Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

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Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 359 » Thu Jan 16, 2014 7:01 pm

Logistics – scifights.net: Federation vs. Empire

I wanted to steer clear of critiqueing the scifights.net Federation vs. Empire videos because, for the most part, they are restatements of information found in other videos. However this logistics video is entirely new, save for several parts which were minor components in other videos.

Again I will attempt to organize this critique into the order it is shown in Brian's video. It should be somewhat easier for this one as it follows a more direct path than say the phasers video. Also I will not cover everything in the video, only large things that jumped out at me as being blatantly wrong.

So without further ado,

/*NOTE: The darkened areas below have been re-written, they contained incorrect information (mostly due to me being mildly lazy :) ), a corrected re-write is six posts below, I leave this with a note here for reference.*/
8:55:

At this section of the video Brian is going over the likely size of the Imperial army, as a reference he discusses the rapid production of droids on Geonosis and then says this about the cloning facility on Kamino which supplies all of the clones to the Grand Army of the Republic:

"Also we saw the cloning facility at Kamino. And I don't how many Clones they were producing, but it was a lot."

However we do actually know about how many they were producing.

"Two-hundred-thousand units are ready, with a million more well on the way."

Whether or not units refers to individual clones or groups of clones is somewhat unclear, but in modern terms a unit can refer to about 30 guys (a sub-sub-unit) to between 300 and 1,300 guys. Which puts the Republic army at between 200,000 and 260,000,000 clones. Both seem somewhat implausible given later in TCW: "Pursuit of Peace" 5,000,000 clones are considered a substantial amount both militarily and financially, but not more than they already have. Using the lower end 30 clones per unit and saying that the army was composed of 200,000 units would put the army at 6 million clones at the start of the war later growing to 36 million when the other million units are finished.

This fits in line with both how many clones we normally see working together as a group in episodes (tens, normally < 100) and allows the 5 million additional clones to be a noticeable addition to the army, especially after casualties.

One might assume this number to go up with the rise of the Empire, but by how much is uncertain, especially after casualties.

A comment is made about how the Empire must have many more as they need to rule a galaxy by threat of force. There are two problems with that assertion. First, Tarkin comments in A New Hope that the senate served to keep the emperor in control and only after the creation of the first Death Star was there true subjugation through fear as the senate was dissolved. They were able to dissolve the senate because they could now maintain control by use of the Death Star, which they couldn't with the fleet alone. Or at least not as effectively. And second, they maintain through the threat of force. This does not require troops and star destroyers to be present at every moment. They just need to stop by now and again on patrol, and show up when they are needed to quell some dissent. For the most part we do not see star destroyers everywhere, they are spread out and just occasionally show up.


9:35:

More of a note after doing the math on the above I calculated the clone army to be about 41 million clones (up to a possible-but-rather-unargueable 1.5 billion). During the Dominion war the Cardassians alone suffered 807 million casualties. The claim is made that there are "obviously a lot more of them [Stormtroopers] than Starfleet security guys" (9:37). However if Starfleet possessed forces only a tenth the size of the Cardassian casualties they would outnumber the likely size of the Republic's clone army about two-to-one, so possibly on par with the Empire.

This makes little sense until you think more about it. The Empire relies on a small, but effective and above all else loyal, fighting base to keep the population in check. The Federation draws a fighting force from its population dedicated protecting their ideals and way of life. While the Empire is far larger in population, it does not draw its army from that population. It clones them instead, from one location. So its military size is effectively independent of its population.


12:50:

Brian discusses if Starfleet possesses so many (thousands) ships, why are they always hours and days from distress calls.

First most of these are from TNG, and largely the Enterprise does not spend her time in Federation space as is clear by her constant exploration and contact with other civilizations. So she is responding to calls where no one else is, i.e. not in the Federation. Also, the guestimating the Federation to be roughly 8,000 ly* 4,000 ly* 800 ly would give it a volume of about 25.6 billion cubic lightyears, averaging (with a fleet of ten-thousand ships) 2.56 million cubic lightyears per ship. This is, assuming a homogenous dispersal of ships, an average of 137 ly to the nearest ship. And even at that, a lot of those ships would be outside or on the edge of Federation space for filling their mission, exploration.

Furthermore the assertion that there are only 150 planets in the Federation is ridiculous. That is the number of full member planets, not the count of all major plants, colonies, protectorates or other such things that fall under the control of each of those members. Statistically speaking based on the stellar density of our galaxy, the Federaion should contain some 144 million stars and 6.1 million Earth sized planets (numbers halved to account for position in galaxy). So it is not much of a stretch to say something like ten-thousand are actually populated to various extents.


13:20:

Brian points out the use of very old vessels in the dominion war, some designs were up to around one hundred year old.

Yet, they still fired modern looking phasers and torpedoes and could vaguely keep up with newer ships. So they were refitted ships and not just pulled from mothballs as he states.


15:20:

Here he goes into warp speeds, lots more info here, from that thread I think it is safe to conclude crossing the Federation in a fast ship can be done in around two weeks. Now on the scale of galactic travel (not going for consistent speed here, just trends) it should take years.

He discusses how it would take Starfleet a long time to rally their forces into any defensive force, however in every attack on the core Federaion (i.e. not some random colony outside their political borders) many starships have rallied to defend against attacks like the Borg in TNG: "Best of Both Worlds", ST: "First Contact", VOY: "Endgame", the Dominion at the start of the war, and the Klingon civil war in TNG: "Redemption" with Picard's tachyon net. Each of these engagements involved dozens if not hundreds of ships arriving on short notice.

One thing cleanly skipped over in the video is how Hyperdrive requires mapped hyper lanes in order to function anywhere near its full potential as established throughout The Clone Wars. As the Emprire does not have a map of the hyper lanes in the Federation or any of its surrounding territory they would not be able to take advantage of their full speed advantage. In fact they would need to proceed quite slowly, stopping and going, as they don't seem to have long-range scanners and need to not bump into gravity wells in hyperspace.


25:00:

Brian comments that in VOY: "Paralax", the second episode of the series, Voyager is already having power problems. He argues that this is indicative of the ship lacking any range. However this is not the case, in the first episode VOY: "Caretaker" Voyager was established to have suffered significant damage from its trip to the Delta Quadrant including a fracture in the warp core and probably much more.


27:08:

Here Brian comments on subspace communications. He cites how they travel slowly and can take weeks to reach Starfleet Command.

However this completely ignores all other times where it is real-time communications. First the Enterprise is likely outside the Federation sub-space network, and second we have seen so many counter examples it is hardly fair to say this is the norm. Not even to mention the holo-communicator in DS9: "For the Uniform".


32:50:

In this section Brian compares the advantages and disadvantages of both the Empre's and Federation's methods of landing troops. While the Empire must land troops by shuttling them down in gunships or the significantly larger acclamator assault craft (as of the Clone Wars era) the Federation relies almost entirely on its transporter to directly beam people to the surface.

A clip from TNG: "Descent Part II" is shown which shows the Enterprise beaming up about one hundred personnel from the planet's surface. Brian concludes from several clips in this sequence that the maximum transport rate is about one person every second both up and down.

Then an image of Clone Troopers boarding and acclamator is shown. He uses the ICS book to determine the troop capacity of the ship to be 16,000 clones. Based on his conclusions from TNG: "Descent Part II" he concludes that it would take a federation Galaxy-class ship approximately four and a half hours to offload what an assault craft can do in what is tens of minutes.

Assuming for a minute that this is the only instance of large transporter operations, which it isn't, the number of people being beamed up is largely an underestimate. We are told earlier that the Enterprise is being left running with a skeleton crew abroad. Since she normally carries a crew of about one thousand individuals there must be at least several hundred personnel on the surface in need of being transported up to the ship. As we are given fixed numbers it would seem the vast majority are fairly quickly beamed up and it just takes more time to locate and recover the straggler groups still out searching or something.

Further uncredited advantages of transporting personnel vs landing the ship are not having to land, still being able to have a orbital presence, not putting the ship in the line of fire for ground emplacements, and one can distribute the troops across the entire planet rather than one point at a time. Many times in The Clone Wars the Republic has had difficulty with landing troops because of enemy ships being in orbit who would fire on the troop transports. Such as the blockade over Ryloth in TCW: "Strom over Ryloth" which prevented the landing of any troops at all. Again along a similar line in TCW: "Innocents of Ryloth" a lone artillery emplacement shoots down one of the acclamator landing craft while it is in-atmosphere moving in to land. Starships with transporters do not suffer from this issue as they may safely deploy troops while remaining out of range of sub-orbital guns.

Now transitioning away from this idea that the beam-up in descent is the only such instance, we find that in DS9: "Homefront" there is another such example:

Leyton: "Mister President, we can use the Lakota's transporters and communications system to mobilise every Starfleet officer on Earth in less than twelve hours. We've been preparing for something like this for a long time. We have stockpiles of phaser rifles, personal forcefields, photon grenades, enough to equip an entire army. I can start getting men on the streets immediately."

According to this statement one Excelsior-class starship can mobilize all Starfleet personnel on Earth within twelve hours. This 12-hour timeframe includes getting all of them prepared, briefed, organized, armed, and deployed. Now given that Earth houses both Starfleet Headquarters and Starfleet Academy, this is a lot of people being deployed all over the planet on very abrupt notice. Not to mention the large space dock in orbit which probably houses quite a number of personnel who could potentially be deployed as well. And this is not just some exaggeration or statement do be dismissed, we both see it carried out (with officers beaming into the streets outside Sisko's dad's restaurant) and hear about it later.

Furthermore we have instances of mass and quick beamings. Such as those in ST: First Contact with the Enterprise-E beaming the Defiant crew aboard in seconds and in TOS: "The Doomsday Machine" where Decker beams down his entire crew during battle due to imminent destruction.

And even with such a great advantage to Starfleet in troop deployment so far, it gets even greater. The ships that have been mentioned for deployment so far are: a Galaxy-class, a Constitution-class, and an Excelsior-class. But as mentioned in DS9: "Waltz" Starfleet also possesses dedicated troop transport vessels of which a small convoy can carry over 30,000 troops. Presumably these vessels would have superior deployment speeds to even what has been mentioned above.

So between rapid and wide spread deployment, not having to land thus not waisting time, not going within range of sub-orbital defense guns, and being able to simultaneously maintain space superiority one can see just how out-classed the Empire and Republic are by the Federation when it comes to troop deployment. In many situations mobility is everything, and the transporter gives you just that, exceptional and unparalleled mobility. Plus the ability to re-deploy to a different location on a moment's notice, or be able to pull troops out safe from air defense guns. Given how a lone starship can deploy across an entire planet there really is no contest, except just the opposite of what is argued it the video.


EDIT: Included reference to re-written sections
Last edited by 359 on Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

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2046
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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 2046 » Fri Jan 17, 2014 8:38 am

359 wrote:Whether or not units refers to individual clones or groups of clones is somewhat unclear, but
Had to stop here because it made me twitch, sorry.

AotC Novelization wrote:"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said. "Prime Minister Lama Su has informed me that the first battalion of clone troopers are ready for delivery. He also wanted me to remind you that if we require more--and they've another million well on the way to completion--it will take more time to grow them."

"A million clone warriors?" Mace Windu asked in disbelief.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by sonofccn » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:31 pm

Excellent work, 359 and I enjoyed your previous "review" as well and look forward to further installments should the mood strike you.

A minor quibble, and I apologize if I'm in error, but wasn't the eight hundred million dead just from Cardassia Prime? Retribution against the civil populace by the Dominion for Damar's insurgency.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 359 » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:50 pm

2046 wrote:
359 wrote:Whether or not units refers to individual clones or groups of clones is somewhat unclear, but
Had to stop here because it made me twitch, sorry.

AotC Novelization wrote:"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said. "Prime Minister Lama Su has informed me that the first battalion of clone troopers are ready for delivery. He also wanted me to remind you that if we require more--and they've another million well on the way to completion--it will take more time to grow them."

"A million clone warriors?" Mace Windu asked in disbelief.
Ah, I was unaware that was in the novelization, I've never had access to them. That is far more clear if somewhat disappointing (I liked 36 million). But I suppose this must be true.

sonofccn wrote:Excellent work, 359 and I enjoyed your previous "review" as well and look forward to further installments should the mood strike you.
Thank you, and I do intend to make a few more at some point.
sonofccn wrote:A minor quibble, and I apologize if I'm in error, but wasn't the eight hundred million dead just from Cardassia Prime? Retribution against the civil populace by the Dominion for Damar's insurgency.
You are not in error, I just looked over the transcript and they do appear to be referring to civilian casualties. I got a little lazy and just checked Memory Alpha for the number with no context.


So, in light of the two comments so far, and their nullification of essentially all of two sections, I will post a re-write of the 8:55 and 9:35 sections with the updated/corrected information.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by sonofccn » Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:11 pm

Found these, thought they may be of some use for you:
Changing the face of evil {DS9-07} wrote:DAMAR [on viewscreen]: And so two years ago, our government signed a treaty with the Dominion. In it, the Dominion promised to extend Cardassia's influence throughout the Alpha Quadrant. In exchange, we pledged ourselves to join the war against the Federation and its allies. Cardassians have never been afraid of war. A fact we've proven time and again over these past two years. Seven million of our brave soldiers have given their lives to fulfill our part of the agreement. And what has the Dominion done in return? Nothing.
Treachery, faith and the great river {DS9-07} wrote:WEYOUN: You care about your people very much, don't you, Odo? In spite of all that's happened between you.
ODO: Maybe I do, but that doesn't change the fact that they're responsible for a war that's killed millions.
The Dogs of War [DS9-07} wrote:GARAK: Cardassia. It's as beautiful as I remembered.
DAMAR: It won't be beautiful to my eyes until the Dominion is gone.
SESKAL: Orbital traffic control is asking for our security clearance.
GARAK: I'll handle it.
KIRA: We're taking a big risk coming here. I hope it's worth it.
DAMAR: Gul Revok and Legate Goris are ready to bring their troops over to our side. That's over a half a million men. If we can convince Gul Seltan to join us as well, we'll have another hundred thousand. I think that is worth the risk.
The Dogs of War [DS9-07} wrote:SISKO: I don't condone what Section Thirty One did, but the Founders started this war, not us. Giving them the cure would strengthen their hand. We can't do that. Not when there are still millions of men and women out there putting their lives on the line every day.
Inquisition {DS9-06} wrote:SLOAN: I've had enough of your lies, Doctor. You think you're smarter than the rest of us, don't you? You think you're smarter than the millions of brave men and women who put their lives on the line for the Federation. You want to do things the hard way, fine, but I'm going to get the truth out of you, and when I'm done I'm going to take whatever's left of you and lock it away. Guards!

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by Lucky » Fri Jan 17, 2014 9:47 pm

359 wrote:
So without further ado,

8:55:

At this section of the video Brian is going over the likely size of the Imperial army, as a reference he discusses the rapid production of droids on Geonosis and then says this about the cloning facility on Kamino which supplies all of the clones to the Grand Army of the Republic:

"Also we saw the cloning facility at Kamino. And I don't how many Clones they were producing, but it was a lot."

However we do actually know about how many they were producing.

"Two-hundred-thousand units are ready, will a million more well on the way."

Whether or not units refers to individual clones or groups of clones is somewhat unclear, but in modern terms a unit can refer to about 30 guys (a sub-sub-unit) to between 300 and 1,300 guys. Which puts the Republic army at between 200,000 and 260,000,000 clones. Both seem somewhat implausible given later in TCW: "Pursuit of Peace" 5,000,000 clones are considered a substantial amount both militarily and financially, but not more than they already have. Using the lower end 30 clones per unit and saying that the army was composed of 200,000 units would put the army at 6 million clones at the start of the war later growing to 36 million when the other million units are finished.

This fits in line with both how many clones we normally see working together as a group in episodes (tens, normally < 100) and allows the 5 million additional clones to be a noticeable addition to the army, especially after casualties.

One might assume this number to go up with the rise of the Empire, but by how much is uncertain, especially after casualties.

A comment is made about how the Empire must have many more as they need to rule a galaxy by threat of force. There are two problems with that assertion. First, Tarkin comments in A New Hope that the senate served to keep the emperor in control and only after the creation of the first Death Star was there true subjugation through fear as the senate was dissolved. They were able to dissolve the senate because they could now maintain control by use of the Death Star, which they couldn't with the fleet alone. Or at least not as effectively. And second, they maintain through the threat of force. This does not require troops and star destroyers to be present at every moment. They just need to stop by now and again on patrol, and show up when they are needed to quell some dissent. For the most part we do not see star destroyers everywhere, they are spread out and just occasionally show up.


9:35:

More of a note after doing the math on the above I calculated the clone army to be about 41 million clones (up to a possible-but-rather-unargueable 1.5 billion). During the Dominion war the Cardassians alone suffered 807 million casualties. The claim is made that there are "obviously a lot more of them [Stormtroopers] than Starfleet security guys" (9:37). However if Starfleet possessed forces only a tenth the size of the Cardassian casualties they would outnumber the likely size of the Republic's clone army about two-to-one, so possibly on par with the Empire.

This makes little sense until you think more about it. The Empire relies on a small, but effective and above all else loyal, fighting base to keep the population in check. The Federation draws a fighting force from its population dedicated protecting their ideals and way of life. While the Empire is far larger in population, it does not draw its army from that population. It clones them instead, from one location. So its military size is effectively independent of its population.
Is this helpful?
REPUBLIC MILITARY BEFORE THE CLONE ARMY wrote:
Franchise: Star Wars Episode: 02 Title: Attack of the Clones wrote:
There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic.

This separatist movement, under the leadership of the mysterious Count Dooku, has made it difficult for the limited number of Jedi Knights to maintain peace and order in the galaxy.

Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC to assist the overwhelmed Jedi....
Publisher: DEL REY Series: Star Wars Title: The New Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels ISBN: 0-345-44902-9 Page: XV wrote:
During the hight of the Old Republic's power, large-scale armed conflicts were extraordinarily rare, and even the Republic had no need for a standing army.Most manufacturers focused on civilian craft rather then military vehicles. As the political climate changed after the battle of Naboo, however, many companies adopted new strategies and began producing increasingly more dangerous craft.
Clone Numbers wrote:
Franchise: Star Wars Episode: 02 Title: Attack of the Clones wrote:
LAMA SU: And now to business. You will be delighted to hear we are on schedule. Two hundred thousand units are ready, with another million well on the way.
Attack of the Clones Chapter 15 wrote:
"You mentioned growth acceleration-"

"Oh yes, it's essential," the Prime Minister replied. "Otherwise a mature clone would take a lifetime to grow. Now we can do it in half the time. The units you will soon see on the parade ground we started ten years ago, when Sifo-Dyas first placed the order, and they're already mature and quite ready for duty."

"And these were started about five years ago?" the Jedi reasoned, and Lama Su nodded.

"Would you care to inspect the final product now?" The Prime Minister asked, and Obi-Wan could hear excitement in his voice. Clearly he was proud of this accomplishment. "I would like your approval before you take delivery."

The callousness of it all struck Obi-Wan profoundly. _Units. Final product_ These were living beings they talking about. Living, breathing, and thinking. To create clones for such a singular purpose, under such control, even stealing half their childhood for efficiency, assaulted his sense of right and wrong, and the fact that a jedi Master had begun all of this was almost too much to digest.
Attack of the Clones Chapter 16 wrote:
The culmination came later on, when Taun We rejoined the pair on a balcony, sheltered from the brutal wind and rain and overlooking a huge parade ground. Below them, thousands of clone troopers, dressed in white armor and wearing full-face helmets, marched and drilled with all the precision of programed droids. Entire formations, each made up of hundreds of soldiers, moved as one.
Attack of the Clones Chapter 16 wrote:
"Yes Master," Obi-Wan said. "Prime Minister Lama Su has informed me that the first battalion of clone troopers are ready for delivery. He wanted me to remind you that if we require more-and they've another million well on the way to completion-it will take more time to grow them."

"A million clone warriors?" Mace Windu asked in disbelief.

"Yes Master. They say Master Sifo-Dyas placed the order for the clone army almost ten years ago. i was under the impression he was killed before that. Did the Council even authorize the creation of a clone army?"
Number of Jedi wrote:
Franchise: Star Wars Episode: 02 Title: Attack of the Clones wrote:
Yoda: Throughout the galaxy, thousands of jedi there are. To send on a special mission, only two hundred are available.
Attack of the Clones Chapter 8 wrote:
Anikin stoood quietly in the Jedi Council chamber, encircled by the Masters of the Order. Beside him stood Obi-Wan, his Master, but not one of_the_Masters. Obi-Wan, like the majorite of the ten thousand Jedi, was a Knight, but these select few sitting around the edges of this room were Masters, the highest-ranking members of the Order.
Jedi Power Battles wrote:
Out of 10,000 jedi in the Galactic Replublic, you are the one. Chosen by your peers, you now stand in the jedi Council Chamber high above the bustling metropolis of Coruscant. Encircled by great jedi who sit in the stately chamber, a mission of great importance to the Republic is about to be bestowed upon you.
200,000 units were at the first battle of Geonosis and about 1,000,000 more units would be ready in a short amount of time.

The movie version of "The Attack of the Clones" it is unclear what 1 unit means though no interpretation I have heard would result in what you would consider a reasonably sized military on a galactic scale even if they were just hunting pirates, and the "The Attack of the Clone" novelization would seem to show that 1 unit is the same as 1 clone.

Things to keep in mind though are

1) Before the clones the Republic did not have a military. They at best had a small police force that could not cope with the work load.

2) Republic member worlds often had/have their own defense forces of some sort. These defense forces would clearly vari in strength, but it means that the clones would not need to be protecting every planet, and would be sent to reenforce the natives, retake the planet, or be the Republic's invading army.

3) The clone war was a sham created by Palpatine to gain power, and he was literally in control of both sides. In order to stay in control of both side Palpatine needs to limit the size of both sides manageable, and yet be big enough scare the peace at any cost space hippies who had no real idea as to what a real war is like.

4) Sources place the total number of Jedi at about 10,000 total Jedi, but not all Jedi can be in the field at once, and we commonly see 1 to 3 Jedi in command of 1 to 3 Venator or a similar number of Acclamator.

5) The actual numbers that appear in the Star Wars movies, scripts, and movie novelizations tend to be surprisingly small.


359 wrote: 12:50:

Brian discusses if Starfleet possesses so many (thousands) ships, why are they always hours and days from distress calls.

First most of these are from TNG, and largely the Enterprise does not spend her time in Federation space as is clear by her constant exploration and contact with other civilizations. So she is responding to calls where no one else is, i.e. not in the Federation. Also, the guestimating the Federation to be roughly 8,000 ly* 4,000 ly* 800 ly would give it a volume of about 25.6 billion cubic lightyears, averaging (with a fleet of ten-thousand ships) 2.56 million cubic lightyears per ship. This is, assuming a homogenous dispersal of ships, an average of 137 ly to the nearest ship. And even at that, a lot of those ships would be outside or on the edge of Federation space for filling their mission, exploration.

Furthermore the assertion that there are only 150 planets in the Federation is ridiculous. That is the number of full member planets, not the count of all major plants, colonies, protectorates or other such things that fall under the control of each of those members. Statistically speaking based on the stellar density of our galaxy, the Federaion should contain some 144 million stars and 6.1 million Earth sized planets (numbers halved to account for position in galaxy). So it is not much of a stretch to say something like ten-thousand are actually populated to various extents.
So Brian is forgetting that unlike Star Wars, Star Trek vessels aren't basically limited to roads, and that space is big? Star
Franchise: Star Trek Series: The Original Series Season: 02 Episode: 02 Title: Metamorphosis wrote: COCHRANE: Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom. What's it like out there in the galaxy? 


KIRK: We're on a thousand planets and spreading out. We cross fantastic distances and everything's alive, Cochrane. Life everywhere. We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them. Interesting? 


COCHRANE: How would you like to sleep for a hundred and fifty years and wake up in a new world? 


KIRK: It's all out there waiting for you, but we'll need your help to get away. 


COCHRANE: You've got it.
Franchise: Star Trek Title: First Contact wrote: LILY: How many planets are in this Federation?


PICARD: Over one hundred and fifty ...spread across eight thousand light years.


LILY: You mustn't get home much.


PICARD: Actually, I tend to think of this ship as home. But if it's Earth you're talking about I try to get back whenever I can. ...Good they haven't broken the encryption code yet.
Rather odd how Brian seems to always forget anything that might make the United Federation of Planets seem impressive.
359 wrote: 13:20:

Brian points out the use of very old vessels in the dominion war, some designs were up to around one hundred year old.

Yet, they still fired modern looking phasers and torpedoes and could vaguely keep up with newer ships. So they were refitted ships and not just pulled from mothballs as he states.
Just because the hull design is old does not mean the internals or even the hull is old. For example: the Danube Class Runabout in Deep Space: Nine are repeatedly up-graded during the series.
359 wrote: 15:20:

Here he goes into warp speeds, lots more info here, from that thread I think it is safe to conclude crossing the Federation in a fast ship can be done in around two weeks. Now on the scale of galactic travel (not going for consistent speed here, just trends) it should take years.

He discusses how it would take Starfleet a long time to rally their forces into any defensive force, however in every attack on the core Federaion (i.e. not some random colony outside their political borders) many starships have rallied to defend against attacks like the Borg in TNG: "Best of Both Worlds", ST: "First Contact", VOY: "Endgame", the Dominion at the start of the war, and the Klingon civil war in TNG: "Redemption" with Picard's tachyon net. Each of these engagements involved dozens if not hundreds of ships arriving on short notice.

One thing cleanly skipped over in the video is how Hyperdrive requires mapped hyper lanes in order to function anywhere near its full potential as established throughout The Clone Wars. As the Emprire does not have a map of the hyper lanes in the Federation or any of its surrounding territory they would not be able to take advantage of their full speed advantage. In fact they would need to proceed quite slowly, stopping and going, as they don't seem to have long-range scanners and need to not bump into gravity wells in hyperspace.
Wasn't Han Solo planning on taking a week or two for a round trip from Tatooine to Alderaan and back?
359 wrote: 25:00:

Brian comments that in VOY: "Paralax", the second episode of the series, Voyager is already having power problems. He argues that this is indicative of the ship lacking any range. However this is not the case, in the first episode VOY: "Caretaker" Voyager was established to have suffered significant damage from its trip to the Delta Quadrant including a fracture in the warp core and probably much more.


27:08:

Here Brian comments on subspace communications. He cites how they travel slowly and can take weeks to reach Starfleet Command.

However this completely ignores all other times where it is real-time communications. First the Enterprise is likely outside the Federation sub-space network, and second we have seen so many counter examples it is hardly fair to say this is the norm. Not even to mention the holo-communicator in DS9: "For the Uniform".
And if Brian acknowledged that Voyager was badly damaged, and never gets properly repaired that would be admitting Voyager can't be used as an example of a properly working Federation vessel as is so loved to do.

It would mean admitting his old buddies are being dishonest.
359 wrote: Then an image of Clone Troopers boarding and acclamator is shown. He uses the ICS book to determine the troop capacity of the ship to be 16,000 clones.
An Acclamator being able to carry up to 16,000 troops and vehicles is not just found in the AOTC:ICS though I doubt Brian knows it.
Publisher: DEL REY Series: Star Wars Title: The New Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels ISBN: 0-345-44902-9 Page: 115 wrote:
The Republic assault ship was produced by Rothana Heavy Engineering, a KDY subsidiary subcontracted by the Kaminoans. Each assault ship is meant to land a full invasion force consisting of 16,000 clone troopers, 320 speeder bikes, 48 AT-TE walkers, 80 gunships, and 36 self-propelled heavy artillery units. The assault ship's Class 0.6 hyperdrive, unusually fast for a craft of the Acclamator's class, enabled the clone army to reach Geonosis soon after Obi-Wan's capture.
Whether or not the Republic ever had their Acclamator's full is what is debatable.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 359 » Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:21 am

As was mentioned earlier some errors have been pointed out about my analysis on the Republic and Federation forces in the 8:55 and 9:35 sections. So with this new information, here is a re-write of those sections.


8:55:

At this section of the video Brian is going over the likely size of the Imperial army, as a reference he discusses the rapid production of droids on Geonosis and then says this about the cloning facility on Kamino which supplies all of the clones to the Grand Army of the Republic:

"Also we saw the cloning facility at Kamino. And I don't how many Clones they were producing, but it was a lot." (8:57)

However we do actually know exactly how many they were producing.

"Two-hundred-thousand units are ready, will a million more well on the way."

Now from this alone there is room for ambiguity, however when coupled with information from the novelization of Attack of the Clones there is a fairly definitive specification of what is said.

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said. "Prime Minister Lama Su has informed me that the first battalion of clone troopers are ready for delivery. He also wanted me to remind you that if we require more--and they've another million well on the way to completion--it will take more time to grow them."

"A million clone warriors?" Mace Windu asked in disbelief.


So from these two quotes it is clear that the cloning facility on Kamino was producing 1,200,000 clones for the Republic's army. And unless they suddenly figured out how to create new clones far more rapidly, that's about how many they will have at the beginning of the war, possibly growing some over the course of the clone war (not counting casualties).

One might assume this number will go up with the rise of the Empire, but by how much is uncertain, especially after casualties. It seems unlikely that the Empire would have anything more than double this amount.

A comment is made about how the Empire must have many more as they need to rule a galaxy by threat of force. There are two problems with that assertion. First, Tarkin comments in A New Hope that the senate served to keep the emperor in control and only after the creation of the first Death Star was there true subjugation through fear as the senate was dissolved. They were able to dissolve the senate because they could now maintain control by use of the Death Star, which they couldn't with the fleet alone. Or at least not as effectively. And second, they maintain through the threat of force. This does not require troops and star destroyers to be present at every moment. They just need to stop by now and again on patrol, and show up when they are needed to quell some dissent. For the most part we do not see star destroyers everywhere, they are spread out and just occasionally show up.

Again throughout The Clone Wars, we see how planetary scale invasions involve fewer troops than one would expect. In TCW: "Storm over Ryloth" the invasion force consists of three acclamator-class assault ships and the second invasion of Geonosis, described as "a massive invasion" in TCW: "Landing at Point Rain" involves only eight assault ships and tiny forces attacking the fairly important point we are seeing.


9:35:

At this point in the video the claim is made that there are "obviously a lot more of them [Stormtroopers] than Starfleet security guys" (9:37).

At several points in Deep Space Nine we are given some information as to the size of Starfleet's military.

DS9: "Dogs of War":

Sisko: "I don't condone what Section Thirty One did, but the Founders started this war, not us. Giving them the cure would strengthen their hand. We can't do that. Not when there are still millions of men and women out there putting their lives on the line every day."

DS9: "Waltz":

Kira: "And twelve more to reach the Badlands, I know. But this convoy is completely unprotected. They've been using the plasma fields in the Badlands to hide their movements, and when they emerge they're helpless without the Defiant."
Bashir: "Can't they delay the convoy? I mean, if Captain Sisko is still alive, we have to give him every chance to"
Kira: "I raised the same objection myself and the orders still stand. Now, every minute spent arguing here is one less minute spent searching for the captain."
Worf: "Prepare for immediate departure."
Kira: "Worf, there are over thirty thousand Federation troops in that convoy. You have fifty two hours, not one second longer. Understood?"


DS9: "Inquisition":

Sloan: "I've had enough of your lies, Doctor. You think you're smarter than the rest of us, don't you? You think you're smarter than the millions of brave men and women who put their lives on the line for the Federation. You want to do things the hard way, fine, but I'm going to get the truth out of you, and when I'm done I'm going to take whatever's left of you and lock it away. Guards!"

From two of these quotes we are told that the Federation Starfleet and ground forces number in multiple millions of personnel. In the first quote we are told of a troop convoy carrying bout 30,000 troops with the Defiant as their only escort. This along with the other information shows how this is a small enough group of soldiers that they only get one ship for escort duty. Other times we also get information about their opponent's military strength.

DS9: "Dogs of War":

Damar: "Gul Revok and Legate Goris are ready to bring their troops over to our side. That's over a half a million men. If we can convince Gul Seltan to join us as well, we'll have another hundred thousand. I think that is worth the risk."

DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil":

DAMAR: "And so two years ago, our government signed a treaty with the Dominion. In it, the Dominion promised to extend Cardassia's influence throughout the Alpha Quadrant. In exchange, we pledged ourselves to join the war against the Federation and its allies. Cardassians have never been afraid of war. A fact we've proven time and again over these past two years. Seven million of our brave soldiers have given their lives to fulfill our part of the agreement. And what has the Dominion done in return? Nothing."

From theses two quotes we can see how the armed forces of one of the Federations large opponents number around ten million soldiers. Given that Starfleet is able to successfully engage other powers and hold victories in ground based combat such as that in the war with Cardassia, they must have a similar force than other powers, implying the Federation should have somewhere around ten million personnel.

Comparing this likely 10 million soldiers to the estimates for the Republic, and therefor the Empire, places Starfleet slightly ahead or possibly on par with the Empire in terms of troop count.

This makes little sense until you think more about it. The Empire relies on a small, but effective and above all else loyal, fighting base to keep the population in check. The Federation draws a fighting force from its population dedicated protecting their ideals and way of life. While the Empire is far larger in population, it does not draw its army from that population. It clones them instead, from one location. So its military size is effectively independent of its population.

This independent from population and cloning of a perfectly loyal army is very similar to the Jem'Hadar bread by the Dominion, although the clones take longer to grow than the three days it takes for a Jem'Hadar. In fact it is said to take almost ten years to grow a clone.

Obi-Wan: "Yes, Master. They say a Master Sifo-Dyas placed the order for a clone army at the request of the Senate almost ten years ago. I was under the impression he was killed before that. Did the Council ever authorize the creation of a clone army?"

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 2046 » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:45 am

One more detail is that in "Pursuit of Peace"[TCW3] there are assorted machinations around finding the funding for five million additional clones, requiring bank deregulation and the utter bankrupting of the Republic.

Of course, the issue with that is that they'd be a decade from usability if started upon funding appropriation, but presumably the Kaminoans had been growing "spec clones" so as to have extras available if needed.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Jan 18, 2014 6:04 pm

I'm glad that point got brought up about the story arc started in "Heroes on Both Sides
" with the near exhaustion of the Republic's war funds as well as it's essential bankrupting as a nation if it should produce just another 5 million clones. I'm sure that Brian will never ever cover that little bit in his videos, or he'll claim something outrageous, like the Republic had already produced billions of clones and this was the straw that broke the camel's back or something along those lines.

The other fact brought up in the story is that the cone warrior numbers have been so decimated by the fighting that the 5 million new units are necessary tells us that the initial numbers are not being replaced constantly, but rather at a sedate pace. Compare this to the Dominion, a Star Trek power that also uses clone warriors (the Jem'Hadar), which can replace troops by literally growing them within a day and apparently at relatively little cost, and setting up the infrastructure in a hostile environment (the Alpha Quadrant), took only months and was easily maintained all throughout the more than 2 year long war with the Federation and it's allies.
-Mike

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Jan 19, 2014 11:32 am

359 wrote: DS9: "Dogs of War":

Damar: "Gul Revok and Legate Goris are ready to bring their troops over to our side. That's over a half a million men. If we can convince Gul Seltan to join us as well, we'll have another hundred thousand. I think that is worth the risk."

DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil":

DAMAR: "And so two years ago, our government signed a treaty with the Dominion. In it, the Dominion promised to extend Cardassia's influence throughout the Alpha Quadrant. In exchange, we pledged ourselves to join the war against the Federation and its allies. Cardassians have never been afraid of war. A fact we've proven time and again over these past two years. Seven million of our brave soldiers have given their lives to fulfill our part of the agreement. And what has the Dominion done in return? Nothing."

From theses two quotes we can see how the armed forces of one of the Federations large opponents number around ten million soldiers.
With the quoted material above, I'd say at least 7 millions, not 10. :)
But then you can count the Jemmies and some other forces.
Comparing this likely 10 million soldiers to the estimates for the Republic, and therefor the Empire, places Starfleet slightly ahead or possibly on par with the Empire in terms of troop count.
And, above all, a much higher density of troop per square light year of territory.
This makes little sense until you think more about it. The Empire relies on a small, but effective and above all else loyal, fighting base to keep the population in check. The Federation draws a fighting force from its population dedicated protecting their ideals and way of life. While the Empire is far larger in population, it does not draw its army from that population. It clones them instead, from one location. So its military size is effectively independent of its population.
You actually forget that the Empire, not the Republic, moved from clones to conscripts.
Exclusively human though, safe for a few cases, so the tithes could only come from worlds with some worthwhile human population.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Jan 19, 2014 11:39 am

2046 wrote:One more detail is that in "Pursuit of Peace"[TCW3] there are assorted machinations around finding the funding for five million additional clones, requiring bank deregulation and the utter bankrupting of the Republic.

Of course, the issue with that is that they'd be a decade from usability if started upon funding appropriation, but presumably the Kaminoans had been growing "spec clones" so as to have extras available if needed.
Mike DiCenso wrote:I'm glad that point got brought up about the story arc started in "Heroes on Both Sides
" with the near exhaustion of the Republic's war funds as well as it's essential bankrupting as a nation if it should produce just another 5 million clones. I'm sure that Brian will never ever cover that little bit in his videos, or he'll claim something outrageous, like the Republic had already produced billions of clones and this was the straw that broke the camel's back or something along those lines.

The other fact brought up in the story is that the cone warrior numbers have been so decimated by the fighting that the 5 million new units are necessary tells us that the initial numbers are not being replaced constantly, but rather at a sedate pace. Compare this to the Dominion, a Star Trek power that also uses clone warriors (the Jem'Hadar), which can replace troops by literally growing them within a day and apparently at relatively little cost, and setting up the infrastructure in a hostile environment (the Alpha Quadrant), took only months and was easily maintained all throughout the more than 2 year long war with the Federation and it's allies.
-Mike

Well, it can be believed that, billions of clones or not, those extra few millions would have indeed broke the Republic.
The main reason being the expansion of a dedicated navy and that secret pet project called the Death Star that surely sucked some money.
And if you're into the EU, like Brian Young surely is, then you can't ignore the facts given about how the design of the Imperial Star Destroyer nearly collapsed the Empire, and how the same Empire had been forced to cannibalize hyperspace transceivers (or some other major piece of equipment related to the hypersace-comm network) to put them on their ships.
If you want more info, perhaps wake up Mith by sending him a PM, he may know those quotations.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 2046 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 6:31 pm

If a government has a fleet of 10000 warplanes, are they really going to deregulate the banks for an extra 50, or an extra 5?

They would certainly do it for an extra 50,000.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 359 » Sun Jan 19, 2014 9:25 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
359 wrote:DS9: "Dogs of War":

Damar: "Gul Revok and Legate Goris are ready to bring their troops over to our side. That's over a half a million men. If we can convince Gul Seltan to join us as well, we'll have another hundred thousand. I think that is worth the risk."

DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil":

DAMAR: "And so two years ago, our government signed a treaty with the Dominion. In it, the Dominion promised to extend Cardassia's influence throughout the Alpha Quadrant. In exchange, we pledged ourselves to join the war against the Federation and its allies. Cardassians have never been afraid of war. A fact we've proven time and again over these past two years. Seven million of our brave soldiers have given their lives to fulfill our part of the agreement. And what has the Dominion done in return? Nothing."

From theses two quotes we can see how the armed forces of one of the Federations large opponents number around ten million soldiers.
With the quoted material above, I'd say at least 7 millions, not 10. :)
But then you can count the Jemmies and some other forces.
This is true there are at least seven million from the quotes, but I rounded up. From Dumar later saying how he was gaining the allegiance of more than half a million men it is clear that not all of the Cardassian military has been killed off.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
359 wrote:This makes little sense until you think more about it. The Empire relies on a small, but effective and above all else loyal, fighting base to keep the population in check. The Federation draws a fighting force from its population dedicated protecting their ideals and way of life. While the Empire is far larger in population, it does not draw its army from that population. It clones them instead, from one location. So its military size is effectively independent of its population.
You actually forget that the Empire, not the Republic, moved from clones to conscripts.
Exclusively human though, safe for a few cases, so the tithes could only come from worlds with some worthwhile human population.
Is there anywhere that explicitly states this? Because throughout The Clone Wars it is heavily implied that the clone troopers become the stormtroopers.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by 2046 » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:35 pm

While not explicitly stated canonically (yet), it is commonly believed. There may even be a reference in the radio plays (not to the replacement of clones specifically, but of stormtrooper being a job a guy could get).

It can also be argued simply due to the varying heights of original trilogy stormtroopers, along with different voices for them. In other words, if they're clones, then they would be more like Cylons in the sense of there being multiple copies of multiple models.

For whatever it might be worth, Star Wars: Rebels will tread this ground . . . its actual canon status is up in the air at the moment, but:
Hidalgo noted, “We can finally settle the debate between what is the difference between a Clone Trooper and a Stormtrooper,” saying that they were specifically culling from George Lucas’ ideas and that while he wasn’t directly involved in Rebels, they were using many things he’d said about this era. “Clone Troopers basically stopped production” after the Clone Wars ended, said Hidalgo. With Stormtroopers, “They’re citizens that volunteered.” Hidalgo noted that in Lucas’ mind, interestingly, “The lab grown Clone Troopers had too much individuality,” ultimately, and the Emperor decided, “You can find better loyalty from fervent patriots who volunteered.”
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/13/ ... the-empire

Some points running alongside the above could be said to have been teased in TCW, but that's the realm of conjecture.

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Re: Review of scifights.net Federation vs. Empire: Logistics

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:54 pm

395 wrote:Brian comments that in VOY: "Parallax", the second episode of the series, Voyager is already having power problems. He argues that this is indicative of the ship lacking any range. However this is not the case, in the first episode VOY: "Caretaker" Voyager was established to have suffered significant damage from its trip to the Delta Quadrant including a fracture in the warp core and probably much more.
In response to that, I'd point out the TCW episode "Supply Lines" that clearly shows the mighty Republic Venators dangerously running out of fuel and the troops on the surface running out of supplies and ammunition during the initial opening fighting of the Battle of Ryloth. This is occurring in well-charted space, and there should be no excuse for the Republic when it comes to resupplying it's forces, if we go by the Young/Saxtonian view of Star Wars.

But we see this time and time again now in modern canon Star Wars: ships require well-charted hyper space lanes, or they are trapped, dead in the water to a very localized region and the Republic requires assistance from the Hutts to get access to other hyper lanes (SW:TCW the movie). The Battle of Ryloth is awful for the Republic (and perhaps the Empire as well) with the ships running out of fuel right in the middle of a major battle! That sort of scenario is almost unheard of in Star Trek, unless a ship is very badly damaged and under the effects of a fuel supply dampening war machine("The Doomsday Machine" [TOS2]), or after several years of scrapping about in uncharted space and having to fight numerous battles without any hope of resupply whatsoever("Demon" [VOY4]).

Unless the Republic or the Empire really makes an effort to gain access to starcharts and other astrographical information on the Milky Way galaxy and the Federation in particular, then their whole war effort will likely grind to a screeching halt as their supply lines become severely stressed and ships run out of fuel in this strange, hostile galaxy.

And once again we have clear cut evidence that Brian cherrypicks his sources to reach his predetermined conclusion. That's why the guy uses the two ICS books he falls back on time and again along with the TNG TM: they're his comfort fall back in the advent things start to challenge his assumptions. The Systems Commonwealth win against the almighty Galactic Empire? No way! Quick! Get the ROTS ICS out and reference millions of Separatist ships! Whew! That was close... now it's more of a tie.
-Mike

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