OK so what is the real deal in UFP power vs Wars & other

[PunkMaister]

OK since is obvious that just about all research pointing out the numerical superiority of the empire vs the federation, the technological gap, the FTL gap etc, etc. have been thrown out the window then...

Just how powerful then is the UFP in comparison to the SW galactic Empire. How does it stack up against other universes then such as the Xele or the Daleks and their reality bomb and so on...

[Mith]

OK since is obvious that just about all research pointing out the numerical superiority of the empire vs the federation, the technological gap, the FTL gap etc, etc. have been thrown out the window then...

Just how powerful then is the UFP in comparison to the SW galactic Empire. How does it stack up against other universes then such as the Xele or the Daleks and their reality bomb and so on...

Well, current estimations suggest the the Republic during wartime had about 1.5 million clones at its disposal for its galactic struggle. We know that some planets had their own police force and defenses (Naboo and Kashik), but they were overall fairly minor. Most conflicts occured within major cities.

Assuming that they had fifty clones on one ship (not hard to see), they had 30,000 starships of Venator grade, but we do see other ships, so it's possible that the number is a bit higher, but with smaller ships. Thus, I'd say perhaps another 10,000-15,000 ships, but only about 15,000 being full fledged cruisers, so the numbers could be from 40,000 to 45,000 starships...maby 50,000 if we really want to push it.

Firepower wise, Venators have been shown to have firepower that ranges up into about five megatons for their HTLs (per beam, so two barrel guns as we see toss out 10 megatons altogether). ISDs are likely to be higher, but how much is unknown. Even assuming double, that's 10 megatons per turret (I think the Mark II's HTL turrets had four barrels, putting them at 40 megatons...).

Now, in comparison, the UFP was mentioned to have a fleet composing of about 1,000 starships from the combined elements of two fleets. At the very least, that's about a thousand starships per fleet, although it could also reasonably 1,500 or 2,000 per fleet as well. That being said, we have mention of ten fleets, although there might be more. Personally, I suspect there are twelve (it was mentioned by Kirk that there were 12 Constitutions, so I suspect one for each fleet). At the very least, we have 10,000 starships for the Federation, but presuming 12 fleets, we can get 12,000 and going with the idea that 'elements' didn't mean half (it usually doesn't) and assuming it was a third of each fleet, we could get up to 18,000 starships, but it could reach into 24,000s

Firepower is a bit different story. Where as the Empire holds the high ground in numbers, the Federation points toward having stronger ships. In Enterprise, we learn that even the NX series had 50 megaton antimatter warheads and that the USS Defiant (Constitution class) tossed around multiple tough ships of the era around like rag dolls and wasn't even damaged from a heavy barrage of phase cannons to the bare hull. I'd be willing to go out on a limb to suggest that the torpedoes were 75 megatons. With two launchers, that's a total of 150 megatons per round. More modern UFP ships in the TNG era probably have about a hundred megatons. Depending on the ship, this can range from a 200+ megaton volley (Intrepid class), to 500+ megatons (Galaxy class), to possibly about 750+ megatons (Soverign). The plus part is from the phaser issue (about 78,000 terrawatts or 18.6 megatons (more or less) for the Romulan warbird's weapon). Weaker ships will of course, have weaker out puts, but probably not anything less than 8-10 megatons.



So:

Numbers

Empire
At least 30,000 starships
Most likely around 40,000 - 50,000 starships including smaller ships

United Federation of Planets
At least 10,000 starships
Most likely around 18,000 starships, possibly 24,000

Firepower

Empire
Weapons range from 1-5 megatons per HTL barrel for Venator ships, but may reach up to 10 megatons per HTL barrel. LTLs are in the lower portion, probably only enough to take out fighters and transports. MTLs are probably in the high KT or low megaton regions.

Federation
Phasers range in the 8-20 megaton range (depending on the ship), with photon torpedoes ranging at least from 50 megatons, but likely up to 100 megatons (no higher than 200 megatons though). Some torpedoes are higher yield (unknown, but supposedly uber strong).


Now let's talk about speed. For the Federation, speed is incredibly hard to calculate, but we do know that they can travel well through 8,000 lightyears that is their territory within the range of a few weeks, days, or at most months depending on the source. In areas with little or no knowledge, warp seems to grind to nearly a halt.

Imperial speed is much faster, but is affected by gravity wells to the point that large warships like the Malevolence needed to make a 10 parsecs (about 32.6 lightyears) around a nebula, suggesting that ships may be slown down due to nebulas, planets, solar systems, and the like.

Territory is next. The UFP is made up of 150 member planets (thousand(s) of colonies, industrial worlds, and the like) spread over 8,000 lightyears. There isn't really much to say about that.

The Empire is said to be held up in a modest galaxy, so that's in the range of about 20,000 lightyears to 40,000 lightyears. Presuming that it's the larger number, that's about five times larger than the Federation itself.

Speed

United Federation of Planets
Has a reasonable range of 2,000-4,000 lightyears within the span of a week or so for faster ships in a hurry, possibly up to a month.

Empire
Can cross large distances in a short amount of time, probably weeks or days to cross the Milky Way galaxy


Territory

United Federation of Planets
The UFP is spread out over 8,000 lightyears, most people probably presume a somewhat circle-like territory, but there may be holes for neutral space, but this is doubtful.

Empire
The Empire is at least around 30,000 lightyears in size, but can reach up to the full space.


Other Universes

Other universes are hard. The UFP and the Empire fall well behind the Daleks and the Time Lords (although, the 31st century UFP is a different story...).

Class I Civilization
Class I civilizations are typically limited to a small area, being capable of only traveling hundreds of miles from their home typically, although longer ranges are possible. Older class I civilizations may be capable of traveling thousands of miles.

Class II Civilization
Class II Civilizations have discovered roughly, the entire world and are capable of traveling thousands of miles within months and weeks. Older class II civilizations can traverse such distances in days, by use of flying machines.

Class III Civilizations
Class III Civilizations are capable of traveling all over the world within a matter of weeks or days and have achieved primitive space flight and have often landed on orbiting moon(s). They typically have primitive fission warheads and energy generating methods.

Class IV Civilizations
Class IV Civilizations are capable of primitive interplanetary flight, often settling on nearby planets and using crude terraforming technology to adjust the world to their liking as best as possible. They typically have fusion warheads and energy generating abilities.

Class V Civilizations
Class V Civilizations have achieved faster than light travel and can often travel to other nearby solar systems, but such trips can take months or even years. They typically begin settling these other planets. Their ships tend to use more advanced fusion weapons.

Class VI Civilizations
Class VI Civilizations are capable of traveling from nearby solar systems to farther ones more practically and can reach closer ones in a matter of days or weeks. These civilizations also tend to start using matter-antimatter warheads or even primitive plasma weapons. Typically, energy weapons are also in use, but some civilizations still refer to more primitive (but practical) weapons such as highly advanced fusion warheads or rail guns. Rarely have superweapons.

Examples:
22nd Terrans/Early UFP
Early SG1 Terrans
Halo Terrans

Class VII Civilizations
Class VII civilizations are typically intersystem powers capable of expanding themselves over multiple systems and traveling them in a fairly quick manner. They also typically have fully developed energy weapons as their main form of weaponry. They make use of high yield warheads such as antimatter, plasma warheads, enhanced fusion warheads, and other forms of unique weaponry. Sometimes, they have strange or powerful superweapons. Temporal events are rare and dangerous.

Examples
Later SG1 Terrans
23rd Century UFP
The Covenant
Old Republic (SW)
The Empire (SW)
The CIS (SW)
New Republic (SW)



Class VIII Civilizations
Class VIII Civilizations can typically encompass around 6,000 to 12,000 light years of territory and are capable of traveling it within reasonable amounts of time (weeks to months). These civilizations typically tend to use more advanced energy weapons and warheads and occasionally a superweapon will be seen or used, but is not often the mainstream. Temporal events are still rare and dangerous, but their methods have been uncovered and understood.

Examples:
24th UFP
Klingon Empire
Dominion
Romulan Star Empire
Goa'uld


Class VIIII Civilizations
Class VIIIIs are often capable of traveling double digit thousand lightyears within weeks or months and have a more advanced understanding of temporal abilities and learn methods of safeguarding from them, as well as performing them. These powers are capable of crossing about 60,000 light years within two years or shorter.

Examples:
TNG Borg
The Imperium of Man
The Eldar



Class X Civilizations
Class X civilizations are capable of quick galactic travel, have more advanced forms of temporal travel and have begun to experiment with dimensional travel. They’re easily capable of obliterating planets through either quick development of superweapons or orbital bombardment.

Examples:
FC+ Borg
Species 8472
Asguard
Replicators

Class XI Civilizations
Often referred to by some as some as the Early Temporal Age, this civilization is capable of advanced methods of temporal travel and are typically capable of destroying planets and even entire solar systems within typically easy means (less of a superweapon nature). They are also more capable of dimensional travel, although the means may not be fully perfected. These are often capable of traveling from galaxy to galaxy in relatively small times (5 years or less to months). Universe or galaxy threatening superweapons (uberweapons) are rare.

Examples:
31st UFP
Daleks
Sphere Builders
Asurans

Class XII Civilizations
Class XII Civilizations have full knowledge of temporal travel and dimensional travel and can typically cross both without much or any problems. These civilizations are capable of traveling from galaxies in times ranging from a month or less to weeks or even days. More advanced XII Civilizations are capable of doing so in seconds. Class XIIs are also capable of planetary or in some cases, with uberweapons are a bit more common, but still rare.

Examples:
Time Lords

Class XIII
Demigod level and are capable of almost anything.

Examples:
Q
Ancients

[PunkMaister]

May I ask what is what knocked Saxton's figures permanently out and what brought in those new figures you posted. You spoke of explosions ranging in megatons in Trek and other than dialogue there is no visual cues of just about any kind to confirm this. The only really big explosions observed in Trek have been in the Show enterprise with the Comet/Asteroid busting weapon that Earth first hijacked and the explosion of the planet species 452 was using as a staging area/factory etc. And that planet explosion was allegedly caused by the machinery of the factories exploding all at once or something like that and not a weapon so it was not a result of unleashed firepower.

At least in Stargate besides dialogue we do have gigantic explosions of MK9s in the episodes Bechhead and in Stargate Atlantis when they dropped an MRV version of the weapon on the assurans.

Please I really need to know how because if true then SDN is well on it's way of becoming nothing more than a joke and as a result I will have to revise my own website and forums. if what this website and forums allege is true, Star Wars would not have a prayer against most SG ships whatsoever.

[Mike DiCenso]

May I ask what is what knocked Saxton's figures permanently out and what brought in those new figures you posted. You spoke of explosions ranging in megatons in Trek and other than dialogue there is no visual cues of just about any kind to confirm this. The only really big explosions observed in Trek have been in the Show enterprise with the Comet/Asteroid busting weapon that Earth first hijacked and the explosion of the planet species 452 was using as a staging area/factory etc. And that planet explosion was allegedly caused by the machinery of the factories exploding all at once or something like that and not a weapon so it was not a result of unleashed firepower.

For me, it's been the wild assumptions and bad interpretations of the EU and the movies that Saxton and certain other pro-Wars types touted over the years. For example, take the Base Delta Zero. Robert Anderson's brief history and examples here show how this planetary bomardment operation got blown (no pun intended) out of proportion by a certain over-enthusiastic faction of Star Wars fans.

As pointed out already to you in another thread, the other mistaken assumptions are that flak bursts seen in the Avenger/Falcon chase scenes in TESB are not of asteroids being vaporized, and thus the scalings done from those scenes are bogus with regards to calculating SW firepower.

As for Star Trek, there are plenty of visual confirmations of firepower as well as dialog:

* DS9's "The Die is Cast" (TDiC for short), we see explosions on the Founder's planet that are hundreds of kilometers wide and with shockwaves emanating from them several thousands of km in diameter!

* TNG's "The Skin of Evil", the fireball from a photon torpedo on the surface of a planet blossoms out hundreds of km wide, which would indicate a potential yeild of hundreds of megatons.

* TNG's "Booby Trap", a spread of torpedoes individually hit and destroy a 600 meter derelict ship and several asteroids around it, vaporizing all of them, and the combined fireball continues to expand and consume other asteroids.

* TNG's "A Matter of Time", the Enterprise-D runs the risk of accidently burning off the entire atmosphere of an Earth-like planet if the variance of the second largest phaser array is off by 0.06 terawatts (60 gigawatts). As it is, they accompish their goal of burning off a thick layer of volcanic dust that was causing a massive ice age-like cooling. Some estimates would place this in the hundreds of gigatons.

* TNG's "Masks", the E-D uses phasers at 10% power to melt a several km wide comet approximately 11 seconds to expose an ancient alien archive craft. Assuming ice more or less, this requires gigatons of energy, though spread over the 11 seconds of time.

* In DS9's "A Time to Stand" an enriched ultritium explosive is used to destroy a large asteroid with a Dominion base on it, and the explosion is so powerful that it can damage or destroy ships out to 800 km! This would require an explosion in the multiple gigatons.

* TOS' "Balance of Terror", a Romulan warbird's plasma torpedo can crush an at least 2 mile (3.2 km) asteroid into dust and debris! This requires a lot of work, at least around 100 gigatons to accomplish!

There are other examples, but this should be sufficent to give you an idea of the visual instances of destructive firepower in the Trek canon.

At least in Stargate besides dialogue we do have gigantic explosions of MK9s in the episodes Bechhead and in Stargate Atlantis when they dropped an MRV version of the weapon on the assurans.

And you scaled them to what yeild?

Please I really need to know how because if true then SDN is well on it's way of becoming nothing more than a joke and as a result I will have to revise my own website and forums. if what this website and forums allege is true, Star Wars would not have a prayer against most SG ships whatsoever.

It's been a joke to many people for a long, long time.
-Mike

[PunkMaister]

Personally I haven't scaled anything but others have scaled both the explosion at beachhead and the ones in Asuras in the multi-gigaton range easy.


In SDN the claims of large explosions in the founder's homeworld is denied because all one see's is some kind of weird effect on the cloud cover and not actual huge fireballs sprouting from the surface. Honestly I always found the excuse a bit vague but to their defense their should at least have been huge flashes lighting up the cloud cover and that did not happen either. But that is probably because the /FX people goofed on that one. Sadly in Trek FX and tactics have been goofed a whole lot...

[Mith]

May I ask what is what knocked Saxton's figures permanently out

The Clone Wars, more specifically Downfall of a Droid, where the invading CIS fleet uses an asteroid field as cover to get in close to the Venators guarding the planet. It would have been about as effective as the old duck and cover trick against a nuke going off at point blank range.

and what brought in those new figures you posted.

The quote of 5 megatons is from a statement of observed Venator and CIS fire being capable of vaporizing a small town. That's about five megatons.

You spoke of explosions ranging in megatons in Trek and other than dialogue there is no visual cues of just about any kind to confirm this.

So...we should ignore dialogue...why?

Sure, I can see when you might ignore it, as to a point when it makes logical sense, but you do realize that ignoring a plot point or the story itself is more breaking suspension of disbelief than say, only accepting visuals?

In any case, lower physical examples (such as them blowing up asteroids) doesn't mean that higher results aren't possible, especially when it's already been mentioned (and demonstrated multiple times) that photon torpedoes have a very wide range of yields.

The only really big explosions observed in Trek have been in the Show enterprise with the Comet/Asteroid busting weapon that Earth first hijacked

Be more specific please?

and the explosion of the planet species 452 was using as a staging area/factory etc. And that planet explosion was allegedly caused by the machinery of the factories exploding all at once or something like that and not a weapon so it was not a result of unleashed firepower.

That is a load of bullshit.

Where in God's name did you get that pile? Because whoever told you that is a God damn liar. And if what you said was in fact true, why don't we see massive mushroom clouds rising from the exploding factories?

At least in Stargate besides dialogue we do have gigantic explosions of MK9s in the episodes Bechhead and in Stargate Atlantis when they dropped an MRV version of the weapon on the assurans.

Style over substance much.

Please I really need to know how because if true then SDN is well on it's way of becoming nothing more than a joke and as a result I will have to revise my own website and forums. if what this website and forums allege is true, Star Wars would not have a prayer against most SG ships whatsoever.

And how powerful are SG ships?

[Mith]

Personally I haven't scaled anything but others have scaled both the explosion at beachhead and the ones in Asuras in the multi-gigaton range easy.

A great deal of time, those weapons are not your standard ship to ship weapons, but rather designed for specifically orbital bombardment, so using them would be inaccurate. It should be a ship weapon in order to assure that there is no confusion.

In SDN the claims of large explosions in the founder's homeworld is denied because all one see's is some kind of weird effect on the cloud cover and not actual huge fireballs sprouting from the surface. Honestly I always found the excuse a bit vague but to their defense their should at least have been huge flashes lighting up the cloud cover and that did not happen either. But that is probably because the /FX people goofed on that one. Sadly in Trek FX and tactics have been goofed a whole lot...

Funny how that works. I know one warsie who claims that turbolaser weapons are actually something similar to neutrinos in that they're too small to be affected by atmosphere, in order to explain why there wasn't a multi-gigaton explosion within the atmosphere of a planet. His evidence? Well, he didn't really have any. It was simply "looks the same as it does in space" and "we know they can create neutrinos".

That's it.

[PunkMaister]

A great deal of time, those weapons are not your standard ship to ship weapons, but rather designed for specifically orbital bombardment, so using them would be inaccurate. It should be a ship weapon in order to assure that there is no confusion.

True but the firepower's still there none the less...

Funny how that works. I know one warsie who claims that turbolaser weapons are actually something similar to neutrinos in that they're too small to be affected by atmosphere, in order to explain why there wasn't a multi-gigaton explosion within the atmosphere of a planet. His evidence? Well, he didn't really have any. It was simply "looks the same as it does in space" and "we know they can create neutrinos".

That's it.

Hmm, sounds typical...

[Mith]

True but the firepower's still there none the less...

Yes, but the firepower to strip a planet of its mantle and crust is also stated for the Romulan Empire and Cardassian Union...yet this isn't typical accepted yields for a good reason. Think of their ship to ship weapons as sort of tactical nukes, while the large stuff is only used for orbital bombardment, for various reasons (low speed, poor defenses, expences, and so forth).

Hmm, sounds typical...

It rather is. Granted, I could see why he wanted to figth it; the explosions were not even KT range. Really, it's sort of an outlier. I really doubt that is truly their ship limits (although it isn't as bad as some people might think, but I think it's rather fair just to chalk it up as a mistake).

[l33telboi]

May I ask what is what knocked Saxton's figures permanently out and what brought in those new figures you posted.

The fact that in the entire EU, there is not one, not a single one incident that would agree with the figures Saxton posited. There are however, more then just a few examples that directly contradict those numbers. Couple this with the fact that higher canon, G and T-canon, show a very different picture from what Saxton thought.

That and the fact that the man talks about "Trekkies and Trolls". Before I saw that I thought of him as just another author. After. I consider him about as unbiased as a Phelpsite when discussion religion.

[Mith]

True but the firepower's still there none the less...

Yes, but the firepower to strip a planet of its mantle and crust is also stated for the Romulan Empire and Cardassian Union...yet this isn't typical accepted yields for a good reason. Think of their ship to ship weapons as sort of tactical nukes, while the large stuff is only used for orbital bombardment, for various reasons (low speed, poor defenses, expences, and so forth).

Hmm, sounds typical...

It rather is. Granted, I could see why he wanted to figth it; the explosions were not even KT range. Really, it's sort of an outlier. I really doubt that is truly their ship limits (although it isn't as bad as some people might think, but I think it's rather fair just to chalk it up as a mistake).

[Mike DiCenso]

Personally I haven't scaled anything but others have scaled both the explosion at beachhead and the ones in Asuras in the multi-gigaton range easy.

Can you provide a link to these calculations?

In SDN the claims of large explosions in the founder's homeworld is denied because all one see's is some kind of weird effect on the cloud cover and not actual huge fireballs sprouting from the surface. Honestly I always found the excuse a bit vague but to their defense their should at least have been huge flashes lighting up the cloud cover and that did not happen either. But that is probably because the /FX people goofed on that one. Sadly in Trek FX and tactics have been goofed a whole lot...

The FX for TDiC on that is a bit goofy. But that there are no visible fireballs or other effects is completely false, and we do see the shockwaves which travel for thousands of km over the planet. Are you familiar with the episode? If not, there are threads here on this board that discuss it and you can see the FX for yourself and judge since screen caps are available. YouTube also has the episode in question as well.
-Mike

[Tyralak]

The FX for TDiC on that is a bit goofy. But that there are no visible fireballs or other effects is completely false, and we do see the shockwaves which travel for thousands of km over the planet. Are you familiar with the episode? If not, there are threads here on this board that discuss it and you can see the FX for yourself and judge since screen caps are available. YouTube also has the episode in question as well.
-Mike

That actually surprises me a bit. Paramount must not have a problem with it being up there, because it's been on there for a long time.

[Mike DiCenso]

If it were up to Paramount, it probably wouldn't be up there along with a bunch of other YouTube videos, but ever since Viacom and CBS got co-ownership of the Trek franchise, there's been a curious lack of enforcement.
-Mike

[ILikeDeathNote]

Well, current estimations suggest the the Republic during wartime had about 1.5 million clones at its disposal for its galactic struggle. We know that some planets had their own police force and defenses (Naboo and Kashik), but they were overall fairly minor. Most conflicts occured within major cities.

Assuming that they had fifty clones on one ship (not hard to see), they had 30,000 starships of Venator grade, but we do see other ships, so it's possible that the number is a bit higher, but with smaller ships. Thus, I'd say perhaps another 10,000-15,000 ships, but only about 15,000 being full fledged cruisers, so the numbers could be from 40,000 to 45,000 starships...maby 50,000 if we really want to push it.

There is a significant problem posed, however. TCW cartoon strongly suggests that clones at least man significant portions of the Republic's warships; in the show, the only non-clones seen manning stations are Admiral Yularen and the Jedi. This means that there are easily well over fifty clones per ship, and the 1.5 million clone theory is (yet again) put into question.