasers (which I remind you disintegrate matter!) were just unambitious transporters. They don't care about armor (barring super special plot armor stuff like the Doomsday Machine's neutron star hull) either you have shields or you are ash. Period. I've never seen anything to imply SW weapons (barring maybe lightsabres) play at anything like that level.

Adaptation - The Empire will reverse engineer Federation tech? The Empire will reverse engineer? The Empire? The Empire is a racist, mono-culture dictatorship against people who have a proven track record of sciencing their way past vastly superior forces and minor gods. If anyone's going to be reverse engineering stuff, coming up with new defenses, hacking the enemy's systems etc. it'll be the Federation.

So barring a 1000 to 1 numerical superiority I just don't see the Empire winning.

So... Some responses.

Speed. The only real edge I'd give the Federation, because the only types of battles that will matter will be sub-light. Federation ships being able to fight at Warp means absolutely nothing if the guys they are fighting, can't go to Warp. There never seems to be any hard concrete evidence on what Imperial capital ships sublight speeds are, but on screen indication always seems to show that the Federation ships can be pretty nimble.

Fighters/Bombers. If we're talking Prime universe, and not new movie universe, the fire output that the Federation ships have is just simply to slow to deal with fighter/bomber swarms, and combat capital ships at the same time. An ISD-2 carried a complement of 72 Tie's, and 2 Light Cruisers. Sure, the Phaser blasts from a Fed ship will one shot them, but that's 74 shots, which will take Federation ships a long time to put out. Meanwhile Tie Bombers are pumping off Concussion Missiles and Proton Torpedo's, which are both considered capable of getting mission kills on capital ships. In terms of those phasers also being able to hit the fighters... I'd like to point out that they routinely miss ships that are 300-600m in size, moving at much slower speeds.

Firepower. In Empire Strikes back, we see a single shot from a tubrolaser completely vaporise numerous 20m wide balls of iron. They carry 60 of those lasers, as opposed to the 5-7 Phaser arrays that a standard Federation ship had. ISD-2's also had 60 Ion Cannon emplacements, which will also play hell on Federation ships.

Numbers. 25,000 ISD's were known to have been built. Most planetary watching duties could be handled by smaller classes of ships. Victory class and Arquitens seem to have been more common for keeping control of planets that rebellion was a concern on, as shown in Rebel's. Gathering a fleet of 10,000 capital class vessels would not have been a major issue for the Empire, if it felt it was necessary. If we want to look at the Legend's lore, Palpatine was building that fleet for the express purpose of mass ship battles, not just keeping control of rogue planets.

Adaptation. The Empire was xenophobic on the outside, yes, but the leadership was smart, and used alien's to their maximum extent. This was evident in a Post-Yavin novel (Canon) when Luke was sent on a mission to repatriate an enslaved Cryptographer. The Empire was not a technologically stagnant society, and had access to hundreds of millions of scientific minds to reverse engineer new technology, with the resources to do it.

If you think that phasers are slow firing weapons, you need to watch a few episodes of DS9 where the Defiant goes into battle. They can fire almost none stop, the length of the shot only having to be as long as necessary to rip apart the target. You always saw the Enterprise firing long slow blasts because they were always fighting other capital ships with significant shields to be over come. The fighters and bombers from the Star Wars universe would require fractions of a second to atomize, a war ship like the Defiant could churn through 74 of them in less than a minute without breaking a sweat and honestly even an exploratory ship like the Enterprise could likely do the same.

Having said that the Empire would win in the end. Honestly they don't give an frak about anything, if it came down to it they would just hyperspace a couple of ISD's into every planet the federation has and call it a day while the Federation looked on in horror. The Federation has a significant technology edge but the Empire isn't *that* far behind and they'll sacrifice their assets without a second thought.

Regarding the time it takes to shoot down fighters, you don't even have to go as far as DS9. The TNG episode where they were mind wiped and tricked into attacking someone else showed that the Galaxy-class's phasers could track, target, and shoot down dozens of fighters in a matter of seconds.

Come to think of it, if we take the JJ-verse into consideration, they could just use the transporter to teleport doomsday bombs halfway across the galaxy. If anything, the JJ-verse skews things even more.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Regarding the time it takes to shoot down fighters, you don't even have to go as far as DS9. The TNG episode where they were mind wiped and tricked into attacking someone else showed that the Galaxy-class's phasers could track, target, and shoot down dozens of fighters in a matter of seconds.

Come to think of it, if we take the JJ-verse into consideration, they could just use the transporter to teleport doomsday bombs halfway across the galaxy. If anything, the JJ-verse skews things even more.

Yeah, I think we have to draw some lines, keeping the JJ-verse out. I'm trying to stay clear from Star Wars Legends (cause they just get ridiculous).

Yeah I'm ignoring the Abrams and Disco

 djones520 wrote:


Speed. The only real edge I'd give the Federation, because the only types of battles that will matter will be sub-light. Federation ships being able to fight at Warp means absolutely nothing if the guys they are fighting, can't go to Warp. There never seems to be any hard concrete evidence on what Imperial capital ships sublight speeds are, but on screen indication always seems to show that the Federation ships can be pretty nimble.

How does the ability to go to FTL at-will and become untrackable by the enemy mean "absolutely nothing"? Jumping to Warp speed doesn't mean you can't interact with non-warp targets. Unless the Empire somehow gets a way to track FTL targets they won't even know they're under attack until they're hit.

The idea that sub-lightspeed fighters or bombers without shields would be a serious threat to ships that can just jump out of range at-will is kinda ludicrous.

Firepower and the rest is completely irrelevant in the face of the fact that the Empire cannot track FTL targets. You can't shoot what you don't know is there.

Even if the Empire could track them, the Empire couldn't hit them. Their weaponry is at or below light speed. The Federation is not limited in similar fashion.

Now come on. We've seen Starfleet ships hit by plenty of slow weapons. Most combat in Star Trek almost always takes place at STL speeds.

They were not fighting at warp. In STOS we're talking warp speed conflict.

 Frazzled wrote:
They were not fighting at warp. In STOS we're talking warp speed conflict.

STOS is practically an entirely different universe to the movies and later series. The Constitution class from the old series had some off the walls firepower and abilities...except when it didn't. The show was pretty inconsistent, and it gives a very different impression than the deliberately toned down, more "grounded" successor series.

Another thing to bear in mind is the very first thing we ever saw on the screen in a Star Wars movie.

"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away..."

Even if you consider 'a long time ago' to be the year 1900, well, the Federation won't be capable of putting up much of a fight if it's conquered three hundred years before it's formed....

 Vulcan wrote:

Even if you consider 'a long time ago' to be the year 1900, well, the Federation won't be capable of putting up much of a fight if it's conquered three hundred years before it's formed....

You'd be surprised.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

Even if you consider 'a long time ago' to be the year 1900, well, the Federation won't be capable of putting up much of a fight if it's conquered three hundred years before it's formed....

You'd be surprised.

Again, though, STvSW debates assume some sort of wormhole or other magic thingy somehow connects the two together in their respective time periods.

Temporal Cold War!

OK, I'll show myself out...

The problem with all these hypothetical superweapons for Star Trek is that they are just that: hypothetical. We don't see transporters beaming enemy crew into space. We don't see FTL combat. We don't see the use of time travel as a weapon. Etc. So we have one of two conclusions:

1) The Federation is run by ing idiots who are too ignorant of their own abilities to use their ships properly, in which case they lose the war no matter what.

or

2) These hypothetical abilities do not exist. The various tech gimmicks fans have invented do not work in the "real" world, and the Federation's ships are limited to their (rather low) conventional firepower and slow, short-ranged attacks.

The Empire, on the other hand, has no such need for gimmicks. It doesn't need some obscure fan theory about how some random piece of technology in episode #23540345 is an instant win. The Empire simply produces ships with vastly superior firepower/defense numbers and vastly superior strategic speed, and it produces them in obscenely large quantities*. And the Empire has no moral objections to using them. The Empire can put a fleet of star destroyers into orbit around every Federation planet, effortlessly brush aside any attempt at defense, and annihilate everything on the surface via orbital bombardment. The "war" will be over as soon as the Empire produces hyperspace maps to its targets, and the Federation's only hope is unconditional surrender and giving up its resources to the Imperial war machine.

*Note that the 25,000 star destroyer number is incredibly conservative. The Empire's actual industrial capacity, as demonstrated by the sheer size of the death stars it built, is much greater. The conclusion is that the Empire considers the 25,000-ship fleet to be adequate for its current needs, a peacetime fleet built with concern for not allowing naval construction to divert resources away from consumer goods. The Empire under full-scale war production would be capable of building far, far more capital ships.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Federation weapons are auto-targeting and would munch through them pretty fast.

I really really wish Wayne Poe's 'Trekmiss' videos were still anywhere on the internet (they were in .rm format as I recall to give you an idea of their age)... You can pretty much just ignore the the phrase 'auto-targeting' when it comes to Federation weaponry.

Also, why the assumption that Star Destroyers etc can't track ships travelling at warp speed? They can't track hyperspace jumps (usually) because the target ships flips into another dimension so is no longer physically there to track. I might might be wrong but doesn't warp drive wrap some sort of laws-of physics-negating bubble round the ship so it can go at theoretically impossible speeds? It's still physically present so can be tracked given a large enough sensor area.