Who Wins?

[Dragoon]

From Wikipedia FC article:

"Industrial Light and Magic, known for their work on the Star Wars films and in charge of the special effects for First Contact, put a very small CGI model of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars into the background of the opening space battle sequence with the Borg. "

I wonder how Han and company got all the way out there? =P

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

BHMM made an entry about that on ST-v-SW.net's blog several months ago, the SDN response was pretty funny too.

[Dragoon]

BHMM made an entry about that on ST-v-SW.net's blog several months ago, the SDN response was pretty funny too.

Oh really? What was it?

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

I couldn't find the blog post :( But it was basically a joke about the Federation having passed up on all that superior SW tech on the Falcon. Some of the SDNer thought he was being serious and attempted to rebut the post.

[AFT]

Well, we really don't know how far away those 9 additional ships were, so what we can actually say is that they assembled half the fleet from Wolf 359 in a very short time.

Let’s say that they were hours away, that’s still far and away better than the Wolf 359 example. But I don’t think they were that far away:

Admiral Paris: I want every ship in range to converge on those coordinates now.

That nine ships should have been close enough to be of any help, but anyway 20 ships on minutes it’s quite good for peace times that is, of course. And in reality not many possible foes can reach that deep into Federation territory without warning or being almost completely destroyed even if they managed to do just that, like the Breen.

And as for the fleets assembled during the War with the Dominion, don't forget that they re-commissioned many decommissioned ships in order to be able to fight the war with some effect.

I don’t, actually I think that’s why there were so many Excelsior and Miranda class ships around during the war. That only shows that they are smart enough to bring out their reserves to face a major military conflict.

Agreed.
But what this shows, IMO, it that it seems Starfleet keeps a lot of ships on stanby (or in drydocks) during peacetime, and then takes them out during war time.

I think that the Fleets section on Starfleet Jedi.net cover that pretty well.

It is also a good indication of the Federation's industrial capacity, that they start with so few vessels during Peace time, and come in guns raging with so many during War time...

Not only has that showed some great industrial capacity but also that they are not the “space hippies” that so many believe they are. They realized right from the first meeting that there might be war with the Dominion and they started to get ready for it.

[Enterprise E]

I personally think that if it were to come to an all out war between the Federation, and allies, and the Empire, there would be no real winner and that there would be a treaty. The main reason for this is because the Federation has great defenses, and it seems to me that it would do very well in a defensive battle, where in addition to its 10,000-12,000 starships, its worlds, especially the important ones like Earth and maybe the rest of the planets in Sol, would have defense platforms, starbases, and surface based weapons as well. In addition, many of the newer ships would be equal to their Imperial counterparts, and some, such as the Sovereign, Galaxy, Akira, and maybe even the Defiant, would be able to take on an Imperial Star Destroyer one on one, though I think that only a Sovereign or Akira could actually do it straight out with firepower and shields and not rely on its maneuverability. Even so, the superior sublight speed and maneuverability of even the weaker Federation ships could cause problems for their Imperial counterparts. For the reasons just stated, an invasion of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants of the Milky Way galaxy would be exceedingly costly for the Empire. The cost would not be outweighed by the benefits either since this is only the AQ/BQ of the Milky Way. The Empire would still have the Dominion and the Borg to deal with, and they would take notice if the Federation and its allies fell. And such losses could embolden the Rebel Alliance in the SW galaxy, unless they have already been dealt with in this scenerio. Heck, even the mass deployment of starships to Milky Way, regardless of the result, could embolden the Alliance. At the very least, it would provide an opportunity for the Alliance to make a critical strike against an important target.

Many of the same reasons that I stated above would also make a Federation invasion into the Star Wars galaxy exceedingly costly as well. The Galactic Empire already outnumbers the United Federation of Planets in terms of numbers of ships and troops. The EU says that the Empire at its height had 25,000 Star Destroyers. And research by Darkstar and others based on movie quotes indicates that the Imperial fleet would be equivalent to about 25,000 Star Destroyers, Victories and Venators are probably included in both statements now. And from what I've seen, even in the Expanded Universe, the main ships of the line are Star Destroyers, with the smaller ships like Corvettes, Nebulon Frigates, Interdictor Cruisers (not that they'd be much use against ST ships), etc. merely being support ships or system patrol ships. The real fleet to fleet fighting is done by the Star Destroyers. This is true even in the Expanded Universe, where many of these other types of ships exist. Not only that, but like with the Federation, important installations and worlds will have defense platforms. In the EU, they are referred to as Golan Defense Platforms. Even so, the SW galaxy is heavily defended and the speed and maneuverability of the Federation ships will only allow them to get so far if they are vastly outnumbered. And with the planets of the Empire protected not only by large starfleets and system patrol fleets, but also by the aforementioned defense platforms and even surface based weapons, planetary shields, and ground-based starfighter wings and army divisions, an invasion that was meant to take worlds would be exceedingly costly. And the Federation would have to hold back ships in order to protect its own assets from the Empire. The Empire, since it has more ships, and has a lot of planetary defenses, could send a sortie or two into Federation space while the Federation attacked in order to force a Federation retreat, or just distract them while the Empire would take advantage of the situation.

As for how the war would probably go, in the end, I can see an Imperial offensive getting beaten back by the Federation before it would get too far, but the Empire would probably take some of the outer, more lightly defended, colonies before facing a full Federation fleet. If the Federation launched a counter-offensive, I could see them inflicting casualties upon the Empire, but they wouldn't be able to take any worlds from the Empire since it would just be too costly. The Empire just has too many ships and defenses around their worlds. However, the Federation's superior ships and defenses (in terms of quality, not necessarily quantity) would make another Imperial invasion unadvisable, especially if it attracted the attention of the Klingons and maybe even the Romulans. I would expect that cooler heads on both sides would prevail and there would be a treaty, setting up a perimeter much like the Neutral Zone where neither side would cross on both sides of whatever rift allowed access to Milky Way and the Star Wars Galaxy. However, both sides would still be very much aware of each other, and may be preparing for an invasion, or preparing for fighting one off. I could see both sides sending in spies just to see if the other side is planning an offensive or just another trip through the rift.

[Mike DiCenso]

Praeothmin wrote:

It is also a good indication of the Federation's industrial capacity, that they start with so few vessels during Peace time, and come in guns raging with so many during War time...

AFT wrote:
Not only has that showed some great industrial capacity but also that they are not the “space hippies” that so many believe they are. They realized right from the first meeting that there might be war with the Dominion and they started to get ready for it.

Well, it's not terribly suprising the Federation has such an industrial capacity, even with only 150 plus member worlds, some associate members, and who knows how many thousands of colony worlds and protectorates. After all, the large industrial replicators mentioned in DS9 should help even things out against the GE's raw, large-scale, but otherwise conventional industrial capacity.

We've also known for quite a while that the Federation can build a fair number of the large Spacedock and SB-74, as well as the Utopia Planita space stations. At least some of which from a mass/volume standpoint are worth 11,000 GCS or SCS spaceframes (whether or not you choose to include propulsion in that estimate).

Also another thing; we have seen Excelsior and Miranda class starships that appear to be relatively new-build ships with registry numbers in the high 30k as well as even some in the low 50k regions. With the massive losses taken during the second Borg invasion, the brief Klingon war, and the Dominion war, Starfleet should have been wiped out, if the Warsie assumptions were correct. Yet we continue to see large fleets with hundreds of vessels in them. So SF must be capable of rebuilding or recalling large numbers of ships to fill in for the loss of so many thousands of ships.
-Mike

[mojo]

I'm curious what you all think about this link:

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Ess ... nutes.html

I read that ages ago and until I came upon this forum I thought it was pretty definitive. Are there things I'm not seeing that invalidate the conclusions this guy came to? I mean, he makes it seem as if the Federation wouldn't have a chance in hell. To quote:

"In a straight-up fight, the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Even with its numerical advantage removed, the Empire would still squash the Federation like a bug. Accept it."

Please bear in mind that that quote isn't from me, so please don't flame me for it. I'm sincerely curious as to your response.

[Who is like God arbour]

I think, the question of mojo deserves its own thread.

That's why I have created the thread The validity of Star Wars vs Star Trek in Five Minutes. Please put your answers in this thread!



P.S. Welcome to the forum, mojo.
Am I right to assume, that you are new to the Star Wars versus Star Trek debate?

[mojo]

I know that it's generally agreed that the Force and the Jedi and Sith would not make that much difference in a Trek/Wars battle. But in the first contact between them, couldn't Darth Vader make a huge difference? For instance, if they found some way to actually communicate with each other, what's to stop Vader from just force-choking (I know, I hear you all groaning already) Worf when he tries to press the buttons to launch weapons against whatever ship Vader happens to be in? We know he can do the old force-choke from one ship to another already. How long would it really take an Empire ship to annihilate the hell out of a Federation ship that was momentarily unable to fire back? Since we can probably assume that the Federation would almost certainly at least attempt peaceful communication first, and we can assume that the Empire would attack in short order, isn't it possible that with just a little bit of luck the Empire could destroy the first Federation ship it came across before it could even send out an SOS? Since Federation ships seem to travel around on their own a lot of the time, couldn't many ships be destroyed this way?
Also, I've been watching a LOT of TNG, and those hallways are pretty narrow. If Vader found a way to enter the ship, which at least the first time would probably be fairly easy since Picard is constantly letting people he doesn't know beam aboard, what's to stop him just rampaging through the ship, light-saber blazing? You couldn't fit more than four or five people side by side in those hallways, and Vader could easily deflect their phaser fire. Since he could melt the doors and whatnot, what's to stop him just slashing his way onto the bridge and massacring everyone there? At that point, they'd have a working Federation ship and could analyze the tech and weapons to better defend themselves, and find weaknesses and all that.
Maybe both those ideas are retarded, I don't know everything, but they seem fairly possible if improbable to me.
Also, it seems sort of unfair to come down on the Empire for not being able to snuff the Rebellion. I mean, all the heroes of the story are IN the Rebellion, of course the Rebellion is going to win in the end, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. It's sort of like saying that Jason is weak in the Friday the 13th movies because he couldn't manage to kill whatever girl doesn't have sex in any of the movies. He's not weak, it's just that someone has to survive and defeat Jason so that the audience can enjoy the movie. If the movies followed strict logic Jason would have taken over the freakin' planet by now, and I think that if it were ALLOWED, the Empire would have CRUSHED the Rebellion. I mean, for example, the Clone Troopers seem to be much better shots than the Storm Troopers, don't they? And they are the same freakin' soldiers, aren't they? It doesn't make sense that they would get so much worse over the years if they are constantly training and trying to stay in good condition and whatever. But it would make for very poor entertainment if Luke and Han and the gang were instantly destroyed when they entered the Death Star.
But that's just me, and I could be wrong.

Another thing that sort of bothers me is that both the original SW trilogy and the original ST series aren't really hard sci-fi in the strict sense in the first place. The original SW trilogy is of course just a western/samurai story told in space, and the original ST series is mostly a fantasy series set in space, imo. In both cases the technology is there to take the place of magic - gadgets and weapons do what they do because it's what's needed to advance the story rather than because it's a bit of well-reasoned and thought out equipment or weaponry. The writers of both are just writers trying to tell stories, not nuclear physicists or rocket scientists. I would be willing to bet a paycheck that some of the debates that happen on this very forum would be just about incomprehensible to Lucas and many of the writers of ST: TOS. Stephen King said in an interview about the Dark Tower series that he sometimes hears people discussing his series with talk of quantum physics and other types of hard science, trying to figure out how King himself expects things in his books to be possible, when the truth is he knows nothing of any of those things and just wanted to advance the story. Isn't it possible, no, probable that Roddenbury came up with the idea of the phaser by thinking 'Hey, what if their weapons shoot lasers that can be adjusted from simply knocking someone down all the way up to, oh, I don't know, melting freakin' rocks?! That would be awesome!' rather than drawing out some technical manual about how the things work? And even when it comes to the later stuff, like TNG and DS9 and beyond, and the SW prequels, isn't it likely that the huge difference in opinions about how strong the weapons are and how fast the ships are is there because the people who are creating this entertainment don't know themselves, and just make the weapons as strong as they need them to be for the plots they are working with, and just make the ships zip from one place to the next without really worrying about how long it takes to get there? Granted, the later ST series are MUCH better about being consistent with the tech, since by the time TNG came out the people involved knew that the fans were going to dissect every detail and at least put forth some effort to have standards. The SW prequels I think do this as well to a lesser extent, and fail more often. Lucas simply doesn't seem to care how fast his ships go or how strong his weapons are, as long as he can give us people fighting with light-sabers and blowing each other up in absurd but fun dogfights. For me personally this makes for a more enjoyable viewing experience, as I'm a light-saber and absurd dogfight kind of guy, and never even considered how fast the ships were going until I found this forum.
But what I'm saying is that trying to analyze and dissect something when it's made of nothing at all simply doesn't work. For example, there's this huge debate going on right now about shockwaves and whether explosions occurred under the crust of a planet and all this stuff. Sort of interesting, but you're all pretty much guaranteed to be giving this about 3,000,000,012 times more thought than the guy who wrote the scene itself. Isn't it completely likely that the guy just went 'Well, let's just have them shoot the planet and we can make a big explosion. Sound good? Let's go to lunch.' Then the special effects guy makes the explosion in the way he thinks looks the coolest, knowing nothing about how planets would explode in real life, and years later you find yourselves arguing vehemently over the real-life science behind it and how it works with the internal pseudo-science of the series!
I'm sure some effort is made to make things consistent, especially in later Trek, like I said. I'm sure you've got guys checking scripts for crazy things like the Enterprise blowing up whole solar systems or phasers blasting mountains out of the ground. But lesser things probably just slide through. 'No, Fred, you can't have Picard shoot a laser through the center of the planet and hit someone on the other side. What's that? Can he beam to the other side of the planet and shoot the laser right through his eye, making a hole no bigger than his pupil? Sure, why not.' I just have a lot of doubt that some kind of Star Trek Bible exists anywhere on Earth that describes the exact power levels of weapons and the exact speeds of the various ships, and I'd just about wager my lifetime savings that no such Star Wars Bible exists. These guys are just making things up as they go along, I think, trying to keep things within reason compared to what's come before in their respective series while still offering us the best stories they can. And if that's the case, and no Bible exists which can show us finally which side is stronger, beyond doubt, then how can any kind of debate about Star Trek vs. Star Wars tech and weaponry even fairly begin, let alone at some point conclude with an agreed upon outcome? It's just going to be an eternal pointless battle, with people basically just picking sides based on which series is more their type of entertainment and then trying to find ways to justify their position that yes, their side will win, when it's not finally about science or facts and statistics at all, but whether you personally think Picard or Skywalker is cooler. My dad can beat up your dad.
I'm sure you guys have heard all that twenty times at least, and in the end I'm honestly not trying to hurt or demoralize the debate itself, I'm just trying to find a way to make it make sense for me to spend time thinking about something that can't be finally solved. Is there even a remote chance that at some point someone will strike upon something that will end the debate one way or another? Because otherwise, why bother?

[watchdog]

Luke Skywalker himself said it best to the emperor, his overconfidence is his weakness. A level of incompetence is also at play, I dont recall if Vader ever force-choked anyone not in his sight, but we never see him resort to all these exotic forms of combat. I know that jedi and sith are very different, but I cant help but note that starfleet personel have taken on beings that were infinately more powerful than either Palpatine or Vader, characters who could mop the floor with Vader with ease (and I'm not talking about Q).

[mojo]

Luke Skywalker himself said it best to the emperor, his overconfidence is his weakness. A level of incompetence is also at play, I dont recall if Vader ever force-choked anyone not in his sight, but we never see him resort to all these exotic forms of combat. I know that jedi and sith are very different, but I cant help but note that starfleet personel have taken on beings that were infinately more powerful than either Palpatine or Vader, characters who could mop the floor with Vader with ease (and I'm not talking about Q).

Vader force-choked a guy through a viewscreen at some point, as I recall, although I could be wrong about that. I believe he did. And I am certainly not arguing that you'll ever find a bit in a Star Wars film where Vader rampages through the hallways of a ship and makes his way to it's bridge, although it could be argued that he did that exact thing in the opening scene of RotS. I'm just saying that it seems entirely within the realm of possibility. Also, I'm curious about the idea that Starfleet have dealt with beings that are at once more powerful and dangerous than the Sith. Although they have certainly dealt with more powerful beings, I'm not sure they've ever dealt with something comparable - beings who are both much more powerful than ordinary humans and at the same time likely to attack with full force at first contact, before the crews of Starfleet ships are even able to get their bearings. As I keep saying, I don't KNOW that this hasn't happened, so if it has, feel free to prove me wrong. I just know I haven't seen it myself. The only thing I can think of right off the top of my head would be the Borg, and their weaknesses are so immediately obvious that i don't see how that would even count. The Borg also seem to be badly hurt by the fact that the Federation must win for the series to continue - I just watched an episode where Picard is taken by the Borg and converted, and was amazed at the lengths to which the writers were forced to go to to allow the crew of the Enterprise to prevail in the end. The Borg could have defeated the Enterprise at any point in the story, and didn't. So, not to be combative, but in that case at least you couldn't really say that Starfleet dealt with the threat - rather the writers of the series did.

Another thing while I'm on the subject - I know this isn't exactly canon (haha) but if you watch the opening to the trailer on this page:

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/xbox360/ga ... 7253392019

how can anyone doubt the difference the Sith could make in a SW/ST battle? He pulled that giant freakin' ship right out of the sky and made it crash into the ground. I mean, Jesus Christ. If that's even remotely possible, I don't see how the Starship Enterprise is going to have much chance if it's being pinballed around between freakin' planets.

[watchdog]

Vader force-choked a guy through a viewscreen at some point, as I recall, although I could be wrong about that. I believe he did.

No he did, but Admial Ozzel was still in his sight.

And I am certainly not arguing that you'll ever find a bit in a Star Wars film where Vader rampages through the hallways of a ship and makes his way to it's bridge, although it could be argued that he did that exact thing in the opening scene of RotS. I'm just saying that it seems entirely within the realm of possibility.

Vader could definatly be a terror rampaging through the corridors of a ship, but on a Federation ship hed have to deal with containment force fields (like he did in RotS), variable gravity deck plates (as in turn up the gravity) and the fact that phasers can be fired on a wide-beam setting.

Also, I'm curious about the idea that Starfleet have dealt with beings that are at once more powerful and dangerous than the Sith. Although they have certainly dealt with more powerful beings, I'm not sure they've ever dealt with something comparable - beings who are both much more powerful than ordinary humans and at the same time likely to attack with full force at first contact, before the crews of Starfleet ships are even able to get their bearings. As I keep saying, I don't KNOW that this hasn't happened, so if it has, feel free to prove me wrong. I just know I haven't seen it myself.

They have never taken on beings as nakedly agressive as the Sith (not even Klingons), but dealing with beings of immense power is virtually an everyday occurance, especially for Kirk. You might want to look up the episodes Charley X and Plato's stepchildren from TOS. Charley X was kind of star treks version of the classic twilight zone episode with the little boy who could make things vanish into the corn field at will, Plato's stepchildren featured people with powers comparable to those of the Jedi and the Sith, only about a hundred times more potent Kirk had to figure out how to give himself ten times their ability and did. not only could they affect the Enterprise in orbit and out of sight, but they could force people to to whatever they wanted them to do, and I dont mean a Jedi mind trick against weak-minds either, ask Mr. Spock. No for the most part most of the super-powered entities have never just gone after the crew with a bladed weapon (although Trelane did go after Kirk with a rapier), I was refering to general dealings with super-powered beings.

The only thing I can think of right off the top of my head would be the Borg, and their weaknesses are so immediately obvious that i don't see how that would even count. The Borg also seem to be badly hurt by the fact that the Federation must win for the series to continue - I just watched an episode where Picard is taken by the Borg and converted, and was amazed at the lengths to which the writers were forced to go to to allow the crew of the Enterprise to prevail in the end. The Borg could have defeated the Enterprise at any point in the story, and didn't. So, not to be combative, but in that case at least you couldn't really say that Starfleet dealt with the threat - rather the writers of the series did.

Which weakness are you refering to? The norm in these debates is to not assume the writers had to make the goodguys win, you'll hear a lot about suspention of disbelief when you try to make that argument (I'm not going to hold it against you though). But obviously the writers need to find a way for the main characters to survive, our hobby is in analyzing what the characters did to survive and try to understand it

Another thing while I'm on the subject - I know this isn't exactly canon (haha) but if you watch the opening to the trailer on this page:

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/xbox360/ga ... 7253392019

how can anyone doubt the difference the Sith could make in a SW/ST battle? He pulled that giant freakin' ship right out of the sky and made it crash into the ground. I mean, Jesus Christ. If that's even remotely possible, I don't see how the Starship Enterprise is going to have much chance if it's being pinballed around between freakin' planets.

The games are a lot of fun, and contrary to what some may think the storylines in many of the games is EU official, but when have you ever seen any Jedi or Sith do any of the combo-force powers seen in that clip outside of these games?

[Who is like God arbour]

Before one should debate what would happen if Vader - or any other Jedi respectively Sith mets an Federation ship, I would demand from you - or any other who creates such an scenario - that it is clarified if the Force would affect Milky Way life, which has no Midi-chlorians.

The Yuuzhan Vong - for example - are not able to touch the Force or seemingly be felt through it.

The same could apply to all Milky Way life who has no midi-chlorians at all. I commend to read the story Portal by Graham Kennedy. It's not an especially good story but it shows the problem.



But even if it is assumed that the Force affect Milky Way life too, that wouldn't made a big difference.

As watchdog had already said, the internal Force Fields could contain Vader, similar as it has happens in RotS.

And Phasers have wide-beam settings.

In addition, there is nothing known which could prevent that Vader is beamed in a brig.

And the best is that, when they beam Vader, they could remove all midi-chlorians with the Biofilter from the transporter.

I don't see, how Vader would make a difference.

He could kill some persons before he is subdued. But that's all.

[watchdog]

My own personal feelings about the force in Star Trek is that they probably would have it but it would be weak, thats what I wrote into my story on the story page. Lucas obviously meant for there to be a correlation between the real midochondria which creates energy for us to use and the force touching midi-chlorians, I simply made it a mutant type of midochondria with somewhat different properties.
My own limited knowlege of biology left me with the simplest explanation I could think of, and it helps in the story area, thats why I wrote that Kirks old friend Gary Mitchell had a similar change (fan-fic wanking on my part).