Culture GSV vs Star Trek galaxy

[StarWarsStarTrek]

The Thasians are not nigh-omnipotents, just very extremely powerful, and the Kalandeons were capable of building an artifcial planet the size of the Earth's Moon. That is, the Kalandans built something on a scale 60-100 times larger than the largest GSV or an ICS/Saxtonian Death Star 2. The Kalandans also had the power to hurl the nearly 1 million ton Enterprise 990 light years away without breaking a sweat and could project Losira copies onboard her while the ship was at high warp hundreds of light years away.
-Mike

1. The Empire has constructed artificial planets before.

2. None of the feats you described are anything that a bored Culture citizen could not do for fun.

[General Donner]

@ GD
I wonder why they don't use their effectors more often then. The piece of text on page one speaks of the Killing Time not seeing all the ships of the last fourth wave, and the rerouted missiles are said to detonated the moment they were detected, certainly implying that they were not immediately seen even being affected.

Damn, feels like I have to add another scheduled task to that long list of finding and verifying quotations and threads to complete.

Bad writing? Very few SF universes use their capabilities logically most of the time.

However, given the above there might still be a limit to the computers behind the effector on how fast they can identify and target hostiles, even if the effectors see them all. Theoretically that makes sense.

But if you care to debunk some of the wilder Culture wank that goes on across the Internet in a systematic manner, I'll cheer for you all the way to the bank. :D

[Mike DiCenso]

1. The Empire has constructed artificial planets before.

2. None of the feats you described are anything that a bored Culture citizen could not do for fun.

1.) Show me where the Galactic Empire has ever constructed an artifical planet. They haven't. The best they have done is construct a small moon sized battlestation, which would not even be a fraction of the size of Saturn's moon Mimas (400 km). The Kalandon's ability to make an artifical planet the the comparable size of Mercury or Earth's own Moon is really damn impressive, and moreso because the Kalandon planet was an outpost that massed out the same as an Earth-sized planet dispite it occupying a Luna/Mercury volume. Quite impressive.

2.) Show me where the Culture's citizens has ever projected an AI-run, extremely sophisiticated copy of a humanoid being hundreds of light years away, and in the process had that being interact with real humans and even demonstrate the ability to operate the controls of a starship and sabotage them all at the same time while said starship is going hundreds of thousands of times light speed.

In either case you need to start acknowledging the feats of various ST factions.
-Mike

[General Donner]

1.) Show me where the Galactic Empire has ever constructed an artifical planet. They haven't. The best they have done is construct a small moon sized battlestation, which would not even be a fraction of the size of Saturn's moon Mimas (400 km). The Kalandon's ability to make an artifical planet the the comparable size of Mercury or Earth's own Moon is really damn impressive, and moreso because the Kalandon planet was an outpost that massed out the same as an Earth-sized planet dispite it occupying a Luna/Mercury volume. Quite impressive.

In the EU (specifically the awful novel "The Crystal Star"), the Empire built "worldcraft" that were supposedly bigger than the Death Star, as big as a terrestrial planet (though they gave no actual figures on the size AFAIK).

Also, I thought the Saxtonian 900-km Death Star II was now canon due to being snuck into the Inside The Worlds book? Or has that changed since?

2.) Show me where the Culture's citizens has ever projected an AI-run, extremely sophisiticated copy of a humanoid being hundreds of light years away, and in the process had that being interact with real humans and even demonstrate the ability to operate the controls of a starship and sabotage them all at the same time while said starship is going hundreds of thousands of times light speed.

They do all that as a routine matter. I don't think they have quite that range for their projections though -- at least it hasn't been demonstrated in the books I read.

[Mr. Oragahn]

@ GD
I wonder why they don't use their effectors more often then. The piece of text on page one speaks of the Killing Time not seeing all the ships of the last fourth wave, and the rerouted missiles are said to detonated the moment they were detected, certainly implying that they were not immediately seen even being affected.

Damn, feels like I have to add another scheduled task to that long list of finding and verifying quotations and threads to complete.

Bad writing? Very few SF universes use their capabilities logically most of the time.

However, given the above there might still be a limit to the computers behind the effector on how fast they can identify and target hostiles, even if the effectors see them all. Theoretically that makes sense.

But if you care to debunk some of the wilder Culture wank that goes on across the Internet in a systematic manner, I'll cheer for you all the way to the bank. :D

I think the Culture is so over the top that even trimming down some of the extravagant interpretations would still leave something truly baffling in scope.

In the EU (specifically the awful novel "The Crystal Star"), the Empire built "worldcraft" that were supposedly bigger than the Death Star, as big as a terrestrial planet (though they gave no actual figures on the size AFAIK).

No size seems to be given. Plus the fake gravity and use of force fields is puzzling. Not to say that we don't know how they were built. Did Palpatine abuse collapsium or simply use those gravfields to force asteroids from asteroids belts to smash into each other?
There's not much industrial work required here when you can place some 1g force field that will scoop a large section of an asteroid belt or field to produce a planetoid.

Also, I thought the Saxtonian 900-km Death Star II was now canon due to being snuck into the Inside The Worlds book? Or has that changed since?

The idiot can try to sneak any crap he wants, the movie still disagrees with him.

2.) Show me where the Culture's citizens has ever projected an AI-run, extremely sophisiticated copy of a humanoid being hundreds of light years away, and in the process had that being interact with real humans and even demonstrate the ability to operate the controls of a starship and sabotage them all at the same time while said starship is going hundreds of thousands of times light speed.

They do all that as a routine matter. I don't think they have quite that range for their projections though -- at least it hasn't been demonstrated in the books I read.

They use avatars, but how far can they cast those? I don't know much about them. Are they solid holograms or something else?

[Mike DiCenso]

This is the critical part of the description:

The Worldcraft retained its atmosphere through the use of a force field while buried gravfield plates maintain the standard gravity of the worldcraft. The core of the Worldcraft was an immense reactor that powered the hyperdrive engines and the tractor beam, the latter used to hold a miniature "sun" in place. Due to its miniature size and its rapid rotation on its axis, days on the Worldcraft were much shorter than standard days on most other worlds.[1]

This construct is not necessarily terrestrial in size, far from it based on the descriptions given which only say that they resemble a terrestrial world or moon, but are clearly described as "planetoids", which places a clear limit on their possible size. The Kalandan outpost is still far and away more impressive for it's sheer size and other technological prowess.
-Mike

[General Donner]

This is the critical part of the description:

The Worldcraft retained its atmosphere through the use of a force field while buried gravfield plates maintain the standard gravity of the worldcraft. The core of the Worldcraft was an immense reactor that powered the hyperdrive engines and the tractor beam, the latter used to hold a miniature "sun" in place. Due to its miniature size and its rapid rotation on its axis, days on the Worldcraft were much shorter than standard days on most other worlds.[1]

This construct is not necessarily terrestrial in size, far from it based on the descriptions given which only say that they resemble a terrestrial world or moon, but are clearly described as "planetoids", which places a clear limit on their possible size. The Kalandan outpost is still far and away more impressive for it's sheer size and other technological prowess.
-Mike

I don't remember any of that being in the book I read. They seemed to be planet sized there. Maybe the wikia people rephrased stuff and inadvertently got some of it wrong?

Then again, maybe it's just been rewritten in some later sourcebook or whatever. It wouldn't be the first time something got retconned to being less impressive. Videogames in particular tend to be quite the anti-ICS for Star Wars.

[General Donner]

I think the Culture is so over the top that even trimming down some of the extravagant interpretations would still leave something truly baffling in scope.

True. About the only thing about them that isn't impressive is their FTL speed.

Oh and that they're just another lame computer-run society but hey, it's chic.

The idiot can try to sneak any crap he wants, the movie still disagrees with him.

That's a bit more to read through than I feel like right now. Can you summarize the salient points, pretty please? ;)

They use avatars, but how far can they cast those? I don't know much about them. Are they solid holograms or something else?

Solid holograms. Range is at least tens of thousands of kms (they can send them from high orbit), but I don't know of any going LYs in real time.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

1. The Empire has constructed artificial planets before.

2. None of the feats you described are anything that a bored Culture citizen could not do for fun.

1.) Show me where the Galactic Empire has ever constructed an artifical planet. They haven't. The best they have done is construct a small moon sized battlestation, which would not even be a fraction of the size of Saturn's moon Mimas (400 km). The Kalandon's ability to make an artifical planet the the comparable size of Mercury or Earth's own Moon is really damn impressive, and moreso because the Kalandon planet was an outpost that massed out the same as an Earth-sized planet dispite it occupying a Luna/Mercury volume. Quite impressive.

2.) Show me where the Culture's citizens has ever projected an AI-run, extremely sophisiticated copy of a humanoid being hundreds of light years away, and in the process had that being interact with real humans and even demonstrate the ability to operate the controls of a starship and sabotage them all at the same time while said starship is going hundreds of thousands of times light speed.

1. General Donner provides this, kudos.

2. Culture Minds, which Culture citizens originally created? You know, the ones that fight battles in microseconds and simulate the birth and death of universes for fun?

In either case you need to start acknowledging the feats of various ST factions.
-Mike

In either case, you need to acknowledge that there are Sci Fi civilizations that neither Star Wars nor Star Trek can hope to do much more than annoy. There are debaters here who honestly think that the Federation can defeat the Imperium of Man, and in this thread there are debaters with significant backing that think that the borg can take out a Culture ship.

Nowhere did I not "acknowledge" the feats in this context. I simply pointed out that the Culture can do anything that any non-god like ST faction can do short of time travel to several orders of magnitude better. Replicators? Effectors can manipulate the brain activity of a person light years away. Androids? Culture Minds can fight off waves of enemies in the course of microseconds. Torpedos? Culture CAM missiles are planet busters, and gridfire has been calculated to have power making a supernova look pathetic. Phasers? Obsolete Culture handguns are kiloton level.

In both stardestroyer.net and spacebattles.com, it is acknowledged that the Culture can curbstomp Star Wars, slap down Palpatine, slap down a fleet of Death Stars and turn the imperial fleet into a bunch of cats if it wanted to.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The idiot can try to sneak any crap he wants, the movie still disagrees with him.

That's a bit more to read through than I feel like right now. Can you summarize the salient points, pretty please? ;)

Mmm... lemme think.

Ha!

900 km wide DSII = BS

More seriously, I tackled Saxton's page and attacked some of the most crucial and supposedly solid arguments in favour of the super figure, notably the CINEFEX quote, which put back into context, delivers a vision of its true value that is completely at odds with the sort of sanctified, firm and doctrinal position Saxton attributes to it. Its reliability is nothing but totally disputable in reality.
There are also other points I address, notably the lies about the notebook and how, apparently, the production's facts is so at odds with the lower figure, while in fact it's totally supported by the movie, as I've shown with a series of views of the DSII from different cuts in the movie, which are much more numerous than the two cuts that show an oversized DSII.
I also completely blasted apart his whole argument based on the briefing hologram, but that's quite the easiest part and I know it by heart now.
I commented other sources he used, highlighting how his typical cherry picking.

Probably the most amusing concession from him being when he says :

"Of course this evidence is not definitive because the artists of ILM could have resized the Death Star II any number of times before settling on the final film version."

Likewise, you'll love his statement about "Inside the Worlds" :

"Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy [hereafter ITW] states the diameter of the Death Star II as 900km or 550miles. This is consistent with the measurable movie evidence and with the CINEFEX report of Richard Edlund."

I said :

"Surely, the fact that he was a consultant in the writing of "Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy", the very first EU book to ever propose the 900 km figure, has nothing to do with this convenient consistency?"

Still, to really get what is going on, you will have to read the thread. I did put pictures ! :D

Any criticism is appreciated, even typos or else. I admit I didn't proof read it much, and I might have been able to streamline it in some fashion before posting it.
There's also a section about the sizes and design of the power cores, which is very relevant to the topic.

They use avatars, but how far can they cast those? I don't know much about them. Are they solid holograms or something else?

Solid holograms. Range is at least tens of thousands of kms (they can send them from high orbit), but I don't know of any going LYs in real time.

Damn, even some Technomages could achieve solid holograms, although the ranges were nothing alike (yet there's an example of one such holodaemons cast over a video feed I think).

[Mr. Oragahn]

In either case you need to start acknowledging the feats of various ST factions.
-Mike

In either case, you need to acknowledge that there are Sci Fi civilizations that neither Star Wars nor Star Trek can hope to do much more than annoy. There are debaters here who honestly think that the Federation can defeat the Imperium of Man...

Objectively, it is doable. Far more than you think. The IoM is totally decrepit and terribly fragile.
Plus any human that does not originate from 40Kverse is naturally isolated from Chaos. It's also a big plus. This also means that being blanks, they'll almost automatically put off 40K humans, who don't feel at ease with blanks to some irrational level.

What I can say is that with all I've read and learned about 40K, I can tell you that many pro-40K at SBC are just lazy fucks, largely happy to follow works from dishonest people. That is all, and that does much to produce the situation that exists today.

Read the appropriate Warhammer 40000 threads in this forum and you'll see what I mean.

Nowhere did I not "acknowledge" the feats in this context. I simply pointed out that the Culture can do anything that any non-god like ST faction can do short of time travel to several orders of magnitude better. Replicators? Effectors can manipulate the brain activity of a person light years away. Androids? Culture Minds can fight off waves of enemies in the course of microseconds. Torpedos? Culture CAM missiles are planet busters, and gridfire has been calculated to have power making a supernova look pathetic. Phasers? Obsolete Culture handguns are kiloton level.

In both stardestroyer.net and spacebattles.com, it is acknowledged that the Culture can curbstomp Star Wars, slap down Palpatine, slap down a fleet of Death Stars and turn the imperial fleet into a bunch of cats if it wanted to.

Engagement ranges, engagements speeds, firepower (varied forms of weapons and the sanctified Gridfire), mass displacing, effectors and attacks from hyperspace are pretty much the keys to this supremacy.

That said, what I read about the 11 microseconds long engagement has me wondering if what we read is really what is to be understood.

[Mike DiCenso]

1. General Donner provides this, kudos.

Except that it turned out to not be what it was claimed. The Worldcrafts were something much smaller than the Kalandan outpost, and have nothing like even the basic defensive technologies it possessed. So a comparison is pointless as the Kalandon outpost is far beyond anything the Galactic Empire can manage.

2. Culture Minds, which Culture citizens originally created? You know, the ones that fight battles in microseconds and simulate the birth and death of universes for fun?

None of which is like what you claim it is. The Kalandan system could send Losira's simulacrum hundreds of light years, where the Culture GSVs could only send theirs a few tens of thousands of km, and apparently cannot project them onto a vessel going FTL.

Now try and at least acknowledge the feats that are possible for some of the more advanced ST factions. It might do your soul some good to try plain old honesty.
-Mike

[Trinoya]

Seesh... SWST I do wonder sometimes if you understand what some people write.



The fact of the matter is that their are races in star trek capable of defeating a single culture vessel, and not all of 'em have to use time travel to do it. Here is a short list for you.

Whatever race that created The Guardian of Forever (I mean hell, the Iconians made portals for instantaneous travel anywhere.. but these people did it for any time to boot...)

The Ancient Humanoids, who, being alone in the universe, created every known humanoid in the entire trek galaxy some 4.5 billion years before the events of the show.

Devidians, out of phase with the rest of reality.

Dowd: As I said before, not omnipotent, just incredibly powerful.

Iconians: The iconians once ruled a portion of the galaxy and had achieved instantaneous travel anywhere. Their structures still stand thousands of years after their demise, as do their booby traps. One can only speculate on what else they were capable of, but it's a pretty high end feat to just be able to move anything anywhere whenever you want.

Metrons: Not omnipotent, just incredibly powerful.

Ocampa (full awakened of course), capable of telling the laws of physics to go fuck themselves with but a thought. More than capable of screwing with reality below the atomic level.

Organian: The demonstrated powers of the Organians are quite impressive, not to mention an to inhabit a host body and naturally bring the dead back to life without any difficulty.

Species 8472. While a culture ship would make mence meat out of the bioships, their ability to strike without reprisal means they will eventually win, they do possess the demonstrated fire power to harm a culture ship.

Sphere Builders: Extra dimensional beings capable of creating technology that litterally alters the laws of physics of our universe.

Tkon Empire: Supposedly one of the most powerful races to exist in trek. Their abilities included the capability to move entire star systems around.

Vger: V'ger is what culture ships want to be when they grow up... although i'll concede that V'ger would have no interest in the culture ship at all, save for adding it to its memory banks.




As I said before: There are so many 'uber races' in trek that most of the non uber races should be thankful ever second they aren't blinked out of existence by accident. Trying to treat all the races in star trek as being only as powerful as the federation is laughable and just plain stupid. All that would have to occur to meet your guidelines is to make sure none of these races are actually 'gods' by the definition as we understand it (that is to say, not all powerful omnipotent).



One Culture ship simply isn't going to be enough to deal with them... in some of the above cases I'm sure that it would give them a run for their money.. hell in some of the cases we may even have to question if the race would or could fight the culture in the first place, but we do have races with sufficently high end feats for us to say, "yeah.. odds are they could do it."


The moment we go to time travel mode.. well... reliable time travel is apparently not a particularly difficult task in the trek universe where things like 'anti-time' exist. Needless to say the list would increase... there is sadly one fatal flaw the culture ship must deal with.

It isn't perfect, and it can't be every single place at once.

[General Donner]

Oragahn, thanks!

Any criticism is appreciated, even typos or else. I admit I didn't proof read it much, and I might have been able to streamline it in some fashion before posting it.
There's also a section about the sizes and design of the power cores, which is very relevant to the topic.

I'll get around to having a look at it eventually. Not sure I can be much help though -- I kind of suck at scaling visuals ... :(

Damn, even some Technomages could achieve solid holograms, although the ranges were nothing alike (yet there's an example of one such holodaemons cast over a video feed I think).

That's B5 I take it? Sadly I never watched much of that.

Like I said that would be a lower limit, not an upper one.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Seesh... SWST I do wonder sometimes if you understand what some people write.



The fact of the matter is that their are races in star trek capable of defeating a single culture vessel, and not all of 'em have to use time travel to do it. Here is a short list for you.

Whatever race that created The Guardian of Forever (I mean hell, the Iconians made portals for instantaneous travel anywhere.. but these people did it for any time to boot...)

The Ancient Humanoids, who, being alone in the universe, created every known humanoid in the entire trek galaxy some 4.5 billion years before the events of the show.

Devidians, out of phase with the rest of reality.

Dowd: As I said before, not omnipotent, just incredibly powerful.

Iconians: The iconians once ruled a portion of the galaxy and had achieved instantaneous travel anywhere. Their structures still stand thousands of years after their demise, as do their booby traps. One can only speculate on what else they were capable of, but it's a pretty high end feat to just be able to move anything anywhere whenever you want.

Metrons: Not omnipotent, just incredibly powerful.

Ocampa (full awakened of course), capable of telling the laws of physics to go fuck themselves with but a thought. More than capable of screwing with reality below the atomic level.

Organian: The demonstrated powers of the Organians are quite impressive, not to mention an to inhabit a host body and naturally bring the dead back to life without any difficulty.

Species 8472. While a culture ship would make mence meat out of the bioships, their ability to strike without reprisal means they will eventually win, they do possess the demonstrated fire power to harm a culture ship.

Sphere Builders: Extra dimensional beings capable of creating technology that litterally alters the laws of physics of our universe.

Tkon Empire: Supposedly one of the most powerful races to exist in trek. Their abilities included the capability to move entire star systems around.

Vger: V'ger is what culture ships want to be when they grow up... although i'll concede that V'ger would have no interest in the culture ship at all, save for adding it to its memory banks.




As I said before: There are so many 'uber races' in trek that most of the non uber races should be thankful ever second they aren't blinked out of existence by accident. Trying to treat all the races in star trek as being only as powerful as the federation is laughable and just plain stupid. All that would have to occur to meet your guidelines is to make sure none of these races are actually 'gods' by the definition as we understand it (that is to say, not all powerful omnipotent).



One Culture ship simply isn't going to be enough to deal with them... in some of the above cases I'm sure that it would give them a run for their money.. hell in some of the cases we may even have to question if the race would or could fight the culture in the first place, but we do have races with sufficently high end feats for us to say, "yeah.. odds are they could do it."


The moment we go to time travel mode.. well... reliable time travel is apparently not a particularly difficult task in the trek universe where things like 'anti-time' exist. Needless to say the list would increase... there is sadly one fatal flaw the culture ship must deal with.

It isn't perfect, and it can't be every single place at once.

Mmm.. some of those species have technologies that still take some time to reach their target and deliver their effects.
Take S8472. If Culture GSVs, or the specialized and smaller warships like ROUs and else can think in microseconds, behave in microseconds and win battles over multiple light years in microseconds, etc. How can the S8472 ever hope hitting them?