Star Trek vs Star Wars

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Ok, you know you all want to see it, the Galactic Empire vs the United Federation of Planets. ISDs tangling with the Enterprise, the Defiant barreling down the Death Star trench, Starfleet tactical fighters mixing it up with Imperial TIE Fighters, all out war. The question is, who would win? Who has the superior technology, firepower, numbers, industrial capacity, tactics and strategies. Well, that's what this tread is all about.

Before we get started, however, there are a few things we need to establish. First and foremost, this will not be a flame war. This will be an intelligent, civil debate and discussion. Heated and aggressive debate is one thing, but direct insults, slander, vitriol, etc. will not be tolerated. This is for fun, not for keeps, and you're under no obligation to adhere with anything presented here within your own personal view of the two universes. For the sake of consistent public discussion and debate, what can be supported and established by evidence, math, applicable laws of physics, etc. will be considered fact (or very strong theory as applicable) within the context of this debate, however, so even if you disagree with something, if it can be proven within this discussion, it has the force of fact within this discussion (you just don't have to follow it outside of this discussion, save any later discussion that acknowledges the contents of this discussion as fact for its purposes, etc.).

Second is the matter of canon. Star Trek and Star Wars both have multiple aspects of canon, including the official 'film only' stance held by both license holders (i.e. if it is on the screen, it's canon, and if it's not on the screen, it's not canon), but both franchises have volumes and volumes of 'non-canon' novels, encyclopedias, technical manuals, ship spotter charts, etc. etc., that are all more or less bound together by their own canon system. Much of the ST vs SW debates have been dedicated to debating whether or not these 'expanded universe' materials should be included with the official canon, and what level of precedence they should be given. Before we can even begin to debate the outcome of a conflict between these two universes, we need to determine exactly which versions of those universes we are committing to our little war.

So, the first order of business for all those interested in participating is what to consider canon for the sake of our debates. Personally, I am in favor of going mostly film-only, with the use of the Star Trek technical manuals and the Star Wars film novelizations as supplemental 'semi-canon' material, that is considered canon or near-canon except when contradicted by the on-screen canon (which is above all). Excluded from the canon, and thereby unacceptable as a valid data source, would be all of the novels and other materials from each universe's 'expanded universe' (to generalize the name of the SW non-film material) besides the Star Trek technical manuals and the SW film novelizations.*

I prefer this definition of 'canon' for the debate, because it most closely matches the nature of the core of both franchises, the shows and movies themselves. Incorporating the expanded universe material from both franchises introduces aspects which invariably drift away from that, and very much change the underlying principles of it all. And it introduces a LOT more factors and super weapons and other complicating matters into both universes (and I'd rather not devolve into an argument about which super technology or super weapon from this novel or that is superior).

So, what say you all? Is this acceptable and shall we have at it as presented, or do you wish to use a different definition of what material is acceptable as canon for the purposes of this debate?



*For the sake of fairness, I would include the SW technical manuals as well, but they have either been written by Curtis Saxxon or heavily influenced by his Incredible Cross Sections series, and Curtis Saxxon is a prominent and active member of the Pro-SW community, and has been implicated in using his position as author of the ICS books to 'pad' the stats of the SW technical specifications in the Pro-SW community's favor (and yes, sadly enough, there are people in the ST vs SW community who have done more than just made it their sole hobby, but have gone to the lengths of using their careers to 'boost the odds', so to speak, in the favor of their chosen side). As such, the Star Wars technical manuals are compromised as a source material, due to the conflict of interest involved in their creation.

[Richman12]

Man that is a lot of rules but hay I would exepect that for a thread like this.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Actually it's not, really. Basically, it's just 'behave yourself and be civil' and a definition of what material we'll be using for the debate.

[yardbird]

This old chesnut always concludes with an Imperial victory, though some fanatical Trekkies have always refused to give in. The Galactic Empire is just too enormous and sweepingly powerful to fall to a smallish regional entity like the Federation.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Ah, but the SDN relies very heavily on EU material, including the compromised ICS books, to get their figures. Sometimes even over contradictory evidence from the films themselves. I also view much of SDN's arguments and participants with distaste, because they tend to insult first, and just shout down anyone who voices an opinion that dissents from the stance dictated by Mike Wong and his 'cronies.'

Additionally, SDN's 'ST vs SW in Five Minutes' page is rife with flaws, such as an almost exclusive reliance on the TNG TM for technical details, despite many contradicting examples on-screen, and choosing bottom-end figures from the data that does come from on-screen despite many other references to much higher figures. Additionally, Wong uses a similar reliance on the SW Expanded Universe material over contradicting evidence from the film, including the afformentioned ICS books written by Curtis Saxxon (who was an active and prominent member of SDN and the Pro-Wars community before he wrote the first ICS book), and choosing high-end figures from the on-screen material despite many lower-end references.

[Masen]

I posted something similar a week ago and was (naturally) told the idea to be sac-relig. Regardless, I'd be happy to submit my ideas on a ST/SW type venture...

My original idea went something like this: Considering the SW events, if we're basing this solely on the films as canon, the timelines would be thousands of years apart. So first off, we would need a way to figure out where events took place in relation to the SW and ST worlds. So, for example, we'll say if the events that took place in Return of the Jedi were somewhere around the equivalent timeframe of, I duuno, 600 B.C. in the ST world, things would look a lot different if the two stories collided. I had this thought of a story:

Some time in the 30th century or abouts, while exploring a neighboring galaxy, a Starfleet vessel discovers the ruins of an ancient civilization on a remote planet. This world is littered with advanced technology and buildings like they've never seen before...but no signs of life. A member of the away team notices a small blinking light near a large panel and as he approaches the wall, a holographic video comes to life and starts to play back a message to the visitors.

The message begins, "Greetings travelers. Welcome to the planet Corrosant..."

And in a dark corner, a few yards from the landing party, a pair of yellow eyes watches and waits...



It's a thought...

[yardbird]

the SDN...

Lol that was just a taste of the kind of arguments that have been around for years, as you well know.

I've no doubt there's plenty of flaws throughout all of them on all sides. I really don't want to wade in too deep into this debate, as I've been through it many times. The conclusion is unavoidable: the Federation has a few gee-whiz precious technologies and angles that may vex a light squadron of the Imperial Navy for a few hours, but massive numbers and firepower will inevitably vaporize the Federation in short order.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

An interesting thought, I admit, however I should clarify the context of the conflict.

For the purposes of the debate, we would assume the Federation at its height (circa Nemesis), and the Galactic Empire at its height (circa The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, perhaps after a failed or semi-successful Rebel assault on the second Death Star), connected through a temporal wormhole or some other such plot device.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Lol that was just a taste of the kind of arguments that have been around for years, as you well know.

I've no doubt there's plenty of flaws throughout all of them on all sides. I really don't want to wade in too deep into this debate, as I've been through it many times. The conclusion is unavoidable: the Federation has a few gee-whiz precious technologies and angles that may vex a light squadron of the Imperial Navy for a few hours, but massive numbers and firepower will inevitably vaporize the Federation in short order.

But the massive numbers and firepower come from the EU, and are contradicted by the films and the film novelizations (indeed, I believe it is the novelization of "A New Hope" that states that the Galactic Empire exists in a small corner of a mid-sized spiral galaxy, and there is no such reference to such massive distances in the movies themselves, save in hyperbolic statements of vast distances similar to those made by Trek captains). There is also no examples of the speeds or accelerations or firepowers references in the EU (if the turbolasers of an acclamator class transport put out 200 gigatons worth of energy, and are supposedly direct energy application particle weapons (or just powerful lasers, depending on which EU source you reference), then why are the explosions made by the Venorator star destroyers big guns in Episode III in the sub-kiloton range?)

With the Star Wars EU, you do get those figures, but the official canon police of the SW license holders (Lucas himself and Lucasfilms, Ltd.) is that the films, scripts, and their novelizations and radio airplays are canon, and that's it; the EU is a separate universe with its own canon system. As such, to maintain fairness, if you're going to use the SW EU in a vs debate, you have to use the ST 'EU' as well, and that changes the ballgame just as considerably as the inclusion of the SW EU does.


But we're digressing. The question at hand is what material will be considered acceptable for this debate. It's my thread, and I am of the opinion that the ST films and series, with the printed technical manuals as secondary sources, are acceptable material for ST, and the SW films and film novelizations are acceptable material for SW canon. Unless there are any objections to that, that will be the policy of this discussion.

[Masen]

An interesting thought, I admit, however I should clarify the context of the conflict.

For the purposes of the debate, we would assume the Federation at its height (circa Nemesis), and the Galactic Empire at its height (circa The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, perhaps after a failed or semi-successful Rebel assault on the second Death Star), connected through a temporal wormhole or some other such plot device.



Okay, I see where yer going. But I think there have been a bit too many time travel stories, in the ST world anyway. The idea I had would create a whole new story from timelines never seen in either Star Wars or Star Trek. But that's why we have these discussions.

[Masen]

I'm guessing you're looking more for an all out war scenario then just combining the two worlds, yes?

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I'm guessing you're looking more for an all out war scenario then just combining the two worlds, yes?

More or less, yes. It wouldn't really be a time-travel story, per sae, just a means of connecting the two universes as we see them. Your story definitely is an interesting idea, and I would encourage you to expand upon it as a fanfic, if you have the time, but it is not the classic Trek and Wars we all know today.

[Masen]

More or less, yes. It wouldn't really be a time-travel story, per sae, just a means of connecting the two universes as we see them. Your story definitely is an interesting idea, and I would encourage you to expand upon it as a fanfic, if you have the time, but it is not the classic Trek and Wars we all know today.

Gotcha. Well in that case, I'd have to support Yardbird's opinion that the Empire's overall firepower would decimate a Federation fleet alone. That being said, an Alpha Quadrant force comprised of UFP, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian fleets might be enough to put the first in their favor.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Gotcha. Well in that case, I'd have to support Yardbird's opinion that the Empire's overall firepower would decimate a Federation fleet alone. That being said, an Alpha Quadrant force comprised of UFP, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian fleets might be enough to put the first in their favor.

And I contest that opinion, and will back it up with evidence, once it has been confirmed that everyone agrees to what I am establishing as the acceptable source material for the purposes of this discussion.

[bloom501]

I dont think its the Empires fire power that will do in the Federation, I think it would be more the tactics they use. The empire can put together a pretty nasty ground assault with TIE support. Then as far as ship to ship go's the Empire seems to do a more standoffish type attack, where the heavy classes stay in the rear, while thousands of swarming TIE's do the dirty work. I just dont think Federation ships can knock out the smaller faster TIE's quick enough.

Empire wins..Space and Ground....

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I dont think its the Empires fire power that will do in the Federation, I think it would be more the tactics they use. The empire can put together a pretty nasty ground assault with TIE support. Then as far as ship to ship go's the Empire seems to do a more standoffish type attack, where the heavy classes stay in the rear, while thousands of swarming TIE's do the dirty work. I just dont think Federation ships can knock out the smaller faster TIE's quick enough.

Empire wins..Space and Ground....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlobZcUJ9lg

25 seconds in demonstrates that Starfleet would have little trouble against unshielded TIE Fighters.


As for the Empire's capital ships... I'll get into that in a moment. First, I'm making a last call for any objections to the established source material for this discussion. If nobody has any objections to what I established as acceptable material in the first post, then that will be the only acceptable material for the purposes of this discussion.

[Kinjiru]

I'll go with the Film only rules, there's simply too much that's been contradicted between movies to books for any debate to make sense. (First Contact anyone? I prefer the book, Strangers from the Sky personally, but it's invalidated by the movie completely... in fact, the movie invalidates the original series cannon, which had first contact between human and alien occurring with the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri, but that's another debate.) :)

On to the debacle...

There are thousands of worlds in the Galactic Empire... Thousands of worlds that the Empire can call on to conscript Stoormtroopers, Naval Fleet personnel, support personnel, construction workers, et cetera. There can literally be millions of combatants on the Imperial side.

Compared to the Federation, that's a behemoth of military might. A juggernaught, if you will, capable of overrunning entire star systems.

Add to that the technical aspects, for instance, a blaster versus a phaser... a blaster is instantaneous, where a phaser's best energy output is reached under a sustained blast. -- Which requires holding a target for a longer period of time.

And speed... a ship in Hyperspace can travel anywhere in a galaxy in a period of weeks at most, where in Star Trek, it takes months, or years to travel the same distance.

Oops, I need to put my daughter to bed... more later. :)

[jkpetrich]

You know, this really is an old debate. Sometimes it can be quite a headache.
The Empire/Republic has more firepower.
The Federation has better tactics.
The Empire has more manpower.
The Federation has the mater/energy transporter.
Ex cetera et cetera et nausium.

The truth on this debate is that there is more in the ST universe and SW Universe than the Republic/Empire and the Federation. There are independents in the SW Universe. The other powers in the Alpha Quadrant are in the ST universe. There are so many variables in this supposed "war" that is would be nearly impossible to calculate. You can't separate one faction from a universe to fight another because of the symbiotic relationship each faction has within their own universe. There are so many variables it's nearly impossible to have a definitive answer to this age-long question. BUt, when you put entire universes into the question, then you might be able to get some idea and the answer is not what anyone would really want to see.

There is some truth to the fact that you have all those Star Trek fans that can't see past the mighty Federation, that overthrew the mighty and powerful Dominion and can withstand the power of the Empire/Republic. But the same can be said of those in the SW universe that can't see past the power and the force of their own and completely forget the scifi science vessels in the ST universe that can create dampening fiends, can find shield modulation frequencies, etc. Both parties forget that Starfleet's mission is that of peace.

If there was a truthful contact between the universes the most likely thing that would happen would be a skirmish and then some sort of treaty. Of course the Rommies would have to get involved by trying to manipulate the balance of power while making it look like they are doing nothing. The Sith would see power and try to overthrow. The Founders would feel intimidated and send the Jem'Hadar out. More and more factions from both sides would enter this war on both ends until an all out war would break out between all factions in which there would be a stalemate with no one faction coming out ahead of the other. It would be more than weapons, power, science, and numbers. We'd have tactics, diplomacy, deception, honor, guile, etc.

Then the Borg would come and just assimilate one person that has any knowledge of the force and how it works and then the whole multi-universe is shot to hell.

Now, you can have all these "top scientists" come out and write all the essays they want on the subject but but they have no idea how Political Science works in this scenario. These so-called educated people are the sames ones that can't decide if we have Global Warming or Solar warming. How much man contributes or how smart nature really is, depending on what political stance they are making. Come on.

The truth is that the above scenario would be the likely one should these universes SOMEHOW meet. Neither the Republic/Empire or the Federation would ultimately survive this confrontation. But, it would give us some great storylines in the aftermatch of the devastation.

That is how this would most likely turn out.

[Kinjiru]

You know, this really is an old debate. Sometimes it can be quite a headache.

You realize Josh, that this is just for fun right? And I disagree about your point that Trek automatically dictates tactical superiority. Tactics are dictated by the tools available to the force in question. Each uses different tactics because they are by nature forced to fight in different ways, based on the technology and equipment available.

Think German Blitzkrieg attacking lightning fast across a large front versus NVA sapper units striking surgically to harass a Marine Corps battalion. :)

[jkpetrich]

I completely realize this is all in fun. Which is why I went into some detail about this. The headache comes from those would only see things in black and white and just argue a point, hell bent that they are right.

When it comes to tactics, I stand by the Starfleet's constant use of scientific scans and knowledge to get an advantage as opposed to the hum drum power of their opponents. That alone won't decide the outcome of any kind of war, please keep in mind. Tactics DO depend on knowledge of a situation, which with the added sensor readings from a Starfleet ship and an ability to use them would give them a huge advantage.

Think about who would win in this situation: A Native American who has learned to hunt and kill with his simple bow and arrow vs. a 21st century farmer with a shotgun and a card with the NRA. The Native American would win that hands down. The farmer may have more firepower, but the Indian would know how to use what he has and knows his surroundings and how to use it.

[Arcturus]

Honestly Star Trek would undo the Empire easily. Easily. Just Read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense". Technology aside some SW canon writer blew those energy numbers waaay out of proportion to where an escort shuttle can put out more power than a solar flare or some bologna. :)

[Arcturus]

I had to laugh when I thought of this- After the total destructions of both SW and ST Universes, Gene Roddenberry's Genesis 2 Universe settles in.;) Too bad Genesis 2 never got much attention.

[Kinjiru]

I completely realize this is all in fun. Which is why I went into some detail about this. The headache comes from those would only see things in black and white and just argue a point, hell bent that they are right.

Thank god! lol. :) Actually, I think the two are incompatible, as the physics involved in both are completely different, I'm just taking the devil's advocate role for fun. I could argue both equally.

When it comes to tactics, I stand by the Starfleet's constant use of scientific scans and knowledge to get an advantage as opposed to the hum drum power of their opponents. That alone won't decide the outcome of any kind of war, please keep in mind. Tactics DO depend on knowledge of a situation, which with the added sensor readings from a Starfleet ship and an ability to use them would give them a huge advantage.

I don't think it's a given that SW sensors are any less efficient than the same ST technology. We've heard in the Star Wars movies when they've scanned for life forms, which infers that they can differentiate what chemical compositions are being scanned. (There are lots of different life forms in the SW universe, hence lots of different chemical compositions. They can tell when someone raises shields, they can scan vast sectors of space for incoming vessels, and tell what type they are. They have computers capable of calculating hyperspace jumps across huge distances in minutes. I just don't see how that's any less effective than Star Trek sensors.

Think about who would win in this situation: A Native American who has learned to hunt and kill with his simple bow and arrow vs. a 21st century farmer with a shotgun and a card with the NRA. The Native American would win that hands down. The farmer may have more firepower, but the Indian would know how to use what he has and knows his surroundings and how to use it.

Oh, I completely agree that knowledge will allow a victory, but suppose that same farmer was smart enough to call in the cavalry unit garrisoned nearby... :)

[yardbird]

There are thousands of worlds in the Galactic Empire... Thousands of worlds that the Empire can call on to conscript Stoormtroopers, Naval Fleet personnel, support personnel, construction workers, et cetera.

Millions, not thousands. The Galactic Empire is said to have been made up of well over a million member worlds, spanning the length and breadth of an entire galaxy. In contrast, the Federation of Planets covers a small portion of the Milky Way, apparently a territory of a diameter of 8 to perhaps 20 thousand light years. Accordingly, the size of Starfleet (at the time of TNG) is estimated to be between 1000 to 70000 ships ( http://www.ditl.org/index.php?daybody=/datarticle.php?14 ).

To patrol and control over a million worlds, the Galactic Empire would need much, much more than that. It is said that the Empire was divided into 1000 Sectors. An Imperial Naval Sector group, we read, would be made up of no less than 2400 ships, 24 of which were the massive star destroyers: that’s 2.4 million ships (comprising mostlty combat vessels), 24,000 of which would be star destroyers, with attendant fighter wings.

[Arcturus]

I didn't have to say it, how many adorable fluffy bears do I need to gather before you get the point that the Federation would beat the Empire?

[yardbird]

I'll up your fluffy bears with a Jar-Jar Binks.

[Arcturus]

Ill take your Jar Jar Binks and raise you Tribbles. Trillions of them.

[mintor426]

This old chesnut always concludes with an Imperial victory, though some fanatical Trekkies have always refused to give in. The Galactic Empire is just too enormous and sweepingly powerful to fall to a smallish regional entity like the Federation.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html


say star wars.


too bad soe mess it up.



now star trek turn see they shine.

[yardbird]

say star wars.


too bad soe mess it up.



now star trek turn see they shine.

Now this IS a good point. Unless Cryptic is run by chimpanzees, STO is likely to win the MMO war over SWG.

Until the KOTOR thing comes out a million years from now.

[Arcturus]

Because information from Stardestroyer.net isn't biased feaux canon. That much energy isn't ridiculous? It's like the energy a sun puts out in a turbolaser discharge... Someone had fun exaggerating. The size I can see but that's still more of a hurt than help for the Empire. Not a lot of solidarity.

[yardbird]

Because information from Stardestroyer.net isn't biased feaux canon. That much energy isn't ridiculous? It's like the energy a sun puts out in a turbolaser discharge... Someone had fun exaggerating. The size I can see but that's still more of a hurt than help for the Empire. Not a lot of solidarity.

Don't be so surprised. These fellows built the Death Star, after all.

[spokechecker5000]

It makes a lot of sense when people say that the Empire and the Rebels have more man power and fire power but lets face it if the Borg were introduced along side the federation species 8472 the klingons the romulans the Cardassians the Iconians, the tholians, All of these have technology that would decimate star destroyers before they could even lauch thier tie fighters. The borg for example would have most of that ship assimilated before they could do much about it as far as I know the blasters they had in Star wars were only adjustable from stun to kill that was it and did not leave a whole lot of room for modification and the borg would adapt easily. They could just beam thousands of drones on various key locations to each star destroyer and so even if the empire did star taking down borg cube before they could adapt eventually they would and they would be assimilating people as fast as they lost them if not faster. What's more Species 8472 could have hundreds of ships that could take out star destroyers with single shots and practically be invulnerable to any fire comeing from the empire. any thoughts?

[Arcturus]

Don't be so surprised. These fellows built the Death Star, after all.

100 Trillion Gigawatts! *puts pinkey to mouth*

[yardbird]

It makes a lot... any thoughts?

Well, the Feds beat back the dreadful Borg, so no big deal.

Anyway, if you're going to involve the Borg, we can talk about the Jedi as well.

[spokechecker5000]

Oh and for fun I forget to mention the dominion. lol

[yardbird]

100 Trillion Gigawatts! *puts pinkey to mouth*

Haha. That's why it's all so pointless. The power and industrial capacity is mind-numbing.

[spokechecker5000]

Well, the Feds beat back the dreadful Borg, so no big deal.

Anyway, if you're going to involve the Borg, we can talk about the Jedi as well.

indeed Jedi were very much a part of Star wars and would put up a valiant struggle indeed

[Arcturus]

Well, the Feds beat back the dreadful Borg, so no big deal.

Anyway, if you're going to involve the Borg, we can talk about the Jedi as well.

Like the Jedi in Plato's Stepchildren? We can make "midichlorions'

[spokechecker5000]

Well, the Feds beat back the dreadful Borg, so no big deal.

Anyway, if you're going to involve the Borg, we can talk about the Jedi as well.

true that the feds beat back the obrg but if we are including all the SW galaxy I think we need to inclde all of the ST galaxy as well including all the borg the feds would never stand a chance against in an all out conflict.

[yardbird]

Like the Jedi in Plato's Stepchildren? We can make "midichlorions'

Sure. Jonathan Frakes is well-suited to the task.

[Arcturus]

At least there's science behind it. Where's the fuel for that kind of laser. (This argument eventually ends with Neelix and Jar Jar having a picnic on the holodeck)

[yardbird]

At least there's science behind it. Where's the fuel for that kind of laser. (This argument eventually ends with Neelix and Jar Jar having a picnic on the holodeck)

*shudder*holodeck*shudder*

Some people like science, and little pens in their shirt pockets, some like ripping adventure yarns and space opera. I never declared this war.

[Arcturus]

There's no war to declare. I could say the Federation Vessels use 200trillion gigawatt s all the time. It'd be a lie but I'd beat the star destroyer. When do we ignore what we see and throw numbers around.

[yardbird]

There's no war to declare. I could say the Federation Vessels use 200trillion gigawatt s all the time. It'd be a lie but I'd beat the star destroyer. When do we ignore what we see and throw numbers around.

Did you see Alderaan go ka-boom? What kind of numbers does that merit? And does the Federation have that kind of tech at their disposal? On a good day, they may be able to repulse a large asteroid.

[Arcturus]

With the numbers I see a Star destroyer could destroy a planet. Starfleet can too, just put a discreet Trilithium probe into some stars, and watch the fireworks. Not that I'm condoning destroying solar systems at a time. In my mind Star Trek only wins because tyranny is so brittle and what the federation has is so constant to what people really need.

[spartan547]

I'll add my 2 cents

The Empire would win. From a strictly movie cannon standpoint their galactic civilization has been around for thousands of years and technology has been developing all during this time. Compare this the the Trek verse that has been a space fearing civilization for hundreds of years for the humans who are the main species in the Federation that we see in cannon Trek sources. Star Wars simply has too much of a technological edge. If the Federation and Empire fleets met in space combat I suspect that the Empire fleet would win. Empire ships have tens or hundreds of turbolasers, ion cannons and torpedo launchers, Federation starships have at most 2 dozen phaser arrays and several torpedo tubes. Ion cannons would presumably be very effective against shielding, but even if they weren't the Empire ships can output a lot more firepower in terms of shots per minute. This would overwhelm Federation shields faster than the Federation ships could overwhelm the shields of the Empire ships. Empire ships also have size on their side. They have bigger ships that would simply require much more firepower to destroy than the smaller Federation ships. TIE fighters would also help, they could simply be bait to divert phaser fire from capital ships, or they could be a vicious cloud that slowly but surely weakens the Federation ships shields.

On the ground the Empire would definitely win. They have a very strong ground force with infantry, tanks, walkers, fighter and bomber support and such. The Federation has infantry in jumpsuits armed with hand phasers. The Imperial ground forces are much better armed and use a diverse array of technology and vehicles that the Federation lacks.

But what seals the deal is the Death Star. What does the Federation have that even begins to be able to match that? Take a Return of the Jedi sized Imperial fleet along with the second Death Star which can target capital ships in against a Federation fleet and the Federation does not stand a chance. I would mention the other Imperial super weapons, but those are EU stuff. Suffice it to say that the Federation has nothing comparable with a weapon that can destroy a planet or a capital ship in one unstoppable shot.

Some might say the Genesis Device counters the Death Star, but I see several problems with that. Sure if the Federation used it there would be massive damage to the Imperial fleet, but if Imperials ships got away they would eventually realize what had happened and discover some way to stop it. SInce it had to be delivered in torpedo form it could potentially be shot down or disabled or caught in a tractor beam before it hit a target. Also, as far as I know there was only one Genesis Device, so once you use it it's gone and there is a lot of Imperial fleet floating around the Galaxy. Granted more could be built, but the Empire could build more Death Stars as well. Also there is no cannon source that I know of that says the Genesis device was ever weaponized by the Federation, so there would not be a large cache of Genesis Torpedoes sitting in a Star Fleet armory waiting to be shipped to the front lines of combat. The Death Star beats the Genesis Device in useablilty and versatility since the second one can fire multiple times in a short amount of time and the super laser cannot be stopped.

That was a lot more than I planned to say. :D

[Stu1701]

Oh no, this can't end well. I stopped doing these debates a long time ago. All it did was just give everyone a headache. Though personally I believe Star Trek would win, I think a lot of stuff would have to happen if the Empire invaded the Star Trek Universe in order for Trek to win, but I think it would work. I'm actually in the process of writing a Star Trek vs Star Wars story. It takes place before Nemesis but post Voyager's return. It involves the Empire finding a wormhole that somehow crosses over to each universe. The Empire settles a base in unclaimed space and just starts spreading out declaring war on any race they encounter. Soon this forces an alliance between the the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Dominion. I haven't gotten much farther past the formation of their alliance, but I have a lot more plans. For one I plan to have a cloaked ship sneak past the Imperial base into the Star Wars galaxy, where they make contact with the Rebels, and I definatly plan to work in the Borg because... well, they're the Borg, I just have too.

I gave up on all the technobable and stuff a long time ago. There's no point in listing specs because neither side will listen. We're all to stubborn. I will not be taking part in this debate, but I may start posting chapters of my story in the Holodeck forum once I do a little more work on it.

[yardbird]

With the numbers I see a Star destroyer could destroy a planet. Starfleet can too, just put a discreet Trilithium probe into some stars, and watch the fireworks. Not that I'm condoning destroying solar systems at a time. In my mind Star Trek only wins because tyranny is so brittle and what the federation has is so constant to what people really need.

Oh well, Arc.

If we pit a small dog up against a T-Rex, what is the point of becoming critical with the size of the dinosaur's skeleton. It's just what they are. But, hey, I like little fido as well.

[Arcturus]

Like so many other times it comes to an em pass. Again, Ewoks devastated the dino. Starfleet would be glad to keep them in an endless supply of goofy helmets to play drums with when the Empire is liberated.

[yardbird]

Like so many other times it comes to an em pass. Again, Ewoks devastated the dino. Starfleet would be glad to keep them in an endless supply of goofy helmets to play drums with when the Empire is liberated.

Lol. I'm sure a company of redshirts would have set those Ewoks straight.

Anyway, that's enough of this infernal thread for me tonight. Thanks for chatting, Arc and others.

[Arcturus]

Haha, it really is quite the thread. Had some fun with it though.

[IcarusTyler]

The idea of the size is prettxy appealing,.

the Empire spans after all the majority of a galaxy, while the federation shares a queadrant with several other major powers.

Confrotning federation adn imperial ships would be intereesting. The imperials have Warships, not battleships, warships. They are several kilometers long, Half of them usually consists of massiv guns and the other is approx. 2000-7000 soldiers. The flagship of the Feds is the puny sovereign, a science-vessel under 700m of whcih only a handful exist.

If you would put however the imperium against the entire milky way galaxy (Feds, Romulans, klingons, Cardis, Borg, Dominion, 8472, all the DEltas, etc) odds would be evened out a bit.



/
Taking it from a franchise vs. franchise-thing Star Trek truly is superior.

Star Wars consisted until some time ago of just three movies which were 35 years old and based on action and popcorn-entertainment. 3 movies have joined, all with the same premise, yet it remains the same.

Star Trek however encompasses 10 mvoies and 5 series, and instead of shooty-blasty-action bases itsself on characters and drama. Also it lacks the annoyoing "Look! It's the future!"-stuff that is ever-present in Star Trek.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Holy crap! You guys were just waiting for me to go to bed, weren't you? <.< Yeah, that's right. I'm on to you. <.<

Anyway, now I've gotta sit through work before I can make a substantial reply (fortunately I only work a half-day today, otherwise I'd probably go nuts or get in trouble... >.> ), but I do have a couple points to bring up.

First, deciding the ultimate outcome of an all-out war between ST vs SW is a very complex matter, involving much more than just science, numbers, firepower, or even political science, so it would be hard to determine even if we could agree on everything. However, we can make informed guesses based on technological capabilities, etc., which is the fun part.

Second, regarding the Empire's vast size. Everyone accepts that the Galactic Empire is this vast, millions-of-worlds empire that spans an entire galaxy, but I posit that that is an erroneous conclusion, based on EU material that is not accepted in this discussion (since everyone seems to agree with the definition of canon presented in the opening post). I posit that the Empire is much, much smaller in film-only canon than presented in the EU, and that the most significant references to a galaxy-spanning civilization are taken from hyperbolic remarks taken as literal statements. Yes, many SW characters have made reference to 'the other side of the galaxy' or 'half-way across the galaxy', but so have many Star Trek characters (and not just from Voyager). That's called hyperbole, and is no different than you or I making comments about 'the entire world' or 'half-way across the world', etc.

I'm stuck at work, so I don't have much access to my evidence in support of that and against the theory of a large Empire, but I'll post it once I'm home. For those of you who favor the theory of a large Empire (and who aren't stuck at work like me), I challenge you to present evidence from the films and novelizations that supports that theory, that doesn't come from a hyperbolic comment.

[Grig]

You know i was sitting here reading all this went hey when i was going threw the lovely youtube i seen this :D

Star wars vs Star trek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?emb=0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.ca%2Fvideosearch%3F q%3Dstar+wars+vs+star+trek&v=hNxhrPaaCA4)

[Roberto]

Honestly, in a one on one situation, I can't see a star destroyer defeating any top of the line Federation ship. Someone mentioned the enormous size of a Star Destroyer - which to me - is meaningless. If anything it means a nice large target for your salvo of Phonton torpedos to strike against and never miss.

In every film where you see ship to ship fight (in Star Wars) they act like 17th century vessles, pulling along side to bring their main guns to bare and then firing. In Nemesis, the Enterprise E showed how maneuverable she was (never mind the fact that she didn't even have her warpcore) and how versatile a ship it really was.

Tie fighters would be meaningless, easy picked off in second by a spray of phaser sweeps. Laser are considered primitive technology in the Star Trek universe - so chances are they wouldn't even effect the shields of any star ships to a great degree.

Battleships, like you see in world war 2 are beautiful vessels. Imposing with their 16 inch guns and their massive bulk - but they are obsolete for a reason. Maneuverable means everything - a Star Destroyer is just a big fat target. In all honesty if you wanted to save your torpedoes, just beam a quantum torpedo or two into the engine room and see what happens there.

Star wars has better technology with certain things, as does Star Trek - but in the sense of ships - Star Wars seems down right primitive. The Death Star is awesome to look at, scary as hell when it unleashes its main gun - but there is no way in hell that thing will hit a warp capable ship. From its sheer enormity it makes it a taunting target - but sooner or later it would simply fall too or be left with so much damage it would be toothless in space.

[jkpetrich]

Thank god! lol. :) Actually, I think the two are incompatible, as the physics involved in both are completely different, I'm just taking the devil's advocate role for fun. I could argue both equally.

The physics are different. For example, in SW hyperspace goes beyond the subspace barrier for travel, the way I understand it at least. But technology DOES exist for slipstream in which can take you from one end of the galaxy to the other in a matter of hours/minutes. Not Federation technology, but technology nonetheless. But both operate differently.


I don't think it's a given that SW sensors are any less efficient than the same ST technology. We've heard in the Star Wars movies when they've scanned for life forms, which infers that they can differentiate what chemical compositions are being scanned. (There are lots of different life forms in the SW universe, hence lots of different chemical compositions. They can tell when someone raises shields, they can scan vast sectors of space for incoming vessels, and tell what type they are. They have computers capable of calculating hyperspace jumps across huge distances in minutes. I just don't see how that's any less effective than Star Trek sensors.

Calculating life readings is a whole different ballgame than spacial readings. ST has the same ability. But, calculating a flight path in minutes over huge distances, Data can do that in less than 5 seconds. But that has nothing to do with tactics.
How often have you heard in the SW universe of someone being able to "outsmart" a shield modulation? Being able to use a nebula to your advantage?
Weapon accuracy is another thing. Someone brought up tie fighters or small attack fighters and how they can overwhelm a Federation ship. I seem to remember that Star Destroyers and Death Stars have problems taking out small fighters or even hitting them. The Enterprise was attacked by them several times and can take out a ship with phasers very easily and quickly.

SO, it would come down to Star Destroyer vs. a Federation ship. If it were that simple maneuverability goes to Starfleet. However, as it has been pointed out, the numbers game would come into play, so, once again, we're at someone of a stalemate.





[quote}Oh, I completely agree that knowledge will allow a victory, but suppose that same farmer was smart enough to call in the cavalry unit garrisoned nearby... :)[/QUOTE]
IN the 21st Century??? LOL!

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Star wars has better technology with certain things, as does Star Trek - but in the sense of ships - Star Wars seems down right primitive. The Death Star is awesome to look at, scary as hell when it unleashes its main gun - but there is no way in hell that thing will hit a warp capable ship. From its sheer enormity it makes it a taunting target - but sooner or later it would simply fall too or be left with so much damage it would be toothless in space.

You make a good point there, El Capitan. Everyone goes on about the Death Star being able to knock out Star Trek capital ships left and right, but we've never seen the Death Star hit a capital ship that was actually undergoing evasive maneuvers. The ships we saw it hit were more or less stationary relative to the Death Star (with no apparent velocity, or none that would have significantly affected targetting solutions), and the Rebels were able to elude the DS's fire by moving into close proximity with the Imperial fleet, though not so close as to be directly alongside or behind.

Most Star Trek ships are significantly smaller than SW capital ships, and have demonstrated VASTLY superior maneuverability, even when mired in a point-blank-range tangled furball; it is unlikely that the DS would be able to hit a maneuvering ST ship with its superlaser even at sublight, and no way it would be able to hit an FTL target.

Also, speaking of the DS's superlaser, there is no conclusive evidence that it is a direct-energy-application weapon, it has just been assumed that to get an insanely-high energy yield. In-depth analysis shows another possibility, with unusual glow and blast effects prior to, during and after target destruction, indicating some sort of chain reaction effect.

That would explain how planetary destruction effects could be achieved by a ship that is only powered by fusion reactions.

[jkpetrich]

Well, the Feds beat back the dreadful Borg, so no big deal.

Anyway, if you're going to involve the Borg, we can talk about the Jedi as well.

When I originally brought it up, I did the same. Once the Borg have knowledge of midicholorians(sp?) all they really need to do is just assimilate one force sensitive person with some knowledge. Or assimilate some computer that has info about it and that would be it. They could mass produce. The would communicate that to the rest of the collective.

[jkpetrich]

You know i was sitting here reading all this went hey when i was going threw the lovely youtube i seen this :D

Star wars vs Star trek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?emb=0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.ca%2Fvideosearch%3F q%3Dstar+wars+vs+star+trek&v=hNxhrPaaCA4)

*chuckles* I've seen that one before.

[yardbird]

regarding the Empire's vast size. Everyone accepts that the Galactic Empire is this vast, millions-of-worlds empire that spans an entire galaxy, but I posit that that is an erroneous conclusion, based on EU material that is not accepted in this discussion (since everyone seems to agree with the definition of canon presented in the opening post). I posit that the Empire is much, much smaller in film-only canon than presented in the EU, and that the most significant references to a galaxy-spanning civilization are taken from hyperbolic remarks taken as literal statements. Yes, many SW characters have made reference to 'the other side of the galaxy' or 'half-way across the galaxy', but so have many Star Trek characters (and not just from Voyager). That's called hyperbole, and is no different than you or I making comments about 'the entire world' or 'half-way across the world', etc.

Dragon, you are assuming that it's hyperbole. It is canon. It's on the lips of many of the main chatracters, it's in the lore, left and right. It isn't dismissable. The Galactic Empire is called galactic beacuse it is galactic, as Lucas intented from the early drafts of his Star Wars tale.

This should come as no surprise since galactic civilization had been extant under the Republic for thousands of years.

[yardbird]

Honestly, in a one on one situation, I can't see a star destroyer defeating any top of the line Federation ship. Someone mentioned the enormous size of a Star Destroyer - which to me - is meaningless. If anything it means a nice large target for your salvo of Phonton torpedos to strike against and never miss. Star wars has better technology with certain things, as does Star Trek - but in the sense of ships - Star Wars seems down right primitive. The Death Star is awesome to look at, scary as hell when it unleashes its main gun - but there is no way in hell that thing will hit a warp capable ship. From its sheer enormity it makes it a taunting target - but sooner or later it would simply fall too or be left with so much damage it would be toothless in space.

Who is going to dish out more damage?:

An Imperial-class Star Destroyer is a kilometer-and-a-half long.
It is armed with "60 turbolaser batteries, 60 ion cannon batteries, and 10 tractor beam projectors. It carries a full stormtrooper division (many thousands or tens of thousands of troops), 20 AT-ATs, 30 AT-STs, eight Lambda-class shuttles, 12 landing barges, and six TIE squadrons (about 72 fighters)."

A galaxy-class starship, like Picard's Enterprise, is about 640 meters long.
It is armed with "12 Type X phaser arrays and 3 photon torpedo launchers, each capable of firing ten individual torpedoes at a time... The ship also has a high capacity shield grid and, according to dialog in the Next Generation episode "Conundrum", at least 275 photon torpedoes." Total crew, approximately 1000, many of which are civilians and no-combatants.

There are about 25,000 star destoyers in the Imperial fleet, with more than 2.3 million other combat warships. There are likely only several thousand, at most, galaxy-class vessels in Starfleet, with a combined total war fleet of probably no more than 50-70 thousand.

[Roberto]

Dragon, you are assuming that it's hyperbole. It is canon. It's on the lips of many of the main chatracters, it's in the lore, left and right. It isn't dismissable. The Galactic Empire is called galactic beacuse it is galactic, as Lucas intented from the early drafts of his Star Wars tale.

This should come as no surprise since galactic civilization had been extant under the Republic for thousands of years.

lol what? Just because it calls itself something doesn't make it an adamant fact. The world series is called that but only teams in the states play.

Weak argument.

[yardbird]

lol what? Just because it calls itself something doesn't make it an adamant fact. The world series is called that but only teams in the states play.

Weak argument.

Lol. It's not an argument, mate.

You know as well as I do that the Empire is galactic. Why do you say it's not? Because Dragon says so?

[Roberto]

Who is going to dish out more damage?:

An Imperial-class Star Destroyer is a kilometer-and-a-half long.
It is armed with "60 turbolaser batteries, 60 ion cannon batteries, and 10 tractor beam projectors. It carries a full stormtrooper division (many thousands or tens of thousands of troops), 20 AT-ATs, 30 AT-STs, eight Lambda-class shuttles, 12 landing barges, and six TIE squadrons (about 72 fighters)."

A galaxy-class starship, like Picard's Enterprise, is about 640 meters long.
It is armed with "12 Type X phaser arrays and 3 photon torpedo launchers, each capable of firing ten individual torpedoes at a time... The ship also has a high capacity shield grid and, according to dialog in the Next Generation episode "Conundrum", at least 275 photon torpedoes." Total crew, approximately 1000, many of which are civilians and no-combatants.

There are about 25,000 star destoyers in the Imperial fleet, with more than 2.3 million other combat warships. There are likely only several thousand, at most, galaxy-class vessels in Starfleet, with a combined total war fleet of probably no more than 50-70 thousand.

So, in other words, a huge fat target with obsolete weapons and useless fighters.

[Roberto]

Lol. It's not an argument, mate.

You know as well as I do that the Empire is galactic. Why do you say it's not? Because Dragon says so?

Mate, don't don't go there, lol. I am no mans followers!

[Ilithi_Dragon]

[COLOR="PaleTurquoise"]Dragon, you are assuming that it's hyperbole. It is canon. It's on the lips of many of the main chatracters, it's in the lore, left and right. It isn't dismissable. The Galactic Empire is called galactic beacuse it is galactic, as Lucas intented from the early drafts of his Star Wars tale.

But main characters of Star Trek have been making such statements since the pilot episode of TOS. Are there any quantitative statements or visuals that establish the size of the Galactic Empire or the Republic as a massive , galaxy-spanning civilization outside of hyperbolic statements and an interpretation of its name?

[yardbird]

So, in other words, a huge fat target with obsolete weapons and useless fighters.

Why obsolete? What makes you say that? The Empire's technology has a pedigree that's thousands of years old. There is nothing to say that one franchise's tech is more or less obsolete than the others. Imperial ships simply pack more punch per ship. But there's nothing to show that Federation technology is more advanced than Imperial, with the exception of transporters.

[yardbird]

But main characters of Star Trek have been making such statements since the pilot episode of TOS. Are there any quantitative statements or visuals that establish the size of the Galactic Empire or the Republic as a massive , galaxy-spanning civilization outside of hyperbolic statements and an interpretation of its name?

Dragon, what do you mean by "quantitative statements or visuals"? If characters' statements and writer's intentions are not to be taken into account or at reasonable face value, I don't feel that's very sporting.

In Star Trek, we know the claims are more hyperbolic because the extent of the Federation was more or less understood from the beginning as being of more modest proportions.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Who is going to dish out more damage?:

An Imperial-class Star Destroyer is a kilometer-and-a-half long.
It is armed with "60 turbolaser batteries, 60 ion cannon batteries, and 10 tractor beam projectors. It carries a full stormtrooper division (many thousands or tens of thousands of troops), 20 AT-ATs, 30 AT-STs, eight Lambda-class shuttles, 12 landing barges, and six TIE squadrons (about 72 fighters)."

I actually have half-completed analyses that indicate the size of the ISD is closer to 1200 meters (though as I said, I haven't had the opportunity to complete them). I'll get into the other figures when I get home.

A galaxy-class starship, like Picard's Enterprise, is about 640 meters long.
It is armed with "12 Type X phaser arrays and 3 photon torpedo launchers, each capable of firing ten individual torpedoes at a time... The ship also has a high capacity shield grid and, according to dialog in the Next Generation episode "Conundrum", at least 275 photon torpedoes." Total crew, approximately 1000, many of which are civilians and no-combatants.

The number of arrays is misleading. Each array consists of multiple emitters, and ships like the Galaxy have HUGE arrays. The Galaxy's main dorsal array alone has 965 emitters, all linked together into one large array (and not 200 as the TNG TM lists, and SDN erroneously uses - I'll link to the page that shows the count when I get home). They also put out a lot more power than just 5.1 MW per emitter, since we have seen them demonstrate outputs that could not be achieved with 3.6 GW or 11,000 GW (Galaxy has 2100-some emitters total, I'm thinking 2182, though I'll have to look up the exact figure to be sure).

There are about 25,000 star destoyers in the Imperial fleet, with more than 2.3 million other combat warships. There are likely only several thousand, at most, galaxy-class vessels in Starfleet, with a combined total war fleet of probably no more than 50-70 thousand.

Again, quantitative evidence, please. If you're at work or something, I can wait, but if you do have access to your evidence, please present it.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

[COLOR="PaleTurquoise"]Dragon, what do you mean by "quantitative statements or visuals"? If characters' statements and writer's intentions are not to be taken into account or at reasonable face value, I don't feel that's very sporting.

I mean something beyond "they could be half-way across the galaxy by now!" (ISD officer in ESB on the Falcon's 'disappearance'), which is quite obviously a hyperbolic statement and unreliable as a literal, measurable statement. Is there something that establishes any kind of even general number range, or a more reliable statement to traveling across the galaxy, or a map display of some kind or another? Using clearly hyperbolic statements as literal fact is poor science and yields unreliable results.

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

Its funny that George Lucas himself is actually against these kind of debates...

These videos sum up how I think it might happen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVX_5sWi6b0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5QEfOfTZ7Q&feature=related

[bitgolem]

The thing is, if you kill the President of the Federation, they just get a new one... If you kill the Emperor, game over. No more Galactic Empire. So, beam his ass into space and be done with it.

[yardbird]

I believe these stats are from the Imperial Sourcebook. I believe that's were Wookiepedia gets:

"A sector group was the sum total of Naval strength which the Empire expected to commit to a normal sector. A high admiral commanded a sector group, a title usually granted to the moff who governed the sector. In sectors that were involved in constant and severe naval actions, the high admiral was a separate position from the Moff. A sector group could be expected to contain at least 2,400 ships, 24 of which were Star Destroyers, and another 1,600 combat starships, more than a dozen communications cruisers and a considerable number of non-combat and support craft."

There's more elsewhere, but I'll get to it later if you like. Anyway, I don't want to get into energy-measurement stats. You know how wonky all of that can be. There's no question that turbo blasters or ion cannons, like phasers, are quite destructive weapons capable of inflicting more than a sneeze.

[yardbird]

I mean something beyond "they could be half-way across the galaxy by now!" (ISD officer in ESB on the Falcon's 'disappearance'), which is quite obviously a hyperbolic statement and unreliable as a literal, measurable statement. Is there something that establishes any kind of even general number range, or a more reliable statement to traveling across the galaxy, or a map display of some kind or another? Using clearly hyperbolic statements as literal fact is poor science and yields unreliable results.

There are maps all over the place showing the rough configuration of the SW galaxy. As you know, Lucas designated some worlds as belonging to the outer rim, some to the core, etc.


At StarWars.com, it is said:
"The Empire appeared as the villain of the Star Wars saga from the very first 13-page story treatment written by George Lucas in 1973. In this Star Wars galaxy, which was actually our own set in the 33rd century, the Empire is ruled by the Sovereign, and the heroes must cross the galaxy, avoiding Imperial agents, to get to a friendly planet.
The rough draft of Star Wars stated that the Jedi were the architects of the invincible Imperial Space Force, which expanded the Empire across the galaxy, from the celestial equator to the farthest reaches of the Great Rift..."

They merely picked up after the Galactic Republic, "composed of a significant portion of the known galaxy, stretching from the Core Worlds to Wild Space, though it was widely believed that the government held little power in the outlying regions, and preferred to focus its attentions on the Core Worlds. The exact number of planets in the Republic fluctuated, but in 21 BBY it was a little less than 1.3 million planets."

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I'm talking about stuff coming from the films or novelizations. Are there maps seen on-screen that show the Empire spanning that much of the galaxy? Are there references in the dialogue to travelling that much distance outside of the aforementioned hyperbolic statements?

I know the "A New Hope" novelization (I'm pretty sure it was the novelization of ANH, anyway... It's been a while since I've looked it up, but it's one of the original trilogy novelizations) has Princess Leia looking at a map of the Empire, and contemplating the significance of it all compared to the size of the universe, stating that the Empire constitutes only a small corner of a mid-sized spiral galaxy (the Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy, btw). That provides quantitative evidence for a 'small' (relatively speaking, since 'small corner' and 'medium-sized' are general and not precise figures) SW civilization.

[USS_Parallax]

Star Wars wins if you only count the original movies. The prequels are horrible.

In a fight though... nothing but pure speculation. :p The only thing we know for sure is that Star Wars ships are a lot faster when they go into hyperdrive.

[yardbird]

I'm talking about stuff coming from the films or novelizations. Are there maps seen on-screen that show the Empire spanning that much of the galaxy? Are there references in the dialogue to travelling that much distance outside of the aforementioned hyperbolic statements?

I know the "A New Hope" novelization (I'm pretty sure it was the novelization of ANH, anyway... It's been a while since I've looked it up, but it's one of the original trilogy novelizations) has Princess Leia looking at a map of the Empire, and contemplating the significance of it all compared to the size of the universe, stating that the Empire constitutes only a small corner of a mid-sized spiral galaxy (the Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy, btw). That provides quantitative evidence for a 'small' (relatively speaking, since 'small corner' and 'medium-sized' are general and not precise figures) SW civilization.

The maps needn't be on-screen to be canon. Lucas' vision is abundantly clear. Galaxy-wide is only hyperbolic because you want it to be. You are obviously very handy when it comes to this tedious debate, Dragon, and I tip my hat to you, but with all due respect, I find this particular line of reasoning more than a little pedantic.

Star Wars lore is clear about the size of the Republic and Empire. And Lucas' intentions are obvious, as noted. There is no good reason for abandoning perfectly good lore unless it directly contradicts something in the flicks, imo. I'm not aware of any significant contradictions in the entire Star Wars canon, but there's bound to be a few trivial slips here and there. The size of the Republic and Empire is not among them. That's working exactly as Lucas wished it to. Let's not pretend otherwise.

[bitgolem]

Star Wars wins if you only count the original movies. The prequels are horrible.

In a fight though... nothing but pure speculation. :p The only thing we know for sure is that Star Wars ships are a lot faster when they go into hyperdrive.

Star Wars uses lasers. Star Trek shields are totally immune to lasers. If you can't force choke someone from 25000 kilometers away, the Empire has no chance. Even if you can, the chance is slim. Like I said, beam up Vader and the Emperor, and just dissipate their patterns. Game over.

[Roberto]

Why obsolete? What makes you say that? The Empire's technology has a pedigree that's thousands of years old. There is nothing to say that one franchise's tech is more or less obsolete than the others. Imperial ships simply pack more punch per ship. But there's nothing to show that Federation technology is more advanced than Imperial, with the exception of transporters.

Obsolete because they use lasers, which is considered a primitive technology. Their scanning equipment is obviously not as sophisticated and their targeting equipment falls into that category too. Like I said in my more detailed post, sure, they have dozens of lasers mounted here and there, but they fire wildly at other ships. A lot of its hard points are mounted on the side, making it so that they must pull up along side another ship to truly release the mainstay of its barrage.

Their tactics are of that of 17th century naval warfare.

The Enterprise (just for the sake of using a ship everyone knows) would run circles around that behemoth like it was a beached whale. Strafing runs, with its pinpoint accurate phaser arrays would, would pick that things weapons systems apart within minutes.

Since there is no idea of transporting matter into energy and back, they wouldn't be prepared for that kind of technology till God knows when (if ever). transport a single photon (or worse) quantum torpedo into a vital area, its instant game over

A star destroyer is a lumbering ox, which needs time and positioning to bring its true arsenal to bear. Theres a reason why that style of warfare went to the wayside in the second half of the last century - never mind the 24th. Even dismissing the fact they use (relatively unguided and slow aiming) lasers, any warp driven vessel will fly rings around it, bringing its stable and constant payload of phaser and torpedo fire onto whatever part of the ship it deems necessary.

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

I totally agree with you El Capitan, looking at Star Wars itself, the only reason the Milennium Falcon survived many of her encounters was her maneuverability.

[bitgolem]

I totally agree with you El Capitan, looking at Star Wars itself, the only reason the Milennium Falcon survived many of her encounters was her maneuverability.

Most of the time the only reason the Falcon survived was because the Empire let them go so they could follow them to the Rebels.

[yardbird]

Obsolete because they use lasers, which is considered a primitive technology.

It's meaningless. Phasers are directed energy weapons just like blasters; no telling which is stronger or better or more primitive. Ion cannons are similar, but usually depicted as an especially potent weapon.

[bloom501]

Wow alot of this has actually swayed me to think Trek would win. Alot of valid points. I still think the Empire has the ground game locked up, but a fleet match up I think Trek would win...

[yardbird]

Wow alot of this has actually swayed me to think Trek would win. Alot of valid points. I still think the Empire has the ground game locked up, but a fleet match up I think Trek would win...

Don't be hasty. The Enterprise was virtually K-Oed by one vessel the size of the Scimitar (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Scimitar). A galaxy-class starship would be hard-pressed indeed to overwhelm an ISD.

With that in mind, what in the name of Matt Decker would it do to a Super Star Destroyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SW_Executor_01.jpg), a ship estimated to be between 11 and 19 kilometres long?

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

Most of the time the only reason the Falcon survived was because the Empire let them go so they could follow them to the Rebels.

LOL

Phasers are specially modulated beams of nadions, lasers are intensely focused light waves.

they are quite different, I would know because Im the Tactical/Security professor for Lotus Fleet making multiple courses on Trek weaponry.

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

Don't be hasty. The Enterprise was virtually K-Oed by one vessel the size of the Scimitar (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Scimitar). A galaxy-class starship would be hard-pressed indeed to overwhelm an ISD.

With that in mind, what in the name of Matt Decker would it do to a Super Star Destroyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SW_Executor_01.jpg), a ship estimated to be between 11 and 19 kilometres long?


A defiant class would pwn a super ISD with a combination of maneuverability, small size, and heavy firepower. The Scimitar is alot more maneuverable than an ISD and euipped with trek weaponry...

[yardbird]

LOL

Phasers are specially modulated beams of nadions, lasers are intensely focused light waves.

they are quite different, I would know because Im the Tactical/Security professor for Lotus Fleet making multiple courses on Trek weaponry.

That's fine. I love phasers. But blasters are more than simple focused light waves: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blasters

[Roberto]

Don't be hasty. The Enterprise was virtually K-Oed by one vessel the size of the Scimitar (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Scimitar). A galaxy-class starship would be hard-pressed indeed to overwhelm an ISD.

With that in mind, what in the name of Matt Decker would it do to a Super Star Destroyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SW_Executor_01.jpg), a ship estimated to be between 11 and 19 kilometres long?

It was nearly KOed because it lost t warp core right off the bat and was being attacked by a vessel with far superior weapons than a SD and far superior maneuverability. Again, like in my last post you don't address the superior tactics, weapons, and technology for this fight.

[Roberto]

It's meaningless. Phasers are directed energy weapons just like blasters; no telling which is stronger or better or more primitive. Ion cannons are similar, but usually depicted as an especially potent weapon.


Sorry, but there is a myriad of evidence and numbers that say otherwise.

[Roberto]

LOL

Phasers are specially modulated beams of nadions, lasers are intensely focused light waves.

they are quite different, I would know because Im the Tactical/Security professor for Lotus Fleet making multiple courses on Trek weaponry.

Thank you~

[Tricorder]

The size of the Empire means nothing compared to the tactical advantage of the Federation. Some have even mentioned that the SW technology has been around longer than ST, which is true, but despite SW technology being around for a while, it isn't very advanced at all. I believe with enough data collected with the superior sensors and technology of the Federation, the shield harmonics can be atuned to the modulation of SW weapons, hence the Federation's defense is secure.

Then there's their cloaking capabilities, teleportation and Quantum Slipstream Drive. All it takes are a few quick Federation starships, maybe Intrepid class to: Cloak, then warp to the Empire stronghold, teleport some Photon, Gravimetric or Poloron Torpedoes, then you have a crippled Empire. Or the Federation can teleport a reaction chamber filled with anti-matter into the Empire's stronghold (or Death Star), then they can turn off the magnetic field, which contains the anti-matter, and when anti-matter collides with matter....KABOOM!

Even if you throw in the Jedi into the mix, the computing power and highly advance sensors of the Federation can infiltrate and penetrate all the Empire's logs and history and assimilate any information as a tactical edge...for example the YSALAMIR alien lizard. This creature, as we all know, generates a field that counters the Force; no Jedi can use the Force when they are near/in the biofield of this creature.

The Federation can easily recreate the biofield the Ysalamir have (which some Star Destroyers have to counter the Jedi threat) and remodulate their shields with the same biofield and you can kiss your jedi goodbye.
I've been a loyal SW fan/geek since the 70's, I've read novels and many Dark Horse books. And I've only been a ST fan for less than 20 years, but I know enough about these two worlds to confess the Federation is just more advanced in so many ways compared to the Empire.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Alright, I'm home now. A few quick points, then I'll start getting a larger post put together from my notes and resources, etc. (aka "Testing the Character Limit" } ; = 8 P )

Anyway, I don't want to get into energy-measurement stats. You know how wonky all of that can be. There's no question that turbo blasters or ion cannons, like phasers, are quite destructive weapons capable of inflicting more than a sneeze.

I find this to be an interesting statement, since earlier in the thread you were flaunting the supposed 200 gigaton turbolaser yields, etc. as being vastly superior to Trek yields, but you don't want to get into energy-measurement stats? Yes, there is no debate that the weapons of each universe are nothing to sneeze at, especially from our perspective, but how they compare to each other is very relevant to the discussion at hand, because it gives an idea of the general effectiveness of each side's weapons, and how much or how little damage they will do to each other.

Also, the 5.1 MW output per phaser emitter value of the TNG TM is absurd, because not only does it put the phasers ridiculously below the energy outputs of the yield it states for a photon torpedo, the coal-fired power plant up the road from my parents house produces over 650,000 KiloWatts, or over 650 MegaWatts. To say that a decades-old, coal-fired powerplant could power the main array of a Galaxy class starship, which has a main reactor that runs on matter and anti-matter, at over 50% power (going with the incorrect 200-emitter count given in the TM) is completely ridiculous. With those figures, a modern-day fission reactor, which puts out far more power than a coal plant, could power all of the Enterprise-D's weapons systems and still have plenty of power left over.

It's meaningless. Phasers are directed energy weapons just like blasters; no telling which is stronger or better or more primitive. Ion cannons are similar, but usually depicted as an especially potent weapon.

Not quite so meaningless. Lasers and phasers are both directed energy weapons, yes, but there are more and less efficient methods of doing so, and different types of energy are more effective than others. Also, it was directly stated that lasers are considered obsolete technology by the mid-24th century, meaning that there is some significant advantage to the directed energy of a phaser beam or pulse than the directed energy of a laser beam or pulse.




The maps needn't be on-screen to be canon.

Actually, per the official canon policy of the Star Wars franchise, they do. If they're not on-screen, in the script, in the film novelizations, or the adapted radio airplays, they're not part of the official canon of the Star Wars franchise. They can be part of the Star Wars: Expanded Universe canon, but not the canon of the films.


Lucas' vision is abundantly clear. Galaxy-wide is only hyperbolic because you want it to be. You are obviously very handy when it comes to this tedious debate, Dragon, and I tip my hat to you, but with all due respect, I find this particular line of reasoning more than a little pedantic.

Star Wars lore is clear about the size of the Republic and Empire. And Lucas' intentions are obvious, as noted. There is no good reason for abandoning perfectly good lore unless it directly contradicts something in the flicks, imo. I'm not aware of any significant contradictions in the entire Star Wars canon, but there's bound to be a few trivial slips here and there. The size of the Republic and Empire is not among them. That's working exactly as Lucas wished it to. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Actually, it's not so clear. There is no clear indication of the scope of the Empire or the Republic in any of the movies, just a few comments that fans have taken literally, to such a point that it has been assumed so in the expanded universe. In the films-only official canon, however, that size is never made clear, and in the early films and novelizations, was actually indicated to be much smaller than fans assumed from some comments that are commonly used in hyperbolic statements throughout science fiction. Look at any space-based science fiction universe which extends beyond the bounds of a single star system, and you will see the use of 'half-way across the galaxy', 'the other side of the galaxy', etc. in statements that are clearly intended to be hyperbolic throughout them all.

I am not saying that they prove the 'theory of a small Empire', I am just saying that they cannot be taken as literal fact, because they are not reliable absolutes. The matter is open for debate, and that is what I intend to do.


As for Lucas' early drafts of the Star Wars saga, they give implications, yes, but can't be taken as conclusive or definitive fact. Just look how much the Jedi changed from the original concept, after all.

[yardbird]

A defiant class would pwn a super ISD with a combination of maneuverability, small size, and heavy firepower. The Scimitar is alot more maneuverable than an ISD and euipped with trek weaponry...

Well, small size will serve the Feds well in evasive actions, I agree. But their firepower is gnat-like compared to a regular Star Destroyer. Federation ships can flit about all day; eventually they'll have to take some hits, and the hits they deliver are questionable on such a massive opponent.

Don't forget, the ISDs are lumbering giants, but they're only a fraction of the fleet. The Empire has smaller warships that are quite more manoeuverable. The combined fleet differential is, at very best, about 34 to 1 in favour of the Imperials.

Also, it's mere a priori reasoning that Trek weaponry is inherently superior to Imperial kinds. I'm not sure how that could be demonstrated.

[spokechecker5000]

In terms of turbo lasers vs phasers we see many times in trek that hand Phasers are capable of litterally vaporizing objects, people, walls etc. Where as in Star Wars I never saw a single hand blaster that was capable of the same thing. In fact most of the blasts that hit walls or boxes or what ever mearly burt the caseings or wall never really doing all that much damage. If they were suppose to be more powerful the Empire would have trained thier troops to hit targets instead of everything else (stormtroopers are not known for being able to hit moving targets just look at a New hope while L:ucke and the others are escaping the death star) The Storm troopers fired like thousands of times and virtually hit nothing but thier own technology and if the lasers were that powerful they would have done a lot more damage to the death star at least.
With the exception of the Death Star's main canon (planet destroyer) I can't see other turbo lasers doing a whole lot against ST Shields. if the hand blasters by comparison are any indication.

Manuverablility was brought up as a great point, ST ships are way more manuverable and once they figured out that all you need to do is concentrate fire on the little sheild generators on top of the Star Destroyers to get past thier shields it would not take long to take out star destroyers in seconds at best and some ST ships could even do more than one at a time. ST was Way more accurate due to targeting sensors where as in SW You see mostly people manning turrets like old Style cannons. EL Captain even mentioned just like 17 century war ships with thier cannons makeing them only accurate at all at very close range.
And forget about the transporter advantage even a Jedi would have to bow down once he was caught by the transporter beam because he could then just be dematerialized or beamed into space. Further The Tie fighters would be virtually useless against the ST Star ships If Star Destroyers were any effective against Star Trek Shields It would prabably be due to the shear size of the cannon being fired most likely requireing massive amounts of power to penetrate the shields where the TIe fighters are so small thier cannons could be no where as effective or as powerful.. All I am refering to here is Ship to ship combat .

Someone else made a great point that ground forces for SW are far superior to ST and I have to agree I hae not seen anything in ST that would make be believe that Starfleet could do anything against such massive forces without the aide of orbital starships using thier weapons from a safe distance to take them out.

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

Well, small size will serve the Feds well in evasive actions, I agree. But their firepower is gnat-like compared to a regular Star Destroyer. Federation ships can flit about all day; eventually they'll have to take some hits, and the hits they deliver are questionable on such a massive opponent.

Don't forget, the ISDs are lumbering giants, but they're only a fraction of the fleet. The Empire has smaller warships that are quite more manoeuverable. The combined fleet differential is, at very best, about 34 to 1 in favour of the Imperials.

Also, it's mere a priori reasoning that Trek weaponry is inherently superior to Imperial kinds. I'm not sure how that could be demonstrated.

I know they have smaller ones, which smaller one would you have go against a Prometheus class starship?

[Roberto]

Someone else made a great point that ground forces for SW are far superior to ST and I have to agree I hae not seen anything in ST that would make be believe that Starfleet could do anything against such massive forces without the aide of orbital starships using thier weapons from a safe distance to take them out.

There is no question in me - whatsoever - it would be a slaughter if Imperial forces landed on any world in the Federation. It would be so one-sided its barely worth (to me) even typing this up.

[spokechecker5000]

one thing I was always confused on in Star Wars was that Han Solo Said in the Movies that the Milenium falcon was capable of ".5 past light speed" if thats the case SW ships should be much slower than ST ships right considering that it has been well established in the series that Warp speed is many times the speed of light. So whats up with that?

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

Ive heard that too but their have been arguments that he went above light speed without actually going to hyperspace.

[Kinjiru]

Oh and for fun I forget to mention the dominion. lol

Add your dominion to the other what... 5 you mentioned and you're still short about 999,994 races available to fight for the Empire.

[yardbird]

Alright, I'm home now...

No I never made appeals to numbers like that. Must have been someone else.

As for the size of the Republic and Empire, it's Star Wars lore and canon, such as this which comes from the Holocron (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Holocron_continuity_database) through Wookiepedia:

"Astrography: The Galactic Republic was composed of a significant portion of the known galaxy, stretching from the Core Worlds to Wild Space, though it was widely believed that the government held little power in the outlying regions, and preferred to focus its attentions on the Core Worlds. The exact number of planets in the Republic fluctuated, but in 21 BBY it was a little less than 1.3 million planets.

The capital of the Galactic Republic was Coruscant, a planet considered to be the cultural and economical center of the galaxy, despite being located outside of the Deep Core. To signify its importance in galactic affairs, Coruscant was given coordinates 0-0-0 in the standard galactic coordinate system."

Canon is very much more than what is seen in the movies: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon

[spokechecker5000]

Add your dominion to the other what... 5 you mentioned and you're still short about 999,994 races available to fight for the Empire.

What you say is true but these were some of the most powerful forces in the Galaxy in the ST world and thier territories spanned Many MAny Star systems containing hundreds if not thousands of worlds with hundreds if not thousands of species.
By the Way the Iconians alone were said to have possesed a Massive empire that Spanned the entire galaxy or at least most of it (although the only evidence we have toward that is that there was Iconian gateways in the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants.)


But I have noticed that in this particular thread that we seem to be sticking to strictly
Star fleet VS the Empire which is much more one sided.
but consider even in SW the outer rims territories we not part of the Republic territory because they were too far out for thier influence to reach that far out. Though I realize we are talking about the Empire here even in Return of the Jedi Jaba the hut wasa still pretty much in charge of Tattooine. MEaning not all plantes were controlled by the Empire.

[Tricorder]

It doesn't matter how many species the Empire employs/enslaves, the Federation are tactically more refined and have constantly updated/advanced technology.

If the Empire doesn't have teleportation technology, they will lose because this technology is a tremendous tactical advantage. The Federation can easily transfer viruses to the Empire's fleet, or simply take control over their systems and add those Empire ships to the Federation collective.

It's like sending 5 fully equiped Navy Seals or Green Berets into the past agains a thousand Confederates from the Civil War. Little by little, platoon by platoon, the Seals or the GBs will whittle down the Confederates using their technology and battle know how.

[Kinjiru]

Don't forget, the ISDs are lumbering giants, but they're only a fraction of the fleet. The Empire has smaller warships that are quite more manoeuverable. The combined fleet differential is, at very best, about 34 to 1 in favour of the Imperials.

Also, it's mere a priori reasoning that Trek weaponry is inherently superior to Imperial kinds. I'm not sure how that could be demonstrated.

First, I should point out that the Lumbering Giants that you speak of aren't really lumbering at all, specifically referred to when Han Solo mentions:
"I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk cruisers, mind you, but the big Correllian ships..."
Which alludes to the fact that a standard YT1300 (which is the make of the highly modified Millennium Falcon) could NOT outrun one as a general rule.

And, that's not to mention Ludicrous Speed...

And I've brought up before as well the fact that it hasn't been demonstrated that Trek sensors are any mroe capable than Star Wars sensors... they can both scan for life forms (literally thousands, millions of chemical combinations) they can both can vast sectors of space, and a standard nav computer on a small personally owned freighter (like the Falcon) can calculate a Hyperspace jump across thousands of light years in a matter of minutes, demonstrating that Trek computing power is not any more powerful than Wars computing power.

Add to that the sheer distances capable of being traveled in Hyperspace in a matter of weeks, versus the YEARS that it took the Voyager to travel the same distance.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

No I never made appeals to numbers like that. Must have been someone else.

So it would seem. I must have been getting you mixed up with someone else, or maybe another debate or something... It's hard to say with my mind, sometimes. Anyways, my apologies.

As for the size of the Republic and Empire, it's Star Wars lore and canon, such as this which comes from the Holocron (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Holocron_continuity_database) through Wookiepedia:

"Astrography: The Galactic Republic was composed of a significant portion of the known galaxy, stretching from the Core Worlds to Wild Space, though it was widely believed that the government held little power in the outlying regions, and preferred to focus its attentions on the Core Worlds. The exact number of planets in the Republic fluctuated, but in 21 BBY it was a little less than 1.3 million planets.

The capital of the Galactic Republic was Coruscant, a planet considered to be the cultural and economical center of the galaxy, despite being located outside of the Deep Core. To signify its importance in galactic affairs, Coruscant was given coordinates 0-0-0 in the standard galactic coordinate system."

Canon is very much more than what is seen in the movies: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon[/COLOR]


Actually, it is: http://www.canonwars.com/ (see the condensed versions if you don't have enough time to read the full analysis of the SW canon policy).

There are two separate SW canons, the official Star Wars canon, and the Star Wars: Expanded Universe canon. The former is film-only, the latter is film+EU. Additionally, as established previously, this debate is about the film-only canon, not the film+EU canon.

[spokechecker5000]

It doesn't matter how many species the Empire employs/enslaves, the Federation are tactically more refined and have constantly updated/advanced technology.

If the Empire doesn't have teleportation technology, they will lose because this technology is a tremendous tactical advantage. The Federation can easily transfer viruses to the Empire's fleet, or simply take control over their systems and add those Empire ships to the Federation collective.

It's like sending 5 fully equiped Navy Seals or Green Berets into the past agains a thousand Confederates from the Civil War. Little by little, platoon by platoon, the Seals or the GBs will whittle down the Confederates using their technology and battle know how.

your not gonna get any argument from me on that point but numbers do count for somthing when it comes to ground assult and though I would be an advocate for the SW tech being less advanced than the ST Tech even when considering age of the SW tech I still believe that Ship to Ship SW would be no match for the Federation.

[Admiral.of.Starfleet]

No I never made appeals to numbers like that. Must have been someone else.

As for the size of the Republic and Empire, it's Star Wars lore and canon, such as this which comes from the Holocron (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Holocron_continuity_database) through Wookiepedia:

"Astrography: The Galactic Republic was composed of a significant portion of the known galaxy, stretching from the Core Worlds to Wild Space, though it was widely believed that the government held little power in the outlying regions, and preferred to focus its attentions on the Core Worlds. The exact number of planets in the Republic fluctuated, but in 21 BBY it was a little less than 1.3 million planets.

The capital of the Galactic Republic was Coruscant, a planet considered to be the cultural and economical center of the galaxy, despite being located outside of the Deep Core. To signify its importance in galactic affairs, Coruscant was given coordinates 0-0-0 in the standard galactic coordinate system."

Canon is very much more than what is seen in the movies: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon

Ok thats their definition of canon and lets say were only dealing with G canon

[Kinjiru]

I thought we agreed to stick with movie vs. movie cannon?

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I thought we agreed to stick with movie vs. movie cannon?

Yup, we did.


Also, quick note on Fed firepower. The fireball visible in TNG "Skin of Evil", when the Enterprise destroys the crashed shuttle with a photon torpedo, is quite clearly visible from orbit, and a quick-and-dirty rough measurement gives an approximate yield, based on the blast radius of the fireball, of 2.5 - 4 gigatons. Additionally, the fireballs seen in DS9 "The Die is Cast" are much larger than even that, suggesting an even higher yield. Additionally, asteroid destruction effects in various episodes also suggest torpedo yields in the multiple hundreds of megatons or greater. Thats about 4.184 PetaJoules of energy per megaton. Star Trek energy weapons (phasers, disruptors, etc.) would presumably have energy outputs in the same general range, based on the amount of damage they do to ships in comparison to torpedoes.

[Kinjiru]

your not gonna get any argument from me on that point but numbers do count for somthing when it comes to ground assult and though I would be an advocate for the SW tech being less advanced than the ST Tech even when considering age of the SW tech I still believe that Ship to Ship SW would be no match for the Federation.

Hmmm, I wonder about that. It's such a rote statement, but ask yourself, how many targets can a federation starship target at any 1 time? A hundred? Put a Star Destroyer's compliment of TIE Bombers (which have shields) escorted by the fodder standard fighters, accompanied by 6 or 7 TIE Advanced (also with shields) squadrons, I think that the targeting capacity of a Trek ship could be easily overwhelmed. Especially if you equate Federation Galaxy and Sovereign class ships to the capital ship Star Destroyers. Pound for pound, I think a Star Destroyer could handle a single Galaxy or Sovereign fairly easily. (But I'll concede 1 for 1 for the sake of argument.

And there are more Star Destroyers than there are all Trek Federation ships combined. (including the older and smaller classes, hell, throw in the Science and Exploration vessels just for fun.) And that doesn't even talk about Super Star Destroyers.

[yardbird]

There are two separate SW canons, the official Star Wars canon, and the Star Wars: Expanded Universe canon. The former is film-only, the latter is film+EU. Additionally, as established previously, this debate is about the film-only canon, not the film+EU canon.

No, mate. Much of the EU stuff is considered to have a level of canonicity. It has served to flesh out Lucas' official world (where he possibly made only allusions) and even influenced his storytelling. To be sure, Lucas has sought to maintain a measure of control of this material and help guide its overarching consistency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon

Nevertheless, if you're declaring that certain renowned and well-established bits of lore can't be exhibited in court, I find that silly. You're loading the dice in your favour, it seems to me. Star Trek has always been more verbal and cerebral, always explaining things and establishing scientific meanings. It revels in numbers. By contrast, Star Wars is more about thrills and spills; it works more through viscerality and mythic patterns. That's why much has had to be fleshed out on the side.

Must... escape thread... must escape....

[spokechecker5000]

Hmmm, I wonder about that. It's such a rote statement, but ask yourself, how many targets can a federation starship target at any 1 time? A hundred? Put a Star Destroyer's compliment of TIE Bombers (which have shields) escorted by the fodder standard fighters, accompanied by 6 or 7 TIE Advanced (also with shields) squadrons, I think that the targeting capacity of a Trek ship could be easily overwhelmed. Especially if you equate Federation Galaxy and Sovereign class ships to the capital ship Star Destroyers. Pound for pound, I think a Star Destroyer could handle a single Galaxy or Sovereign fairly easily. (But I'll concede 1 for 1 for the sake of argument.

And there are more Star Destroyers than there are all Trek Federation ships combined. (including the older and smaller classes, hell, throw in the Science and Exploration vessels just for fun.) And that doesn't even talk about Super Star Destroyers.

You've definatly got me when it comes to sheer numbers if a Star Destroyer were capable of being the equvalent of a galaxy or Soverign class I thin that the federation would be overwhelmed, but I don't really think tie bombers or tie advanced would produce too much of a threat simplly because I havent seen anything in SW that would suggest that these little fighters could produce enough fire power idividually to penetrate the shelds of a fed vessel because fed vessels have the ability to defend against such blasts as before mentioned by lithi dragon. The yeild of phasers and torpedos can be defended against by thier sheilds and (this is just my opinion) I don't think that even a tie squadran would be able to produce as much fire power to penetrate it.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

No, mate. Much of the EU stuff is considered to have a level of canonicity. It has served to flesh out Lucas' official world (where he possibly made only allusions) and even influenced his storytelling. To be sure, Lucas has sought to maintain a measure of control of this material and help guide its overarching consistency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon

Nevertheless, if you're declaring that certain renowned and well-established bits of lore can't be exhibited in court, I find that silly. You're loading the dice in your favour, it seems to me. Star Trek has always been more verbal and cerebral, always explaining things and establishing scientific meanings. It revels in numbers. By contrast, Star Wars is more about thrills and spills; it works more through viscerality and mythic patterns. That's why much has had to be fleshed out on the side.

That's why I wanted to go over what canon to accept before we got into the actual debate (which didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped, but se la viz). The SW canon policy has been much contested over the history of the Vs debates, with certain parties using... disreputable tactics to spread the belief that the SW canon policy includes the EU material. This is erroneous, however, as is demonstrated by the SW canon section on www.canonwars.com, via quotes from the various authorities within Lucas Licensing and Lucasfilms, Ltd., and even George Lucas himself. I strongly suggest you look over it, even just the ultra-condensed version, because it makes the dual nature of the SW canon policy very clear.




Must... escape thread... must escape....

It draws you in, like a moth to the flame! You will never escape! NEVAR!!! MAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Kinjiru]

Actually... that's a good question. Can Star Wars blasters or Proton Torpedoes penetrate Trek shields?

I'll postulate that (since we're sticking to the movies) all things being equal, specifically:

Walls are made of metal... we're not sure what alloys are used (expanded cannon contains this, but let's stick with only what we know from the movies) and that for spaceflight, metals must meet certain standards. And to shield a ship in space from impacting micrometeors, shields must also meet certain standards.

What this means is that on a case by case basis, ship construction for each series must be at least on a level par, until you consider the sizes of ships involved and the stresses increased mass cause on the larger ships from Star Wars. (There are ships larger than the largest Trek Space Stations, as shown by comparing Starbase 1 to a single Super Star Destroyer.) With increased mass and stress on the larger ships, there must be a corresponding increase in the efficiency of the construction materials.

Therefore, a Star Wars capital ship construction *must* be correspondingly stronger than a similar Trek ship, which depends on inertial dampeners to strengthen a ship to take the stresses of high speed warp flight and manouvering.

As to shielding, I haven't seen anything from any of the movies that argues one way or the other which is stronger...
1. They can both be adjusted for specific types of damage
2. They both can sustain a limited number of hits before collapsing, depending on the amount of energy diverted to them.
3. They can both be angled or diverted to strengthen specific portions of a ship.

So I see no clear advantage to either Trek or Wars shielding, I'll call that a tie.

I need to go out with the family, so we can get into blasters versus phasers then. (Again, sticking to only what we know from the movies.)

[bloom501]

You guys seem to know more than I, but wouldnt a couple of hits from an Ion cannon, take care of the shields and power systems of a Fed ship, then its just a matter of finishing off the dead hulk?

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Also, some interesting reading on the size of the Empire and the Federation: http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdrake.html

The ANH novelization does establish that the Galactic Empire has a million planets under its control (probably not an exact figure, given the context, but a pretty close rounding, to be sure), but as this page points out, even if the Empire covered an entire galaxy, it still need not span much more 12-16,000 lightyears (a "modest size" galaxy, as established in one of the novelizations). Also goes on about planet densities and such.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

You guys seem to know more than I, but wouldnt a couple of hits from an Ion cannon, take care of the shields and power systems of a Fed ship, then its just a matter of finishing off the dead hulk?

Not necessarily. By TNG, Trek computing technology appears to be significantly more advanced than SW computing technology. By TNG, Federation and Starfleet computers are using optical and isolinear components, with references to FTL data processors (e.i. the data is transferred around inside the computer faster than the speed of light), and organic computing technology appears to be making its initial entrance into full-scale use. Star Wars computer components have been demonstrated to be comprised of circuits and wires, much like our computer systems today (though undoubtedly far more advanced). Trek power distribution is also far more advanced, with the use of plasma conduits transfer energetic plasma directly to the system, instead of the metal wiring and cables that SW appears to use.

Also, there is the matter of the Federation's industrial capacity. We know the Federation and the other major powers make extensive use of replicators in almost all industrial construction, where as Episode II shows us a major Separatist world (with ground combat forces of at least roughly comparable strength, capability and technology to the equipment deployed by the Republic), and gives us a look inside a production factory for the Separatists' droid army. That look shows us a facility that is essentially a massive, automated foundry and assembly line, similar to the foundries and assembly lines you'll see across industrialized nations today, just on a far more massive scale (and with superior automation technology, etc.). This gives the Federation a tremendous advantage in industrial capacity, that cannot be understated. We've heard references to the standard food replicators equipped in the living quarters of all Starfleet ships being capable of replicating weapons, so it's entirely conceivable that Starfleet production facilities are capable of replicating complete products in seconds (though obviously nothing of the scale of a proper starship). Coupled with transporter technology, the Federation's industrial base, relative to planet and population count and density, could very easily be many times greater than the Empire's.

[jkpetrich]

It doesn't matter how many species the Empire employs/enslaves, the Federation are tactically more refined and have constantly updated/advanced technology.

If the Empire doesn't have teleportation technology, they will lose because this technology is a tremendous tactical advantage. The Federation can easily transfer viruses to the Empire's fleet, or simply take control over their systems and add those Empire ships to the Federation collective.

It's like sending 5 fully equiped Navy Seals or Green Berets into the past agains a thousand Confederates from the Civil War. Little by little, platoon by platoon, the Seals or the GBs will whittle down the Confederates using their technology and battle know how.

The Federation would never transport a virus unles it came from 31, so you can throw that argument and tactic out the window.

[spokechecker5000]

Actually... that's a good question. Can Star Wars blasters or Proton Torpedoes penetrate Trek shields?

I'll postulate that (since we're sticking to the movies) all things being equal, specifically:

Walls are made of metal... we're not sure what alloys are used (expanded cannon contains this, but let's stick with only what we know from the movies) and that for spaceflight, metals must meet certain standards. And to shield a ship in space from impacting micrometeors, shields must also meet certain standards.

What this means is that on a case by case basis, ship construction for each series must be at least on a level par, until you consider the sizes of ships involved and the stresses increased mass cause on the larger ships from Star Wars. (There are ships larger than the largest Trek Space Stations, as shown by comparing Starbase 1 to a single Super Star Destroyer.) With increased mass and stress on the larger ships, there must be a corresponding increase in the efficiency of the construction materials.

Therefore, a Star Wars capital ship construction *must* be correspondingly stronger than a similar Trek ship, which depends on inertial dampeners to strengthen a ship to take the stresses of high speed warp flight and manouvering.

As to shielding, I haven't seen anything from any of the movies that argues one way or the other which is stronger...
1. They can both be adjusted for specific types of damage
2. They both can sustain a limited number of hits before collapsing, depending on the amount of energy diverted to them.
3. They can both be angled or diverted to strengthen specific portions of a ship.

So I see no clear advantage to either Trek or Wars shielding, I'll call that a tie.

I need to go out with the family, so we can get into blasters versus phasers then. (Again, sticking to only what we know from the movies.)

You know thats true, i don't know what the capacity of the Imerial ships are and The massive super star destroyer would constitute great engeneering capability for the Empire but I can't tell you how much the Star destroyers sheilds could withstand the only thing I can say is that in Star Wars Return of the Jedi in the final battle we se an A-wing that takes out the Sheild generator of the super star destroyer, so unless littler star fighters are capable of the same yeild as large capital ships I have to lean towards the Empires deflectors being a bit weaker but I can't say for sure.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

And before I forget again, the link to the Galaxy's actual emitter count: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.startrek.tech/msg/8e8c5f644d4bf6f5

Galaxy's total emitter count for all visible arrays is 2,071, and I have measured the engineering hull array exposed during separation to have about 111 emitters.


Actually... that's a good question. Can Star Wars blasters or Proton Torpedoes penetrate Trek shields?

I'll postulate that (since we're sticking to the movies) all things being equal, specifically:

Walls are made of metal... we're not sure what alloys are used (expanded cannon contains this, but let's stick with only what we know from the movies) and that for spaceflight, metals must meet certain standards. And to shield a ship in space from impacting micrometeors, shields must also meet certain standards.

What this means is that on a case by case basis, ship construction for each series must be at least on a level par, until you consider the sizes of ships involved and the stresses increased mass cause on the larger ships from Star Wars. (There are ships larger than the largest Trek Space Stations, as shown by comparing Starbase 1 to a single Super Star Destroyer.) With increased mass and stress on the larger ships, there must be a corresponding increase in the efficiency of the construction materials.

Therefore, a Star Wars capital ship construction *must* be correspondingly stronger than a similar Trek ship, which depends on inertial dampeners to strengthen a ship to take the stresses of high speed warp flight and manouvering.

As to shielding, I haven't seen anything from any of the movies that argues one way or the other which is stronger...
1. They can both be adjusted for specific types of damage
2. They both can sustain a limited number of hits before collapsing, depending on the amount of energy diverted to them.
3. They can both be angled or diverted to strengthen specific portions of a ship.

So I see no clear advantage to either Trek or Wars shielding, I'll call that a tie.

I need to go out with the family, so we can get into blasters versus phasers then. (Again, sticking to only what we know from the movies.)



If I understand you correctly, you're assuming both sides are using equal construction methods and components, with equal designed endurance tolerances, all based on the minimum standard that the ships would be required to have to function in space. If that were so, then yes, a larger ship would be structurally superior, etc.

However, that doesn't prove anything other than that a bigger ship will be stronger than a smaller ship built to the same standards, which is only logical.

Imperial ships are bigger, yes, but that does not guarantee superior structural integrity. We would have to compare the strength and endurance of construction materials and methods, as well as account for any additional strengthening factors (such as a Starfleet ship's Structural Integrity Field).

Given that the Federation makes extensive use of industrial replication, and that, since they have no replicator technology of their own, Imperial industrial facilities have to use more traditional methods (et al the foundry in AotC), I would say that Starfleet vessels are very likely to be composed of stronger, more durable materials, enhanced by their structural integrity fields.

[UfcFan78]

It doesn't matter how many species the Empire employs/enslaves, the Federation are tactically more refined and have constantly updated/advanced technology.

If the Empire doesn't have teleportation technology, they will lose because this technology is a tremendous tactical advantage. The Federation can easily transfer BOMBS and NANO MACHINE LOVE to the Empire's fleet, or simply take control over their systems and add those Empire ships to the Federation collective.

It's like sending 5 fully equiped Navy Seals or Green Berets into the past agains a thousand Confederates from the Civil War. Little by little, platoon by platoon, the Seals or the GBs will whittle down the Confederates using their technology and battle know how.

The Federation would never transport a virus unles it came from 31, so you can throw that argument and tactic out the window.

There fixed it. And some ships would do it all while cloaked.

Another thing......if Fed ship, the Defiant for example, was at full speed attacking an ISD, (correct me if I am wrong) MANNED TURRETS would have trouble tracking them. I love SW........but, nope.

Btw, it doesn't matter how many guns a ship has.....if you can't aim them all at 1 target it's irrelevent. Soooooooooooo......if I have a 100 trillion guns, but, can only point 5 at you.....who cares.

I can't believe i posted into this ****ing thread.......it's like me and my friends "Who Would Win, Hulk vs Superman" screaming match, lol.

[Valikdu]

**not seeing the discussion as having a point
It was stated several times in TNG that lasers can't scratch Federation ships. Why bother? :)

[Zaydrache]

Dont really care which would win. Death star would be gone in a matter of weeks. Rest of the fleet for each side would duke it out but i doubt there would be any winners. Ground troop battles would get interesting. A really interesting fight would be Vong against Borg.

[Tricorder]

Actually... that's a good question. Can Star Wars blasters or Proton Torpedoes penetrate Trek shields?

I'll postulate that (since we're sticking to the movies) all things being equal, specifically:

Walls are made of metal... we're not sure what alloys are used (expanded cannon contains this, but let's stick with only what we know from the movies) and that for spaceflight, metals must meet certain standards. And to shield a ship in space from impacting micrometeors, shields must also meet certain standards.

What this means is that on a case by case basis, ship construction for each series must be at least on a level par, until you consider the sizes of ships involved and the stresses increased mass cause on the larger ships from Star Wars. (There are ships larger than the largest Trek Space Stations, as shown by comparing Starbase 1 to a single Super Star Destroyer.) With increased mass and stress on the larger ships, there must be a corresponding increase in the efficiency of the construction materials.

Therefore, a Star Wars capital ship construction *must* be correspondingly stronger than a similar Trek ship, which depends on inertial dampeners to strengthen a ship to take the stresses of high speed warp flight and manouvering.

As to shielding, I haven't seen anything from any of the movies that argues one way or the other which is stronger...
1. They can both be adjusted for specific types of damage
2. They both can sustain a limited number of hits before collapsing, depending on the amount of energy diverted to them.
3. They can both be angled or diverted to strengthen specific portions of a ship.

So I see no clear advantage to either Trek or Wars shielding, I'll call that a tie.

I need to go out with the family, so we can get into blasters versus phasers then. (Again, sticking to only what we know from the movies.)



Actually there is some data that has eluded us which can dispell the tie between the Star Trek and Star Wars shield strength:
Interstellar travel and a Black Hole. (as far as I'm concerned, warp speed is faster than light speed, right?)
Although Star Wars ships can travel at light speed (or .5 faster than light speed, per Millenium Falcon), the gravimetric forces these ships need to endure is quite stressful, as such, the shields of the Star Wars ships are quite strong. However,

The Nacelles of Star Fleet vessels warp the space around them to travel in subspace which would propel them faster than light speed. This would mean their shields must be of considerable strength to withstand this form of travel (the shields were even adapted to fly through the Quantum Slipstream). Furthermore, Starfleet vessels can travel through Black holes, worm holes and other highly volitile gravimetric celestial phenomenon, which is a testament to the power and strength of their shields.
I've never heard of Star War vessels traveling subspace or through Black Holes, ergo, it is logical to assume their shields are inadequate in contrast to the shields of Star Trek.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

**not seeing the discussion as having a point
It was stated several times in TNG that lasers can't scratch Federation ships. Why bother? :)

Actually, that's a common misconception. The lasers aimed by the ship in that episode would have been useless against the Enterprise, and lasers are out-dated tech compared to phasers, but that doesn't mean they're completely useless against Fed shields, no matter what. If you get a laser with enough energy, it will punch through a Galaxy just as easily as a Borg cutting beam. You'd need a lot more energy than a Borg cutting beam, but it could be done. The idea is that phasers are more advanced than lasers, which would make them do more damage per unit of energy applied, not that Trek shields are completely impervious to lasers.

[BanzaiZAP]

At the risk of getting involved in a circular argument that has no solution, here are my points that seem to have been overlooked:

For computer tech, Data is a unique android that has never been fully duplicated, while in Star Wars, fully self-aware androids are mass produced. Even a ship like the Falcon has an "intelligent" computer. (As in C-3PO saying "I don't know where your ship learned to commuinicate, but..." in ESB) The Enterprise was only self-aware with Barclay plugged into it.

The biggest deciding factor: the Force. Jedi for the win. Star Trek really has no comparison.

Finally: scale. Sure, in a one-on-one the Federation ships may have an edge (depending) but while the main Starfleet battle group is engaging and chopping up a handful of Star Destroyers, another fleet of Star Destroyers show up in Earth's orbit and turn Starfleet Academy into paste. We have seen planetary shields in Star Wars (Hoth) but I don't recall them in the Federation. Even if they do manage to improvise orbital defense shields, then the Imperial Army moves in and stomps any ground resistance flat. And then another group of SDs shows up at Vulcan, Kronos, and any other major Starfleet installation.

On the other hand, I thing the Empire would have trouble with the Borg...

Of course, the Time Lords scoff at all of them. ;)

[UfcFan78]

The name Planetary Shield is misleading, Hoth had a section shielded......the base, only.

[UfcFan78]

Jedi + transporter tech = suck vacuum can't saber block a transporter lock








it really pains me to say that.........:(

[Tricorder]

For computer tech, Data is a unique android that has never been fully duplicated, while in Star Wars, fully self-aware androids are mass produced. Even a ship like the Falcon has an "intelligent" computer. (As in C-3PO saying "I don't know where your ship learned to commuinicate, but..." in ESB) The Enterprise was only self-aware with Barclay plugged into it.

The biggest deciding factor: the Force. Jedi for the win. Star Trek really has no comparison.


Star Wars may have C3PO and intelligent computers on their vessels, but I do not think that these machines are trying to be human, nor can they make advanced quantum physics calculations, comprehend theory like anti-time, or apply an inverse tachyon pulse to a temporal anomaly. Hence, 3PO and those intelligent computers on the Millenium Falcon are no more useful than the AI in Soul Calibur 4 or the AI in the iPhone.
In fact, a tricorder is more intelligent and far more useful than both 3PO and the computer on the Falcon.

As for the Force, or Jedi, well, if Boba Fett and a few autonomous droids can wax a lot of Jedi then logic would conclude that the chances of Starfleet overcoming the Jedi or Force is rather high. In fact, they can probably generate torpedoes which detonate and disperse a pulse which negates the Force. And I'm sure a well placed (or transported) EMH or ECH can shut down life support on Jedi and Star Wars vessels with no problem.

Using their advanced sensors to decrypt Star Wars data logs, Starfleet can easily replicate the anti-force bio aura generated by the Ysalamir.

Speaking of replicate, Star Fleet can easily replicate a few thousand light sabers and send them flying straight through the Ground Forces of the Empire. Done.

[yardbird]

That's why I wanted to go over what canon to accept before we got into the actual debate (which didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped, but se la viz). The SW canon policy has been much contested over the history of the Vs debates, with certain parties using... disreputable tactics to spread the belief that the SW canon policy includes the EU material. This is erroneous, however, as is demonstrated by the SW canon section on www.canonwars.com, via quotes from the various authorities within Lucas Licensing and Lucasfilms, Ltd., and even George Lucas himself. I strongly suggest you look over it, even just the ultra-condensed version, because it makes the dual nature of the SW canon policy very clear.

That info is solid, but it’s never made an open-and-shut case, imo.

Without gainsaying the big-GL, such pronouncements as cited here (and elsewhere) should be properly contemplated within the context of personal creative freedom, artistic consistency, and licensing control. There’s more of a subtle give and take, and productive laissez-faire, between the tiers of canon than an absolute division, as shown, for example, by GL’s willing borrowing from the EU at times, and his ongoing prerogative in shaping and limiting its content.

As far as this galaxy issue goes, I stand behind it as good, useful lore because a) it has a long history in the EU; b) it is supported by many direct allusions from characters in the movies; c) it not only doesn’t contradict anything GL ever created, it actually supports and enhances it.

The merit of the last reason here is obvious, since, as I pointed out, the Star Wars saga is at face value not strong in assigning hard numbers and science to its cinematic purposes. But the galactic numbers previously cited are widely taken as virtually official within the legendaria of SW, with virtually no other contesting claims.

It’s your thread, Dragon, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

That info is solid, but it’s never made an open-and-shut case, imo.

I don't know if you've read the associated blog or not, but he provides additional quotes from Lucas and others that further support the case, that have yet to be added to the main presentations.


It’s your thread, Dragon, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.

I don't necessarily disagree with the galaxy-spanning civilization idea, per sae, and there are some facts about the size of the Empire (such as Tarkin's million worlds quote) that can't be disputed, I just disagree that it is clearly indicated in the official/primary canon, and that even if the Republic/Empire does span its entire galaxy, that does not automatically mean a galaxy the same size as ours (and by the ANH novelization, the SW galaxy is only a 'modest-size' galaxy, which would suggest a dwarf galaxy, which is typically around 16,000 lightyears or so or less, though it also mentions the Empire spanning only a small section of that galaxy, which would still fit, since such a galaxy would still have as many as several billion stars, and a million-world empire would easily fit into small section of that).

I just don't bide with the idea of "This is what everyone believes, so it's true." Just because something is a mass belief does not make it right, and it's nowhere near a scientific approach. I want an accurate answer, not just a popular one. The popular assumption is all too often an incorrect one, after all (just take a look at the Defiant and the cloaking device as a prime example).

There's also Qui-Gon's statement in TPM that most stars in the SW galaxy have planets in them. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are all inhabitable planets, or even all anything worth staking a claim to, but it does allow for a fairly significant concentration of the Empire in even a dwarf galaxy (where as current analysis of the stars in our galaxy suggests that a significant proportion of them may not have any planets at all, which would require the Federation to spread out more, though that's not entirely conclusive, given the limited nature of our ability to scan other solar systems).

Then there's also the planet Kamino, where the clone troopers were grown, which was stated as being beyond the outer rim, yet Obi-wan didn't indicate a region beyond the edge of the galaxy when asking the Jedi archive attendant, and the map zoomed in on a region well inside the image of the galaxy displayed (he actually indicated a region slightly above the galaxy's ecliptic, but more than halfway inward towards the core, and the map zoomed in on a similar region).

[jkpetrich]

I can't believe i posted into this ****ing thread.......it's like me and my friends "Who Would Win, Hulk vs Superman" screaming match, lol.

It can be an interesting discussion as long as people don;t start flaming and get in a hissy fit. LOL!

[Neshy]

i remember reading in multiple places that star wars weapon couldn't even damage trek shields.
Id say trek wins, the fighters are toast and the trek ships would devestate star destroyers.

[Richman12]

Well form my stand point if at the Battle of Endor let us say a wormhole opened. Through that wormhole came an expeditionary force of Federation ships came which side do you guys think the Federation would side with the Rebellion or the Empire?

Myself I would say the Rebellion would be an ally to the Federation so Defiant class ships flying next to the Falcon and such.

[Alesis]

Consider the fact that SW strategists are used to planning war on a galactic scale. ST strategists are used to singular battles or wars that are parts of single quadrants. Let's say we take out the technology factor for this instance, and make the number of ships equal. The SW side would know how to operate on such a large theater of war, the ST people would lag behind in tactics as they get used to having to fight on such a huge scale. Keep in mind that both sides are equal in technology, so speed and firepower are equal. I'd like to see what people like Grand Admiral Thrawn would come up with to use against Starfleet, or the Klingons, nevermind the Borg.

Note: Yes, I know Thrawn is EU, I'm just giving an example. :P

[s32ndDamian]

What we do know is any Star Wars movie, even the episode 1-3 crap, will DESTROY Star Trek at the box office... Proving SW fans will back up the Lucas with the cash. :eek:

[Arcturus]

Star Trek is all about finding a creative solution to the problem. It took Rebel Bothan spies hell to get the kind of info a simple scan of a Star Trek computer could provide. There are weaknesses, we would exploit them. I say we because we're talking about Earth, not a galaxy far far away. If that doesn't scare you I'll have the Ewoks explain how weak the Empire is.

[Richman12]

Star Trek is all about finding a creative solution to the problem. It took Rebel Bothan spies hell to get the kind of info a simple scan of a Star Trek computer could provide.

That is 1 of the main advantages that ST ships have over SW ships but lets not forget to mention that cloaking devices would make a klingon ship like a Negh Var or the original Defiant that has cloaking devices.

Not to mention the Romulan Plasma Torpedo which is close range but can cause a lot of damage to a Star Destoryer in 1 hit alone.

[yardbird]

I don't necessarily disagree with the galaxy-spanning civilization idea, per sae, and there are some facts about the size of the Empire (such as Tarkin's million worlds quote) that can't be disputed, I just disagree that it is clearly indicated in the official/primary canon, and that even if the Republic/Empire does span its entire galaxy, that does not automatically mean a galaxy the same size as ours (and by the ANH novelization, the SW galaxy is only a 'modest-size' galaxy, which would suggest a dwarf galaxy, which is typically around 16,000 lightyears or so or less, though it also mentions the Empire spanning only a small section of that galaxy, which would still fit, since such a galaxy would still have as many as several billion stars, and a million-world empire would easily fit into small section of that).

I just don't bide with the idea of "This is what everyone believes, so it's true." Just because something is a mass belief does not make it right, and it's nowhere near a scientific approach. I want an accurate answer, not just a popular one. The popular assumption is all too often an incorrect one...

Dragon, it's tiresome for both of us I know, but the point isn't about popularity or mass belief, or wild inuendo, it's about information that holds a distinct level of canonicity. There's nothing that I know of that would support your dwarf-galaxy theory; all indications, from lore and backstory that has been consistently approved by Lucas for decades over all kinds of media (books, comics, video games, glimpses in the movies, official Inside-the-World-of-Star-Wars type things, other filmic allusions, etc. ) is that the galaxy is much like our own, about 100,000 light years across, or so, and that the Republic/Empire spans the vast majority of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars_galaxy
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_galaxy
http://starwarsatlas.uw.hu/
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/InterGalactic_Banking_Clan
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Modimapgalaxy1.jpg
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/8/8a/GalacticMap-Jedi-Archives.jpg
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/8/88/Starwarsgalaxy.jpg

As for scientific approach and accuracy in this debate, such enthusiasm is charming, but it's asking a bit much, imo. That's why kilowattts, gigajoules are just blah blah blah. This is an idle and LoL-worthy passtime for aging geeks, not a lab report for Captain Picard. I don't mind comparing the giant orange to the small apple in many respects, but it comes down to the spirit of things.

Now I'm off to the Hottest TOS chick thread.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Actually, yardbird, Lucas has had little to do with the EU, and certainly hasn't given its content his "Stamp of Approval" (TM), save what bits he 'borrowed' for his prequel movies (he himself said he doesn't read any of it, save the comics sometimes). He is not involved in any approval process with the EU, and all EU continuity is handled by Lucas Licensing, which is division (or subsidiary, or sub-company, or whatever the proper/official business term is) of Lucasfilms, Ltd. that is in charge of the books, games, and other EU material (i.e. the stuff that they license the SW title to). That he has personally approved of everything or anything in the EU is a misconception, perpetuated by certain people who wish the EU to be accepted as canon for the purpose of advancing their pro-Wars vision of the ST vs SW debate. The presentation on canonwars.com shows that (though it is very lengthy and hard to find enough time to read properly, I'll grant you).


Now, to the debate at hand.

First, I would like to establish that, barring multiple orders of magnitude of difference between energy outputs, Star Trek weaponry and Star Wars weaponry would affect each other, even if Star Wars weaponry are laser-based. Lasers are less effective against Federation shields than particle weapons, but with enough energy, they would do just as much damage. That's simple physics. For example, 'visible' light does far less damage to an object than infra-red light, because IR light waves apply heat to the target much faster than 'visible' light waves, causing the target to heat up, weaken and eventually melt (or combust, if it is composed of a flammable material), but if you apply enough energy in the 'visible' light spectrum, you will still create the same thermal effects, you just need a lot more because 'visible' light has a different wavelength frequency than IR light. Phasers and lasers would be much the same, though the difference would be more than just the wavelength.


That said, the effectiveness of Star Trek weaponry against Star Wars weaponry and vice-versa is still questionable, because of the difference in energy outputs. If one force typically exchanges energy in the range of 100 units, for example, and the other exchanges energy in the range of 10,000 units, then the weapons of the first force aren't going to have much effect on the defenses of the second. At least general firepower yields are a very important factor in determining the likely outcome of a conflict between the United Federation of Planets (and allies should they become involved) and the Galactic Empire (at its height, presumably just before Endor, or after a failed or semi-successful Rebel assault on Endor).


Other critical factors include the maximum and maximum sustainable speed the starships of the two forces are capable of, as well as their maneuverability. In warfare, speed and maneuverability are a critical elements, and significant differences between opponents can change the entire landscape of a conflict.

Numbers of vessels and soldiers available is critical as well, though it can be negated by superior speed and/or firepower, and requires a greater level of superiority to negate advantages in either of the former.

Industrial capacity is critical as well, because the ability of a force to replace its losses, or scale up its force in response to a total war, is vital.

Weapons range and accuracy are additional factors to consider, because a force that can effectively target and fire upon its opponent well beyond the effective range of its opponents weapons can easily control an engagement if the opponent doesn't have a significant superiority in speed, and can still inflict significant damage to the opponent if it does.

Lastly, a critical factor are the tactics and strategies employed by the forces engaged. The force with superior tactics and strategies can easily overcome a stronger force, unless the stronger force is completely overwhelming. Any special abilities or maneuvers the forces are capable of using to influence an engagement or the war also fall into this category.


First, I would like to address a few points on tactics and strategy. Until recently (Dominion War for the Federation, Clone War for the Empire), neither side has had any experience with such a major conflict. According to the current queen of Naboo in AotC, there has not been any war since before the Republic was founded. Obviously, this was not a total peace, since there were still pirates, raiders, smugglers, etc. but there had been no conflict large enough to call war since before the creation of the Republic.

The Federation is much the same, since the last major interstellar conflict in recent history (prior to the Dominion War) had been the Earth-Romulan War, which took place just before the founding of the Federation. Again, this has not been a total peace, since the Federation had engaged in some minor wars with the Cardassians and the Tzenkethi, but the implication is that they were only border conflicts (from the perspective of the Federation, at least – it was apparently a much more devastating war for the Cardassians, who have demonstrated a general technological inferiority to the Federation), and the Cold War with the Klingon Empire of the 23rd Century never escalated into an actual shooting war, despite occasional skirmishes.

This leaves both sides relatively inexperienced when it comes to fighting a major war (from our perspective, anyway), though the Federation could call on the experience of their various member races and more militaristic allies such as the Klingons, and the Empire undoubtedly has access to the extensive archives and records of the Republic that it used to be. In this area, past experience, they are more or less equal in their tactics and strategies.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

(The forum character limit is 10,000 characters. I had to split my post up because it exceeded that by about 2,000 characters)

In tactical engagements, however, the Federation has demonstrated a certain level of superiority in their willingness and ability to use their non-weapon technology and even the environment around them in creative and unexpected ways against their opponents, an ingenuity that the Empire has demonstrated a lack of, and indeed would be required to lack, since such free thinking tends to disrupt, and is smothered by, enforced order and dictatorship.

Additionally, the extent of true experience the Empire gained from the Clone War is questionable, since the entire conflict was orchestrated by Darth Sidius. As such, the strategic lessons learned would be tainted by the fact that Palpatine was manipulating both sides into doing exactly what he wanted to get the exact results he desired.

As such, the Federation would likely have at least some advantage of superior tactics and strategy.



Next, I touch on weapons range and accuracy. Every fleet engagement in Star Wars we have seen, from the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo, to the Clone War battle over Coruscant, to the Battle of Endor, has taken place at very close range, when all participants were well within visual range of each other. The TIE Fighter the Falcon was pursuing in ANH was out of weapons range while it was still well within visual range. The novelization of RotJ references a long-range battle between a Mon Cal Star Cruiser and an ISD visible from the bridge of Ackbar’s flagship, and when we see the two combatants on-screen, we find that they are no more than a handful of kilometers apart, at most. Also in that mini-engagement, we see what appears to be one of the ISD’s heavy turbolaser batteries firing on the Mon Cal cruiser and missing. Additionally, at ranges of less than a kilometer (probably a lot less), the Millenium Falcon’s guns have trouble hitting the attacking TIE Fighters. At the almost point-blank-range of a few dozen meters, at absolute most, Jango Fett’s Slave One has trouble hitting Obi Wan’s Jedi Fighter despite a very high rate of fire from his guns, and Obi Wan’s rather lazy evasive maneuvers (and while yes, Obi Wan was a Jedi master, most of his evasive maneuvers consisted of fairly tame dodges and weaves – by the standards of modern fighter pilots, he would have been practically sitting still through much of his evasion). In RotS, the droid fighters defending the Separatist command ship had trouble hitting Anakin and Obi Wan’s fighters, even though the two Jedi were flying almost straight at them, with minimal evasion (they weave back and forth a little bit, that’s about it), despite an insane volume of fire. The same thing happens with the Millenium Falcon in RotJ when faced with the first wave of Imperial fighters (and she was a bigger target, without a Jedi at the helm). In AotC, while pursuing Count Dooku, Anakin and Obi Wan’s gunship comes under fire from Count Dooku’s escorts. Dooku’s escorts barely manage to score any hits at all, despite being only a few dozen meters behind the gunship, which was undergoing minimal evasive maneuvers (and was flying almost straight for much of the pursuit). Most of the ship-to-ship engagements we have seen have taken place at point-blank-range, with two ships lining up side-by-side to hammer away at each other like 15th- to early 19th-Century sailing ships. Occasionally, we’ve seen ships firing on each other from distances of up to a few kilometers, but this is less common. Aside from the Trade Federation battleships firing on Amidala’s yacht while it was attempting to run the blockade, we have never seen Star Wars ships firing on other Star Wars, and even at those short ranges, we have seen poor accuracy against opposing fighters and maneuvering vessels, and even ships over a kilometer in length.

In Star Trek, however, we have seen and heard of ships firing on targets at ranges in the tens, hundreds and thousands of kilometers, and even as far away as two hundred thousand kilometers, with reliable accuracy. We have seen Federation starships engage and quickly destroy small, fighter-sized craft at close range (TNG “Conundrom”), and Federation guided torpedoes have been known to be able to hit targets as small as a single meter at a range of approximately 90,000 kilometers (TOS “The Changeling”), and Federation phaser cannons have been known to hit small ships maneuvering at sublight at a range of 75,000 kilometers (TOS “Journey to Babel”), and small rockets at ranges of 2,000 kilometers (TOS “Patterns of Force”) in the mid-23rd Century. In the 22nd Century, civilian-grade weaponry has a maximum range of 8 kilometers (ENT “Fortunate Son”). In TNG “A Matter of Honor”, Riker advises the Klingon captain to hold his fire until 40,000 kilometers, advice that is questioned, clearly indicating that Klingon weapons of the mid-24th Century are capable of accurate fire at ranges significantly greater than 40,000 kilometers. In TNG “The Wounded” we hear weapons firing and hitting at ranges between two hundred and three hundred thousand kilometers. In DS9 “The Search, Part 1”, we are told that 100,000 kilometers is well within weapons range of Dominion attack ships. In VOY “Baics, Part 1” we see Kazon torpedoes demonstrate a minimum effective range of 4.5 million kilometers (and that only if Voyager was pursuing at only Warp 1, which is highly unlikely), and Voyager demonstrates an effective phaser range of at least 2,000 kilometers (Janeway orders fire held until that range).

There are plenty of other examples of Federation and other weapons firing accurately at ranges of several thousand kilometers or more, and others in which ships fire at several kilometers or more.

Range and accuracy advantage: Federation, by far. Starfleet ships would be able to open fire on Imperial ships long before they entered into the Imperials’ effective range, and strike from that range with more accuracy than the Imperials could achieve at anything more than point-blank-range.



And now it is time for Intermission! Please be sure to visit our snack bar! Where you will find tasty popcorn, soda, candy and hotdogs!

[bedoll34]

now this would be a good movie, then the borg attacks and both sides have to team up to fight the borg lol

[Kinjiru]

Hehe...

Back to it.

"I'm (Star Wars) rubber and You're (Star Trek) glue... yada, yada. :)

[yardbird]

The presentation on canonwars.com shows that (though it is very lengthy and hard to find enough time to read properly, I'll grant you).

Dragon, mate, canonwars.com is worthless unless one learns to read between the lines. But everyone knows a little bit of SW trivia. Try some of these. Warning: though there is only one canonical answer that is used exclusively throughout all represenations of the SW universe, these have never appeared in any of the films or novelizations, and thus you would disregard them as being proper lore. Pedantry. Even GL knows the answers to these (and yes I am aware he does not personally approve every decision regarding licensing, etc.). There is only one canonical answer to the following questions:

1) What is the name of the race of "hammerheads" seen the Mos Eisley cantina?
2) What kind of ship is a YT-1300?
3) What kind of armour did Jango & Boba Fett wear?

[Makadav]

he got ya there, and all easy questions for any nerd or nerdette.

Ithorians
Correllian Light Frieghter, the most well known being the Falcon. (Like the YT-2400 series myself)
Mandalorian Armor

And now, the pickles wish to ask the hamster the facts of life.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Dragon, mate, canonwars.com is worthless unless one learns to read between the lines.

Why? What makes it worthless? I'm not asking you to debunk the whole thing (that'd take forever), but at least give some explanation for why it has no value.


Also, we're still in Intermission. Don't forget to try our tasty hamburgers and popcorn and fresh-brewed coffee at our Concession Stand!

[NCC-2000]

The empire would loose simply because they would concentrate their fire on the core of the fleet and leave their flanks unguarded. In addition, a single transphasic torpedo would probably destroy the Death Star, Mk. II.
The Empire's fleet would be so scattered after the loss of a the Death Star Mk. II, then, the star destroyers would be easy prey for almost any federation starship, and a significant fleet, probably including several Prometheus class ships would be assembled for an invasion of this magnitude.

[yardbird]

Why? What makes it worthless? I'm not asking you to debunk the whole thing (that'd take forever), but at least give some explanation for why it has no value.

I didn't say it had no value; I'm saying you're reading it in a wrong way, in a wrong context, and attributing to certain quotes powers of exclusion that were never meant to be evoked.

By the logic of your interpretation calling an Ithorian an Ithorian, or a Bith a Bith, or talking about Mandalorian armour, or holocrons, or Kuat Drive Yards, or krayt dragons, or hundreds or possibly thousands of established pieces of universally accepted, widespread lore, all these things are invalid because they are never mentioned in the films or novelizations. It's nonsense.

According to that view, I can't say an Ithorian is an Ithorian, because it isn't canon, but the E.T. race, which is seen on screen ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Children_of_the_Green_Planet ), is canon.

I'll leave it at that, mate, and let you be. I know your beautiful, fact-filled treatise will put this 30-year geek-o-rama to rest once and for all.

[vanlore]

Well that settles it, after reading every post it seems the United Federation would defeat the
Galactic Empire easy. Looks like Star Trek wins agin.

[Richman12]

Well that settles it, after reading every post it seems the United Federation would defeat the
Galactic Empire easy. Looks like Star Trek wins agin.

Lol yeah but this is a Star Trek site it tends to be very different on a Star Wars site.

Also I have always had this question about both series about where the heck do they go to the bathroom on thier ships. Reason for this question is that they never show a bathroom on either a Star Trek ship exepect maybe in 1st Contact when Captian Picard is washing his face.

As for Star Wars ships I was wondering this because you never see bathrooms listed in any of the Falcons cut away's as of to date.

Lol makes you wonder if Jedi go to the bathroom in thier robes or not lol.:D

[Cyberwolfman]

Wow, no one even mentioned the Q. One snap of the finger and adios Empire.

That's cheating, but if the two universes ever did meet up that's a definite possibility.

The Borg vs the Empire would be a more interesting fight. Thier ships are more comperable in size and mass to a Star Destroyer, so that should end the size arguement. One scan from a Borg vessel would find the weakness of the shields of a Star Destroyer. They would discover in seconds that all they have to do to take a Star Destroyers shields down is take out those round tower structures that a pint sized fighter can do solo. And since in the Star Trek universe there are such things as targeting sensors, it would only take a single shot to hit those towers. Evasive manuevers, lol, a Star Destroyer is about as manueverable as a current day cargo ship, so theres no dodging anything. Borg Cubes, even being as large as they are can still do circles around a Star Destroyer. Once the shields are down though....it's assimilation time. Once that's done the Borg would know the locations, armorments, and crew compliments of the whole Empire. Just the sheer number of Storm Troopers would make them the next target for assimilation. The Collective could always use more drones to add to the Billions they have already. Yes, Billions, not Millions but Billions. The sheer numbers game goes to the Borg as well there, so if a ground incursion insued sure the Empire would take out some Borg drones first but then all the drones would adapt to the frequency of the lasers. Then its assimilation time again!


If you want to compare a Federation ship to a Star Destroyer, it would be like a WWII PT boat vs a previously mentioned 17th century battle ship. Sure the battle ship is larger and has larger weapons, but can't really do much against a small, fast, agile target. You can't kill what you can't hit. The PT boat would just peck away at the battleship, hitting key spots, taking out weapons all with a 20mm or 40mm gun.


Now ground fighting. In TOS episode The Omega Glory, a crazed Catain Tracey took out hundreds if not thousands of Yangs with a single phaser. Hand phasers and Phaser rifles have been shown to be fired in a wide dispersal mode taking out several people with one shot. It was demonstrated Lt. Commander Tuvok in a Voyager episode but it slips my mind on which one it was. He took out everyone on the bridge in a shingle shot. Sure the Empire may out number the Federation in sheer numbers but that didn't stop the Germans in WWII from nearly taking over Europe.


The Federation also has small fighter class ships as well, and unlike TIE Fighters, they have shields and are warp capable. You would only need one to take out wave after wave of TIE Fighters. Pilots on TIE Fighters can't hit anything less than a few hundred meters away while the Starfleet fighter could take them out like fish in a barrel.


It's all about tactics, technology, and manueverability. All of those end up favoring the Star Trek universe.


Sure you can rule a vast empire with weak weapons. Genghis Khan ruled 1/4 of the whole world, the largest empire ever in Earth's history...all with the bow and arrow.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I didn't say it had no value; I'm saying you're reading it in a wrong way, in a wrong context, and attributing to certain quotes powers of exclusion that were never meant to be evoked.

By the logic of your interpretation calling an Ithorian an Ithorian, or a Bith a Bith, or talking about Mandalorian armour, or holocrons, or Kuat Drive Yards, or krayt dragons, or hundreds or possibly thousands of established pieces of universally accepted, widespread lore, all these things are invalid because they are never mentioned in the films or novelizations. It's nonsense.

According to that view, I can't say an Ithorian is an Ithorian, because it isn't canon, but the E.T. race, which is seen on screen ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Children_of_the_Green_Planet ), is canon.

I'll leave it at that, mate, and let you be. I know your beautiful, fact-filled treatise will put this 30-year geek-o-rama to rest once and for all.

Actually, I believe the mention of the krayt dragon was first seen in the ANH novelization, so their existence would technically be canon (but that's nitpicking } ; =8 P ). To answer your question, though, no, they would not be canon of the 'official' franchise (though they are canon to the EU franchise). There are many similar popular beliefs in Trek that, while wide-spread and popular, and are canon in ST's 'EU', they are not official canon.

To use a real-world example, just because everyone BELIEVES the world is flat, doesn't mean the world is flat (and even that is a bit of a fallacy, since the belief that the world was flat in Columbus' time was nowhere near as wide-spread and universal as is commonly believed today).

There's nothing wrong with that, everyone is entitled to their own personal vision of the universe, but when dealing with open, public debate, and actual facts and evidence, the popular belief is not a valid source of evidence. This discussion is about provable facts and evidence; I don't really care what the popular belief is, I started this thread for the purposes of debate and discussion over reasonably accurate analysis, not to pander to the fantasies of the masses.

And if you want wrong context and attribution of unintended powers of exclusion, take a look at the canon policy as promoted by SDN and its affiliates and compare it to all the quotes presented in canonwars.com, in the context in which those quotes were made. The quotes consistently indicate a dual canon, in that the EU is an expansion of the films and tie in with the films, but that the films are stand-alone material that are independent of the EU. In other words, the EU is based off the films, but the films aren't based off the EU.

[sm12905]

OK, I did not have the time to read the entire thread, but here are my thoughts on this.
1 the Imperials lack a transporter system. this would be a definite disadvantage.
2 the thing that would really do the empire in, however, is their accuracy. Consider: in the first movie, how many rounds did the Imperial ships fire, and how many hit their mark? very few. In all of TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, how often did a federation ship miss it's target? (I can only think of once, and that was because the targeting sensors weren't set up.) Although the Empire's weapons are slightly more powerful, but their lack of being able to shoot would do them in.
Also, the death star wouldn't count for much (I mean the first one, the second wasn't able to move very well.) although it's shields would defend it from Phasers, the first Photon Torpedoes would shred it. (due to the fact they are a missile, they would penetrate the shields, and do major damage to the surface.)
Also, the Empire's lack of decent sensors would weaken it. while the Federation sensors can tell how many life forms are on a planet's surface, and tell which species each of them is, the Empire's sensors can not (to my knowledge) even detect a HUGE life sign on an otherwise-barren asteroid.

[vanlore]

wow your geek voodoo is Perfect Dragon.

[TFO-OptimusPrime]

Agreed, the federation, star trek ships themselves, have a better chance of winning an engagment against starwars ships. I recall and episode of Voyager where they transported a photon torpedo into a borg ship, blowing it into pieces. The weaponry is also a factor, the Empire ships use lazers, an episode of TNG comes to mind when a ship armed with lasers shot at the Enterprise, with shields lowered I believe, and it didn't even scratch the hull paint. The lack of shields on the Empire side is another advantage the Federation would have in their Fav.. In the end, Feds win Empire loses.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Agreed, the federation, star trek ships themselves, have a better chance of winning an engagment against starwars ships. I recall and episode of Voyager where they transported a photon torpedo into a borg ship, blowing it into pieces. The weaponry is also a factor, the Empire ships use lazers, an episode of TNG comes to mind when a ship armed with lasers shot at the Enterprise, with shields lowered I believe, and it didn't even scratch the hull paint. The lack of shields on the Empire side is another advantage the Federation would have in their Fav.. In the end, Feds win Empire loses.

They never actually fired, it was just noted that the lasers wouldn't have penetrated the Enterprise's navigational shields, and there was a big joke about lowering their primary shields in case they wanted to surrender. That doesn't mean that lasers are completely ineffective against Trek shields, it just means that they're less effective than phasers and disruptors, and would require more energy to do get the same effect (a laser, phaser, electric arc, even a flashlight, with enough energy will punch through anything, even Neutronium, if you can get it to pump out enough energy, otherwise you'd break the laws of physics). To be fair, though, there is evidence that SW weapons aren't actually lasers, so the reduced effectiveness of lasers may be moot.

That said, SW weaponry has never demonstrated the same yields that Trek weapons have. The VOY episode "RISE" contains an asteroid blasting scene where a standard, unaltered photon torpedo demonstrates an extreme minimum yield of 100 megatons (with actual yield probably much higher), TNG "Skin of Evil" shows the detonation of a single photon torpedo on the planet's surface with a fireball approximately 440 km in diameter, roughly measured (by comparison, the 9 megaton B53 nuclear bomb produced a fireball 1 - 1.6 kilometers in diameter), and DS9 "The Die is Cast" shows massive atmospheric disturbances from the fleet's bombardment, with even larger fireballs, one that must be several thousand kilometers across (larger than the combined territorial size of most countries on Earth), visible shortly before the shot moves away from the view of the viewscreen (the timing and atmospheric disturbance, as well as the general appearance of the planet suggesting dense cloud cover that would mask initial and smaller blasts, and thick enough that it took a few moments for the initial fireballs and plums of debris to rise high enough in the atmosphere to become visible, and the camera angle switched away just as that was happening). Additionally, after only a few seconds bombardment with their opening volley, thirty percent of the planetary crust was destroyed. That requires weapon yields in the several hundred megaton to low gigaton range, at least.

That puts Trek photon torpedoes at, say, an approximate 1000 megatons, a single gigaton yield. Phasers have to have at least comparable energy ratings, which put them in the mid- to high-PetaJoule/PetaWatt range (1 ton of TNT releases ~4.184 GigaJoules of energy, which works out to 4.184 PetaJoules for every Megaton of TNT. 1000 Megatons x 4.184 = 4,184 PetaJoules). 1 PetaJoule = 1 quadrillion Joules, and 1 PetaWatt (a Watt is 1 Joule per second) is enough energy to power 10 trillion 100-watt lightbulbs.


Star Wars weapons have not demonstrated any yield that comes even close to that kind of energy output, with the sole exclusion of the Death Star's main weapon (which has some evidence of being some sort of reaction-inducing weapon, much like Trek phasers without the phase-out effect) and the explosion of the two Death Stars (and it should be particularly noted that the latter was not large enough to significantly affect the moon of Endor, despite its proximity and relatively low orbit, which puts an upper limit on the explosive force of a sudden release of the Death Star's main reactor).

Trek ships have superior range, sublight speed, maneuverability, acceleration, and firepower. The Empire has an advantage in numbers (though how large is debatable), and may have an advantage in FTL speed. Industrial capacity is hard to measure; the Federation has superior technology, but the Empire has larger numbers. The Empire almost certainly does have an advantage in personnel numbers, though their starships appear to be very crew-intensive, unlike Federation starships, which would negate some of that advantage.

[Wildboar]

guess I don't really have much to contribute to this as I simply enjoy both and let them do their own thing to entertain me in different ways.

so in that spirit, I'll share a couple videos most of you may have already seen. Some may break off into other sci-fi (babylon, galactica) but it's fun to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idbBTGwj6g8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUE0_lLzXMc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxMNDMBf-e4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrUjMwSVqlI

cheers. may the force be with you while you live long and prosper

[Forjo]

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

In that light, I offer the following.

The rebellion "beat" the empire. The federation could have crushed the rebellion.

Imperial ships fight at sublight and achieve FTL speeds while pursuing or running. Federation starships maneuver and engage in combat at warp speads, hundreds of times the speed of light.

Not really a contest.

-Forjo

[Himser]

new here and to this online debates, but not RL ones

there are various factors that are super advantages for both sides

as i am not very technical i rather look at what happens (events) rather then technobabble on boith sides as boths sides have discrepincies by the writers

Federation,

Clones
transporter can make a human in a second, thats an near unlimited supply of qualified personell even tho the federation would most likely not use this advantage

holo people,
a instantanious group of (corprial) beings that can phase in and out according to need and can handle wepons and crew ships and hanle tools.

replicators
according to what i see a next to unlimited supply of well supplies,

can maby be uused on a massve scale for quick industrial shipbuilding

Photon torp[edos
very manuvrable, homeing ( if programed right) apperas to be medeum dammage,)

Phasers,
Quick, continueus, appers to be light dammage but rapid

transporter
quickly move people from one point to anouther

warp
medeum speed at FTL, but seems to be end all when anyfederation ship is fighting and dammaged

impulse
quick STL speed,

manuvrability
good for the biger federaton ships, fight at areas around 5km

hand wepons
next to useless, newer modles more effective, but still doesent pack a wallop

troop tactics,
suck, need training , WW1 tactics were better or at least comparable

ship classes
fight like destroyers and frigates, manuvrable, out flank tactics, good vs other destroyers, ( if you go by gneral accepted principals of WW2)



Empire

Cloans
can make cloans, but takes longer to make then instantanious. ( i know were not quoting books but 5 years accvording to them )

Droids,
Massavly build droids, wile stupid, the do outnumber and outgun most armies
also droids are used on a wide scale for everything

torpedos,
not as manuvrable as federation, and less payload, but massive numbers

Turbo Lazers
massive turrents, quick firing, seem to do massive damage comparable to up scale disrupters, or photon torpedos, ( by looking at dammage taken on movies and shows)

hypoer drive
massivly quick . simmiler to a trans warp ( or that other one voyager encounterd)

STL
slower then federation impulse

manuivrability ( Starships,)
Slow, massive bulk , oil tanker( or aircraft carrier style) , smaller are quicker but not comparable to feds

manuvrability ( fighters )
lots, even droid fighters, turbo lazers annot hit, smaler turrents are needed to counter, or other fighters.

more manuvrable then defiant, delta flyer, so even with as few hits as those take, fighters would be harder to hit


hand wepons,
blasters powerful, quick firing,

also use macine gun style ,

grenads also used, ( thermal detonator)

Troop Tactics,
storm troopers, armor effective ( as seen on first assault of Tantive IV 2 stormtrooprs down, 6 rebels)
tactics are ciommon millatary of todays time

Ship Classes,
Frigates, corvettes quicker, less firepower,

Cruisers amd battleships slow, big guns, lots of fire power , distance fighting

dreadnaughts, huge, slow, massive battleships

Fighters,
quick manuvrable, low payload but rapid, high manuvrability,


( stormtroopers cant hit good guys, but what bad guy can [unless redcoats, or random rebles??)

conclusion.

ship to ship .. ( no fighters) a fed ship would be an match for a simmiler sized impereal ship, an impereal ship with fightrers however would by my estimation be more then a match for a equil sized fed ship. ( think jem,adar fighers 10 X smaller, and 10X more, and more manuvrable. )

fleet to fleet. fed tactics are mass swarming and destroyer tactics. at 5km range.

impereal are fighter swarm, ( and with no fighters to oppose) and far range artillary style. with ability for close blasting.

empire to empire

Empire. million worulds thousands of races. huge economy, massive industrial complex, droid ships, death stars, cloans, ect ect.

federation .. 100 woulds( maby coupld hundred) but near unlimited ships, and crew if it were used in that way .. so .. id say it would be a close fight .. unless the federation cannot/does not use its cloaning transpotter system and replicater system if it refuses to do this .. impereal victory very quickly.


ps im a fan of both sides i do consoder books to be cannon as lucusarts uses them in its productions. and wile i dont see star treck books be used in its films .. they are good too


overall a galexy vs a little part of one quadrent .. well .. its almost a no win .. but with fed tech its close ..

[renef78]

A couple comments:

1) Just because the Rebellion was weaker than the Empire, it doesn't mean that the Federation could beat it. The Rebellion wasn't just a bunch of guys running around in their pajamas. They had their own space fleets, too. Besides, the tide only turned against the Empire because Darth Vader killed the Emperor. There's no reason whatsoever why Darth Vader would help the Federation, unless one wants to make the argument that Picard is his son.

2) The comment in Star Trek about an opponent using lasers was in reference to a race which was well over 100 years behind them technologically. It's ludicrous to think that a laser would leave the Enterprise unharmed if, say, it had the power to tear a planet apart. Of course Imperial lasers would do damage. And with the amount of guns they have on a Star Destroyer, they'd tear a Sovereign class starship apart in a heartbeat.

3) Transporters are no help whatsoever in conflicts with the Empire. For one, you can't beam a bomb or other device while your shields are up. And if a Starfleet ship takes down its shields, then it can pretty much count on being destroyed immediately. Second, you can't beam through someone elses shields. I'm pretty sure the Empire has shields on their ships. Third and finally, it doesn't take a whole lot to block a transporter beam. Inclement weather has prevented beaming. There're reasons transporters aren't used as weapons in Star Trek, and those reasons equally apply against Star Wars ships. So no, you wouldn't be seeing anyone beaming bombs into Imperial ships at any point.

I vastly, VASTLY, prefer Star Trek over Star Wars. There is no question about that. But lookinig objectively at things, one can't make a reasonable argument that Starfleet would beat the Empire. Even if one were to make the numbers numerically equal on both sides, Starfleet would still be slaughtered. The Super Star Destroyers would annihilate the Sovereign class starships (http://216.77.188.54/coDataImages/p/Groups/137/137974/folders/291557/2337235STVSW.jpg) within seconds, the Star Destroyers would destroy the Galaxy class starships seconds later, while the rest of the Imperial Fleet turns Starfleet to mulch. The Federation Fighters would probably do pretty well against the TIE-Fighters, but then they'd be scalped in turn by the Imperial capital ships who no longer have any opponents. The Imperial ground forces would then chew through the Federation ground forces like a rottweiler chewing on a bone. It isn't a question at all of who would win. It's just a question of how long it'd take the Federation to die. Even if one added the Dominion, Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans to the mix, and still reduced the Empire so they were numerically equal, it still wouldn't change the result. Just my opinion, of course, but expecting any other result is just wishful thinking.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Size isn't everything, Cmdr. Vaughn; just because the SSD is that big, doesn't mean it's equally powerful. With the sole exception of the Death Stars' weapons and explosions (and as I noted earlier, the former could easily be a chain-reaction type weapon), nothing in SW has demonstrated weapons yields even comparable to Trek. Explosions of the main guns of Venator class star destroyers against the hulls of enemy ships are below the kiloton range, where as we've seen photon torpedoes demonstrate yields in the hundreds of megatons to low gigaton range (they're also shielded, and could easily use high-intensity, short-lived forcefields to 'shape' the explosion when not going for mass damage effects (such as against asteroids or ground targets), restricting the blast radius and confining the explosive energy to a much smaller area (which is the most logical explanation for why standard, unaltered torpedoes detonate so massively against some things, and not against others).

The only reference to anything that comes anywhere close to Trek yields in SW is the novelization of RotS, which implies that the big turbolasers are capable of 'vaporizing a small town', which would put them in the general range of 1-2 megatons, a fraction of the yield of Star Trek weapons.

[Dericho]

The comparisons are a bit stretched, since allowances are already being made for the two creations to exist alongside one another when they are clearly very different realities. Not just technologies, realities. And for all the neat little 'Mirror Universe' nonsense that trek does, and it IS nonsense, reality hopping does not fit with SW for sure. As someone mentioned, it would be more in line with Dr Who or even Sliders.

yes yes, I know, it's all in good fun.

But while Trek is science fiction, SW is space opera and about as well grounded in 'science' as Firefly. In fact, Westerns and Lord of the Rings have more in common with SW than SW does with Star Trek.

SW is heroic fantasy mixed with some spaceships and laser swords. It's about WW2 dogfights and yes, as someone mentioned, pirates and British naval ships trading broadsides.

It's about dark knights, good and evil wizards, magic and rescuing a princess.

You're all arguing the science of the two creations...when only one of them really has anything to do with science to begin with.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

The comparisons are a bit stretched, since allowances are already being made for the two creations to exist alongside one another when they are clearly very different realities. Not just technologies, realities. And for all the neat little 'Mirror Universe' nonsense that trek does, and it IS nonsense, reality hopping does not fit with SW for sure. As someone mentioned, it would be more in line with Dr Who or even Sliders.

yes yes, I know, it's all in good fun.

But while Trek is science fiction, SW is space opera and about as well grounded in 'science' as Firefly. In fact, Westerns and Lord of the Rings have more in common with SW than SW does with Star Trek.

SW is heroic fantasy mixed with some spaceships and laser swords. It's about WW2 dogfights and yes, as someone mentioned, pirates and British naval ships trading broadsides.

It's about dark knights, good and evil wizards, magic and rescuing a princess.

You're all arguing the science of the two creations...when only one of them really has anything to do with science to begin with.

And we will continue to do so whether you see the point in it or not, because we find it entertaining. Your point?

Yes, it is all in fun, we do know that they're two different universes, and that they focus on different aspects and different methods of telling their stories. We still find it entertaining to compare them from a tactical and strategic point of view, even though they'll only ever fit together in fanfics and cross-over mods for computer games. You're not telling us anything that we don't already know.

So, if you still don't see the point, don't bother with the thread, otherwise, sit back and enjoy the ride. } ; = 8 )

[Cyberwolfman]

How often do you actually see the Turbo Lasers on a ISD actually hit anything? I don't recall them ever hitting anything at all. You'd think after thousands of years of space travel and battles someone would have designed some targeting sensors but apparently not. Maybe thats why they need millions of droids in the armys, they can't aim!!! They couldn't even shoot jar-jar, and he's about as dumb as they come. (I didn't capitalize his name because his character isn't worthy of having capital letters, lol)


I doubt it would even take a Soveriegn Class to take out a Star Destroyer. Just take the Defiant, a smaller, armed to the teeth, extremely manueverable ship. All it would have to do is fly close to the surface of the Star Destroyer where the Turbo Lasers can't hit it ( I doubt they could hit it anyways ) and just fire away.

Sure, IF the Star Destroyer actually hit the Defiant it could cause some damage, but thats a big IF.

So I ask again....WHEN do you actually see the Turbo Lasers on an ISD actually hit ANYTHING?

[Dericho]

And we will continue to do so whether you see the point in it or not, because we find it entertaining. Your point?

Yes, it is all in fun, we do know that they're two different universes, and that they focus on different aspects and different methods of telling their stories. We still find it entertaining to compare them from a tactical and strategic point of view, even though they'll only ever fit together in fanfics and cross-over mods for computer games. You're not telling us anything that we don't already know.

So, if you still don't see the point, don't bother with the thread, otherwise, sit back and enjoy the ride. } ; = 8 )


My point was that you want to make it an argument supported by hard science, one you can 'win'--but there isn't any hard science in SW, so there's really no debate and you win by default. Especially limiting it to the dialog from scripts written by a guy who thought making the Kessel Run in "12 parsecs" would sound fast....

The ships, the weapons, the tactics..they don't work the same and instead of putting them on equal footing you are requiring SW reality to conform to ST reality in order to compare them. Which doesn't seem fair exactly. I mean, the point has been made there there isn't much real scientific talk in the SW movies--which is all that is being allowed as canon-- to describe or explain the technology...why assume that ST phasers would work against a star destroyer's shields if you don't have any data on those shields to begin with? Hence the need for assumptions and ground rules et al before the whole convention can ge under way, I guess.

In any case, from what I see you're finding it very easy to shoot down any counterarguments to your position.

But maybe that was your point.

I'll butt out now and leave you to your thread.

But I know who not to play cards or craps with, especially if the deck or dice are already on the table. ;)

[GeneStarwind]

here is an actual video of Star Trek vs Star Wars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxhrPaaCA4

[Ilithi_Dragon]

My point was that you want to make it an argument supported by hard science, one you can 'win'--but there isn't any hard science in SW, so there's really no debate and you win by default. Especially limiting it to the dialog from scripts written by a guy who thought making the Kessel Run in "12 parsecs" would sound fast....

Actually, the script and novelization indicate that it was a deliberate bogus statement on Han's part to sound impressive (watch Obi Wan's reaction, for example). But there I go nitpicking, again. } ; = 8 )

As for the rest of your points, 'hard' science can be derived by examining the effects of the weapons, on-screen measurements, etc. Actual dialogue is not always reliable (the above example, and other hyperbolic comments that have been taken literally when they were clearly added to 'set the scene', so to speak, being prime examples of unreliable dialogue), though it depends on the context and the character speaking it.

As for everything working on each other or not, and hard data on the shields, etc... Both universes still follow basic laws of physics. They each have their own slgiht variations, but the basic fundamentals are the same, so if you hit something with enough energy, it will have an effect. I don't have any hard, precise data on SW shields, no, but we can get a general range by gauging the strength of the weapons used, because the shield strengths are going to roughly correspond to the strength of the weapons. If I have a laser that puts out 5 megawatts, my shields are going to be in that general range, because they would be designed to block my weapons. They would also only be so much stronger than my weapons outputs because, 1. I would design weapons capable of penetrating my target's shields, and 2. it's easier to discharge energy in a destructive manner than to use it defensively, because energy doesn't need to be particularly controlled or refined to be destructive. Even if we can't get exact figures, we can get a rough idea, and that's good enough for the general purposes of the thread.

With the exception of the Death Star's superlaser, Star Wars weapons have rarely demonstrated yields above the sub-kiloton range. Even if we assume only a small percentage of their weapons' energy generates an actual explosion on impact, with the rest simply melting the target (which tends to go against the laws of thermodynamics), that still puts an upper limit on their energy output that is far below the minimum output of Trek weapons. Even if Trek weapons are far less effective than Wars weapons, they would have to be orders of magnitude less effective for SW weapons outputs to have comparable effective firepower. We don't need exact data to make a comparison, we can run a few numbers and get some general ranges, and compare those general ranges. If they're more or less the same, we know the outputs are more or less equitable, but if any one is significantly greater than the other, we will know that that one has a significant technological, or at least energy production and firepower advantage over the other, and that is the case we have here.

[Roberto]

Still at it Dragon? I wouldn't bother - I stopped paying attention after the people who think SW would win couldn't give one argument of the small tactics thread I put forth. People will never change their minds in even the smallest way because no one wants to listen.

[KypFisto]

After careful consideration and various debates thrown all over online forums across the globe, I've come to learn something about the ST vs. SW debate:

apples and oranges

The two universes are so different they stand on opposite ends of the science fiction spectrum.

[PAw]

Well okay lets make the proper.
At the present time on both universes
Star trek would win due to The rebels, Mandalorians and sepretists(sp?) are the three powers in the Star wars universe. there are small pockets of Imperial power around the place.
Due to the advanced nature of Federation and other Star trek empires Star wars would lose.. easily.

[Himser]

How often do you actually see the Turbo Lasers on a ISD actually hit anything? I don't recall them ever hitting anything at all. You'd think after thousands of years of space travel and battles someone would have designed some targeting sensors but apparently not. Maybe thats why they need millions of droids in the armys, they can't aim!!! They couldn't even shoot jar-jar, and he's about as dumb as they come. (I didn't capitalize his name because his character isn't worthy of having capital letters, lol)


I doubt it would even take a Soveriegn Class to take out a Star Destroyer. Just take the Defiant, a smaller, armed to the teeth, extremely manueverable ship. All it would have to do is fly close to the surface of the Star Destroyer where the Turbo Lasers can't hit it ( I doubt they could hit it anyways ) and just fire away.

Sure, IF the Star Destroyer actually hit the Defiant it could cause some damage, but thats a big IF.

So I ask again....WHEN do you actually see the Turbo Lasers on an ISD actually hit ANYTHING?

Tantive IV.. and thats the two forward ones. not the enitire ship .. they wanted to capture it.

one problem with star wars is they did not focus at all on star ship battels .. they focused on fighters and ground battles. so with what 15h of total canon matereal to go by and 95% of that is ground based/charicter based

star trek on the othert hand has 10 movies, 5 series, of many sesions .. shure 95% of star trek is not space battles ( theyd both be 300% better if it was 50% ) so theres multitudes of information to take from .. its like comparing abook on the invasion of normandy to a book on the whold war pasific and europe its not possable using the information you have ..

if you use the EU of both sides you do a ger a lot fairer of a debate as star wars would accualy have sciantific data .. and Star trek would have more matereal.

also remember you are saying canon for star trek is all the shows and movies this includes 49 writers for the one series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_writers) wile your also saying that ONLY george Lucas is canon for star wars .. to make it fair ONLY gene roddenberry is canon for star trek.. but seince this is your thread and in a star trek forum im not gonna try and force you'all to be fair ..

IF you were going to allow the same number of writers to star wars canon as star trek you would need to allow all the books and then times that by 2 ..

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Tantive IV.. and thats the two forward ones. not the enitire ship .. they wanted to capture it.

Tantive IV was also only a few hundred meters ahead of the ISD (maybe two kilometers at most), running in a straight line, and the ISD still missed a lot. That does not say a whole lot for SW accuracy.

one problem with star wars is they did not focus at all on star ship battels .. they focused on fighters and ground battles. so with what 15h of total canon matereal to go by and 95% of that is ground based/charicter based

star trek on the othert hand has 10 movies, 5 series, of many sesions .. shure 95% of star trek is not space battles ( theyd both be 300% better if it was 50% ) so theres multitudes of information to take from .. its like comparing abook on the invasion of normandy to a book on the whold war pasific and europe its not possable using the information you have ..

Despite the fact that SW has less screen time, it DOES have a lot of information. Granted, it is not as much as Trek, and not as much as we'd all like (the latter being something they could probably never provide), but there is still a LOT of information that can be pulled from the movies if you give them an in-depth analysis. Again, in most cases, it is not enough to give PRECISE data figures, but exacting precision isn't necessary. Rough figures and general ranges are more than sufficient for the purposes of this discussion.

if you use the EU of both sides you do a ger a lot fairer of a debate as star wars would accualy have sciantific data .. and Star trek would have more matereal.

You also get a lot of extra stuff that diverges from the core concepts and stories of both universes (such as the Genesis Wave arc in Trek, and the Yuuzhan Vong arc in Wars), not to mention all the 'special' things that tend to crop up (genesis wave device, Sun Crusher, etc.). Also, when most people think of ST vs SW, they don't think of all those books on either side, they think of the shows and the movies. Those are the core and official material of both franchises.

also remember you are saying canon for star trek is all the shows and movies this includes 49 writers for the one series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_writers) wile your also saying that ONLY george Lucas is canon for star wars .. to make it fair ONLY gene roddenberry is canon for star trek.. but seince this is your thread and in a star trek forum im not gonna try and force you'all to be fair ..

IF you were going to allow the same number of writers to star wars canon as star trek you would need to allow all the books and then times that by 2 ..

Fair is following the official canon policies of both franchises. ST official canon policy is to everything on screen. Wars is everything on film, in the script, and in the film novelizations. The number of writers is irrelevant to the official canon. (Also, if you go by just what Roddenberry wrote, you'd get 12 of the 80 TOS episodes, 3 TNG episodes and TMP, which is rather ridiculous). Fair is taking a reasoned, scientific approach to the analysis of the official canon materials. If you don't consider that fair, then I'm sorry.

[Arcturus]

Star Wars isn't Science Fiction, it's just Fiction, given it's Galactic setting doesn't suddenly make it "Science" I think Star Trek has more in common with 2001 a Space Odyssey than Star Wars.

Even Science aside and ship powers equal, I think ST can pull off a win on the Empire if the Ewoks could.

I suppose that's why I'm on the STO Forums :-p You always argue which side you want to win and nothing changes that, no new light is ever shed on the topic that makes the who would win obvious.

[SladeTeck]

This topic, for some reason, always gets me flustered. I constantly war with my best friend Mike on who would win in a battle Star Trek or Star Wars. Despite the science in Star Trek he pulls things like the force and other stuff, I also pull the fact a Star Destroyer looks like it couldn't manouver worth a flip. Anyway, he also likes to go to stardestroyer.net or some such place where they have a sort of fan fic where the Empire conquered the Star Trek universe.

I didn't talk to him for a month because of that. Still I find it hard to argue with him since we usually then get off topic and realize how cool it would be to have a Borged Super Star Destroyer.

Still, I would like more bullets to throw at him if anyone has any ideas.

[Arcturus]

This topic, for some reason, always gets me flustered. I constantly war with my best friend Mike on who would win in a battle Star Trek or Star Wars. Despite the science in Star Trek he pulls things like the force and other stuff, I also pull the fact a Star Destroyer looks like it couldn't manouver worth a flip. Anyway, he also likes to go to stardestroyer.net or some such place where they have a sort of fan fic where the Empire conquered the Star Trek universe.

I didn't talk to him for a month because of that. Still I find it hard to argue with him since we usually then get off topic and realize how cool it would be to have a Borged Super Star Destroyer.

Still, I would like more bullets to throw at him if anyone has any ideas.

I got your bullets :p

The Facts on turbolasers in the 400GW are bull, that would take Stellar mass using Fusion generatiors like the ones in SW.

The Force? Watch Plato's Stepchildren again. You'll like what you see.

Transporters.

The Genesis Device.

The Trilithium Missile that destroys Stars, and therefore, entire star systems. (Generations)

Metaphasics.

Q.

The Guiding Principles upon which StarFleet is based, in my opinion, trumps all else.

[SladeTeck]

Good bullets. I thank you for your contribution! Look out Mike I got more ammo!

[Lolcutus]

I remember seeing an episode of ST TNG when I was young which involved Wesley Crusher and some girl who was a ... leader of her world and she was being protected by a shapeshifting old hag.

In that episode there was a scene in which I could have sworn that the old hag turned into an EWOK!

Yes Ewoks are already in ST :D:D:D

[SladeTeck]

And that comment deserves the first ROFL copter.

ROFL
ROFL
ROFL
ROFL
:D:D

[Himser]

Star Wars isn't Science Fiction, it's just Fiction, given it's Galactic setting doesn't suddenly make it "Science" I think Star Trek has more in common with 2001 a Space Odyssey than Star Wars.

Even Science aside and ship powers equal, I think ST can pull off a win on the Empire if the Ewoks could.

I suppose that's why I'm on the STO Forums :-p You always argue which side you want to win and nothing changes that, no new light is ever shed on the topic that makes the who would win obvious.

ive argued both sides .. i maintain to star wars fanatics that the federation has an near unlimited supply of troops and near unlimited supply of ships ( limited by dilitheum). with transporters and a cloak that works ( well romulans do so fed if needed can get one)

whereas to trekkies i state and still consider the fact that it has at the very least 30 times the ammount if matereal to go off of .. and if we include all the EU materal ( witch is consistant with true canon) it makes a more even playing ground .. think if ONLY gene roddenberrys scripts were used .. its stupid .. not enouf matereal to go off of . so you have other writers to complete the universe on both sides .. its too bad you dont see it as this way .. that you only see star wars as the one writer where ublimited number if writers can write for star trek, as long as they work for paramount.

also i have looked at both sides and as a rule both sides are so fanatically entreched ino their belifes that nothing can take them away .. for instance the trekkies on here wouldnt even thing of stardestroyer.net .. tey HATE it .. and yes wile it does have some EU matereal .. and matereal that would prove fanatics wriong .. it isnot all unbased on canaon .. go look at the sight .. read it .. critizize wwhat you can ( theres lots there) but dont just ignore what you dont like .. accually refute it ..

the biggets thing i can think of right now is slave one destroying the astroids, with TNG enterprize would expand its whole payload to destroy one .. ( i just watched both shows, lol kinda randomly)

the myth that star wars dont have sheilds ( ever see the movies its ovious they do ) ..

also one other thng you have to take in context .. is the fact that the first SW movies were made with 70s technology , where yes thinsg are not goona look as good, refined and space battles wrre hard to figure out , look at TOS .. same tech . same crappy space battles.

( im not tr8ing to refute your claims .. but be fair in the matter, i know its all trekies in here and relly i like playing the devils advocate .. )

[Himser]

and yes Q can kill everyuone .. we all know this :P

[vp21ct]

I know im just jumping in here, but i would like to put in the possibility that star wars sheild wouldnt scramble sheilds because they never needed to, and if this has already been concluded as a win for star wars than my next counter is that star trek sheild only scramble transporter lock (it has been said repeatedly in the series) and that a transport through sheilds is possible, just dangerous, that being said, couldn't transporters be made into a desintegration weapon.

[vp21ct]

If it was feds all alone, star wars would win, but would have a hell of a time with resistance.

[Aametherar]

Star Trek would win cause the star wars idiots put crap like giant bullseyes on their death stars that take 1 shot to blow their entire moon sized starbases to dust, nuf said. Besidesm they would get 1 or 2 ships assimilated by the borg, and that'd be the end for those gutter crawling curs.

[Himser]

Star Trek would win cause the star wars idiots put crap like giant bullseyes on their death stars that take 1 shot to blow their entire moon sized starbases to dust, nuf said.

if you thought your ship was unbeatable wouldnt you put a bullseye on it .. ( no question that SW in universe engineers are too cocky tho)

[Ilithi_Dragon]

@ Arcturus: A good site to check out, if you haven't been there already, is ST-v-SW.net. Be warned, though, that if your friend frequents SDN, the creator of ST-v-SW.net, Darkstar/Gaurdian2000, is more or less the 'Great Satan' (TM) of the folks running SDN.

ive argued both sides .. i maintain to star wars fanatics that the federation has an near unlimited supply of troops and near unlimited supply of ships ( limited by dilitheum). with transporters and a cloak that works ( well romulans do so fed if needed can get one)

whereas to trekkies i state and still consider the fact that it has at the very least 30 times the ammount if matereal to go off of .. and if we include all the EU materal ( witch is consistant with true canon) it makes a more even playing ground .. think if ONLY gene roddenberrys scripts were used .. its stupid .. not enouf matereal to go off of . so you have other writers to complete the universe on both sides .. its too bad you dont see it as this way .. that you only see star wars as the one writer where ublimited number if writers can write for star trek, as long as they work for paramount.

Again, the number of writers is irrelevant. It's what they create that is important. Also, the EU is FAR from consistent with the true canon; it's the very nature of such expanded material (like the Trek books, the official canon is the core canon of the Trek books, but they are hardly consistent with it; some are, yes, but that's nowhere near across the board).

also i have looked at both sides and as a rule both sides are so fanatically entreched ino their belifes that nothing can take them away .. for instance the trekkies on here wouldnt even thing of stardestroyer.net .. tey HATE it .. and yes wile it does have some EU matereal .. and matereal that would prove fanatics wriong .. it isnot all unbased on canaon .. go look at the sight .. read it .. critizize wwhat you can ( theres lots there) but dont just ignore what you dont like .. accually refute it ..

I do not hate SDN, I despise the tactics of its operators and prominent members. They use pseudo-science, bad science, and often take the weakest example from the opposition, ignoring the numerous examples that present whatever is being focused on in a far stronger light, while doing the exact opposite to support their side. Further more, and what I consider the most damning part, is that they support harassment, slander, insults, death threats, the encouragement of real-life harassment, sharing of real-life personal information, and even the writing of horrible fanfics in which they go and beat their enemies to death IRL, all of that and more is supported as options to use against their opposition, and they will shout down any opposition until they have dominance, regardless of any information, arguments, logic or evidence presented. If you don't believe me, put put together a well-organized, reasoned, pro-Trek argument, and post it on SDN or any board frequented by prominent or semi-prominent SDN members under a new, unknown account, and see what happens. I guarantee you that the last thing you will get will be an intelligent, civil debate.

As for refuting SDN... I might have time to refute a few points in a week or so, but I don't have enough time to take on the full task of that. Fortunately, the creator of ST-v-SW.net has already undertaken that, and I strongly recommend you go through the site (also pay close attention to the Rabid Warsies section).


the biggets thing i can think of right now is slave one destroying the astroids, with TNG enterprize would expand its whole payload to destroy one .. ( i just watched both shows, lol kinda randomly)

Yes, but that's a one-off event, and we see multiple episodes in which single or pairs of torpedoes blow up massive asteroids, or create massive explosions on the surface of a planet. Taking the one, ridiculously weak incident in favor of numerous stronger incidents is bad science.


( im not tr8ing to refute your claims .. but be fair in the matter, i know its all trekies in here and relly i like playing the devils advocate .. )

And understand that I AM being fair. I am following the official canon policies of both franchises, using the material that is official to both universes. Bringing in material that is not part of the official canon (even though it has its own internal canon) distorts that pure canon-only view (and the EU is far from consistent with itself, let alone the movies, and there are numerous incidents of ridiculously strong and ridiculously weak performance throughout all the books).

[Thrawn2787]

As you can see (if you know who Thrawn is) I'm more of a Star Wars Nerd than a Trekkie, but I'm here for a reason! :D

Both are epic.

[Himser]

Yea I hate the slander too .. but there does seem to be wayy more trekkies then star wars fanatics so there the only sight i can think of thats half decent and in depth ( one other star wars one was just stupid .. it uses more insults then SDN)

and i have not yet foung ST-v-SW .. hmm it look sgood tho .. ( its not as high on google as SDN and a few others)

EU is fairly consitant .. it is forced by lucus arts to be consistant in a way... some books are .. wayyyy more consitant then others tho .. ( just like star trek books)

and yes they are both epic :P

and yes when you have one off events its not very good .. but when you only have 15hours of offical matereal .. tjat one off event becomes important. when you have 300h+ a one off event if contrdicted means nothoing .. like people siad its applles and oranges .. but you cant take everything fom one veiw. the astroid that TNG couldnt destroy and the ones the other ships could. well theres lots of materal to go off of there is bound to be conflitcs .. but when it comes to a 15h materal . one event = rule of law ( also the ISD destroying astroids like nothing)

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Yea I hate the slander too .. but there does seem to be wayy more trekkies then star wars fanatics so there the only sight i can think of thats half decent and in depth ( one other star wars one was just stupid .. it uses more insults then SDN)

Yeah, SDN is very much in-depth, but I will not accept the slander and vitriol. This is supposed to be for fun, and it's about two science fiction series, and on the internet, to boot, but people at SDN take it way too far. If they cannot present their evidence and arguments without backing them up with insults, slander, lies, ad hominem attacks against their opponents, etc., you have to question the validity of their evidence and arguments. Furthermore, there is documentation of Mike Wong and others planning to use Curtis Saxxon's position as the author of the ICS books, as well as influence gained over other EU authors (though intimidation and strong-arm tactics), to pad the SW stats in their favor, to further their cause against the ST side of the Vs debate. That's where the ridiculously insane numbers of the ICS come from, among other things.

Also, I've often felt that we Trekkies were in the minority, against a growing majority of SW fans (and when it comes to rabidly insane fans in the Vs debates, I have to say that the 'Rabid Warsies' definitely take the numbers prize).

[quoe=Himser]and i have not yet foung ST-v-SW .. hmm it look sgood tho .. ( its not as high on google as SDN and a few others) [/quote]

It's a very good site, very well presented. It hasn't been updated in a while (the creator has been too busy with real-life stuff to update the actual site in some time, though he posts in the corresponding blog semi-regularly), but the material that is there is very thorough, though some of the newer articles haven't been given a 'final draft' polish yet. I don't agree 100% with everything he presents, but most of it is well-reasoned and logical, and hard to refute.


EU is fairly consitant .. it is forced by lucus arts to be consistant in a way... some books are .. wayyyy more consitant then others tho .. ( just like star trek books)

Yeah, they're required to maintain a certain degree of consistency with the other EU books, as part of the 'EU universe', but that far from guarantees their consistency (even within the same book).


and yes when you have one off events its not very good .. but when you only have 15hours of offical matereal .. tjat one off event becomes important. when you have 300h+ a one off event if contrdicted means nothoing .. like people siad its applles and oranges .. but you cant take everything fom one veiw. the astroid that TNG couldnt destroy and the ones the other ships could. well theres lots of materal to go off of there is bound to be conflitcs .. but when it comes to a 15h materal . one event = rule of law ( also the ISD destroying astroids like nothing)

And when you encounter one-off events with multiple other events that contradict that one-off event, you right the one-off event off as a one-off event. If there are no other events available to contradict it, then it isn't a one-off event.

As for the ISDs popping asteroids, those were pretty small asteroids (~equivalent to a sphere 3-15 meters in diameter, depending on scaling), where as the asteroids that were blown up in Trek were several hundred meters in diameter, if not more. There is also evidence to suggest that they weren't solid rock, but more clusters of rock and space dirt similar to a dirt clod, which evidence is beginning to show is the norm for our asteroid field (for example, a pair of asteroids collide in front of the Falcon, but the debris from the collision more or less stops in front of the Falcon, instead of flying off at high speed as would happen if the asteroids had been solid rock and collided hard enough to shatter). That would make 'popping' the asteroid, blasting it apart, much easier.

[bitgolem]

To me, this argument is like arguing 18th Century British Army (Star Wars) vs 21st Century US Army (Star Trek).
Sure, the British Army in their day was an unstoppable force, but they simply don't have the technology to effectively counter the modern US military.

King George told George Washington "I have nothing to fear from your pitiful little band..." and we blew up his Death Star.

[skywolf]

I have one thing to say about this.

Turbolasers? LOL

:D

(Sorry! Couldn't help myself! Don't use the Force on meee!!)

((Darth Vader must love Burger King because he keeps saying "Whopper"!))

[Lendosan]

I love the Comparison of the American War of Independace to SW vs ST (Btw Americans, it was too far away to beat you, you didn't win, we just prefered to defeat the French and stopped fighting. Remember when you tried to invade Canada and we wooped you? No? Didn't think so XD).

Anyway back to SW vs ST. The ENTIRE Alpha/Beta/Delta/Gamma together could win. The Borg would always come out ontop, end of. Assimilated Death Star would be amazing. Everyone ALWAYS forgets the Borg. However as long as Speices 8472 doesn't get involved, then they win.

SW vessels lack alot of stuff the ST ships do. Remember Deflector arrays are no match for shields. Turbolasers fire in straight lines. SW has one major advantage. Fighters. However Phases Pwn fighters so, thats a no go area. Warp is move effeciant than Hyperdrive.

SW only strength is vessel size and man power. But alas you dont have transporters, ST does. So we beam your bridge crew into space and we dont even have to hit the major target.

Star Trek Auto win with Borg. Star Trek Semi-Auto win on Technology. :)

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I love the Comparison of the American War of Independace to SW vs ST (Btw Americans, it was too far away to beat you, you didn't win, we just prefered to defeat the French and stopped fighting. Remember when you tried to invade Canada and we wooped you? No? Didn't think so XD).

lol your account of the American Revolutionary War is just as titled as ours. } ; = 8 ) As for the War of 1812... On the southern front, where we actually had the advantage, you kicked our tails and burned the White House (though it wasn't the White House then, that was due to the white paint applied to cover up the scorch marks). The irony of the war, however, was that on the other front, where you guys had the advantage, things were more or less reversed (minus the burning of the White House, of course).

But, if you want an (more) accurate account of both wars, go visit a country that wasn't involved in either conflict, and borrow one of their history books, because I can guarantee you that neither the British nor American textbooks give a fair and unbiased (much less wholly accurate) accounting of either conflict.


Anyway back to SW vs ST. The ENTIRE Alpha/Beta/Delta/Gamma together could win. The Borg would always come out ontop, end of. Assimilated Death Star would be amazing. Everyone ALWAYS forgets the Borg. However as long as Speices 8472 doesn't get involved, then they win.

SW vessels lack alot of stuff the ST ships do. Remember Deflector arrays are no match for shields. Turbolasers fire in straight lines. SW has one major advantage. Fighters. However Phases Pwn fighters so, thats a no go area. Warp is move effeciant than Hyperdrive.

SW only strength is vessel size and man power. But alas you dont have transporters, ST does. So we beam your bridge crew into space and we dont even have to hit the major target.

Star Trek Auto win with Borg. Star Trek Semi-Auto win on Technology. :)

While I agree with your position, more or less, would you care to present your case for WHY you hold that opinion/belief? Yeah, it's all well and good to say that ST has superior shields, but WHY do they have superior shields? What evidence is there?

Again, I agree with your general position (Trek having decisively superior technology to Wars), but I want to hear what brought you to that position.

[s32ndELDRPanzer]

ok just to throw in my 2 cents (still can't believe i'm getting involved in this). Having grown up with laser development all around me( my father engineered them) I am not convinced that the "Turbo-lasers" in star wars are actually lasers. A laser is a continues beam ,even if pulsed it is a solid beam from emitter to target, it is clear that the lasers in Star Wars are pulse energy projectiles. Also in one of the newer movies i believe it was RotS) you see a gun on one of the capital ships expending casings from the energy cannons. So not exactly a laser as they are known. Secondly the proton torpedos are known to penetrate sheilds, from ANH " the port is ray sheilded so you'll have to use proton torpedoes" . So unless I'm missing something, proton torpedoes could possibly penetrate Trek sheilding. Also as per many of the Trek movies phasers do miss they aren't an automatic hit as I believe some are stating. Ok now i'm getting out of this before I get to tangled up in it :)

Oh one last item I didn't mention, it is clear in all the Star Wars movies that the so called "lasers" have a recoil. I have never ever seen a laser with a recoil there is no force to push back on the laser emitter its just a beam of energy.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Yeah, it was mentioned before that there's significant evidence that SW 'lasers' aren't actually lasers, but some particle weapon of some sorts. The casings and recoil could conceivably explained as part of a laser-generation mechanism, but the recoil, especially, is particularly hard to explain.

As for proton torps penetrating shields... One of the things that botht he EU and the films have been consistent on is the demonstration of two or three different types of shielding in SW (depending on whether the third type is an actual separate system, or just the first two used in conjunction). One shield system blocks energy, where as the other shield system blocks physical matter. Being 'ray shielded', the exaust port would be shielded against energy weapons, but not against a guided missile, which is a solid object.


As for your involvement... Join us, and feel the power of the Dark Side! We have an awesome dental plan.

[Lendosan]

Okay,
Well Im not too tuned up on SW technology to be honest. Ive always been a Trek Techno geek if Im honest. All Federation vessels have a pretty decent power supply, and that cannot be argued about really.

So lets get to the point. Its not a sense of our shields are really better, its more to do with hit ratio. SW vessel vs ST vessel of a similar size and shape, lets say a SW Dreadnought Class vs a ST Galaxy Class. The Dreadnought might have a massive array of firepower, however its not very well guided. Once targetted if the ship fires it cannot move with the target, the shot is let loose and hits where it goes. The Phaser on the Galaxy Class can hit a spot thats in LoS whilst moving, again no argument.

The ratio that the Dreadnought will hit the Galaxy Class is less than return fire. So if the Galaxy class is hit the shields, being made up of an energy source that can be re-routed, can boost the shields to keep them going. On top of that as long as a Federation vessels deflector array is online, any of those pesky bombs etc will detonate away from the vessel, as will the solid shot missles. In fact against solid projectiles most Starfleet vessels would be immune due to this factor. Factor the above with the Borg and the ability to become immune to energy based weapons and against SW you have the unbeatable.

Now onto travel. Hyperdrive sucks, full stop. You have to slow down, let the computer project your course, then jump from a-b. Warp is MUCH better. Also if our Warp engines die, we can still move. If the Engines in a SW vessel die, well, your stuck until they are fixed.

Weaponary. Turbolasers might be powerful but they are inaccurate. Missiles and Bombs verse Quamtium Torpedoes. QT have enough power to level a city, bombs, well they just don't pack the punch really.

As said before the only two real advantages SW has over the ST universe is the perverse need for massive planet killers and fighters. Planet Killers are great, but if the SW universe fought the ST universe, do you really think that the PK would make it? Remember we have cloaking devices and you can't detect them, so alas we'll see before its completed and WHAM end game.

Fighters, well a fighter thats about 20-30m long verses a short burst from a phaser bank equals a dead fighter.

Plus you have to remember, if you were to write a story based on the crossover, look at the Dominion War. The Federation, Romulans and Klingons all fought side-by-side against the Dominion, what makes you think the same wouldn't happen against the Galactic Republic? Also the Rebel Alliance would join with the Federation, Romulans and Klingons. So you have a mix that cannot be beaten.

Even if you did win, after one encounter with the Borg the entirity of the Galactic Republic would belong to the Collective.

Have a nice day :)

[AlienTwo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believed that all the Star Wars weapons were based off laser technology. I was under the impression that the shields of most any Trek ship can fully absorb and dissipate lasers. I understand there are more ships in the Galactic Empire, but if they cannot hurt any Milky Way ships, what is the threat?

I think the only lasers I would fear would be on the heads of some frickin sharks...

[Phunix]

Ugh... How about a SW/ST crossover instead?

Borg Sith! Come to the dark side, resistance is futile! :p
Jedi Klingons wielding light-bat'leth?
Ferengis meet with Trade Federation and create a galactic economic empire.
Tom Paris wins the latest podrace on Tatooine.
Lando buys DS9 and resumes mining activities.

PS I wonder how the Jedi would handle V'ger or the Whaleship from ST-IV?

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Okay,
Well Im not too tuned up on SW technology to be honest. Ive always been a Trek Techno geek if Im honest. All Federation vessels have a pretty decent power supply, and that cannot be argued about really.

Agreed. ST vessels have matter/anti-matter reactors (or comparable quantum singularity reactors), where as, canonically, SW vessels have only fusion reactors.

So lets get to the point. Its not a sense of our shields are really better, its more to do with hit ratio. SW vessel vs ST vessel of a similar size and shape, lets say a SW Dreadnought Class vs a ST Galaxy Class. The Dreadnought might have a massive array of firepower, however its not very well guided. Once targetted if the ship fires it cannot move with the target, the shot is let loose and hits where it goes. The Phaser on the Galaxy Class can hit a spot thats in LoS whilst moving, again no argument.

The ratio that the Dreadnought will hit the Galaxy Class is less than return fire. So if the Galaxy class is hit the shields, being made up of an energy source that can be re-routed, can boost the shields to keep them going.

Again, agreed. Though phasers aren't a guaranteed hit, Starfleet phasers, especially phaser arrays, have demonstrated vastly superior targeting abilities (the older-style turrets on the TMP era ships would probably have trouble with the fighters, though)

On top of that as long as a Federation vessels deflector array is online, any of those pesky bombs etc will detonate away from the vessel, as will the solid shot missles. In fact against solid projectiles most Starfleet vessels would be immune due to this factor.

Trek shields aren't immune to solid projectiles and missile weapons (photon torpedoes are missiles, after all), but they do block solid objects, allowing them to absorb missile impacts just like energy hits. The observed yield of a ST torpedo compared to a SW torpedo is much greater, however, and SW missiles would probably be too weak to have any significant effect against ST capital ships (and seem to be much the same against their own capital ships, save in precision strikes against unshielded targets).

Now onto travel. Hyperdrive sucks, full stop. You have to slow down, let the computer project your course, then jump from a-b. Warp is MUCH better. Also if our Warp engines die, we can still move. If the Engines in a SW vessel die, well, your stuck until they are fixed.

Actually, hyperdrive can be engaged while travelling at sublight, and we've seen the Falcon's hyperdrive malfunction without shutting down her sublight engines often enough to show that the two are not inter-dependent. The speed of hyperdrive is debatable, depending on how much of their own galaxy the Empire spans, and how larget that galaxy is, however warp allows for interaction with normal-space objects (i.e. warp-speed straffing runs). This is counter-balanced by the fact that a ship in hyperspace is essentially untouchable, and can't be knocked out by external forces.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believed that all the Star Wars weapons were based off laser technology. I was under the impression that the shields of most any Trek ship can fully absorb and dissipate lasers. I understand there are more ships in the Galactic Empire, but if they cannot hurt any Milky Way ships, what is the threat?

I think the only lasers I would fear would be on the heads of some frickin sharks...

First, the idea that Trek shields would be completely immune to any and all lasers is a misconception. Trek shields have been shown to be damaged by electromagnetic radiation in sufficient levels, and due to the laws of physics, nothing is impervious to infinite amounts of energy. That means that, if you get a powerful enough laser (or a powerful enough flashlight beam, for that matter), you could punch through Trek shields with ease. It would just have to be extremely powerful to do so, becuase Trek weapons are already extremely powerful in their own right, and are more effective than lasers.


Also, while there is evidence that indicates that SW weapons are lasers, there is a lot of evidence that contradicts this, suggesting that they are some form of particle weapon or perhaps plasma cannon of some sort, and not lasers.

[Lendosan]

First, the idea that Trek shields would be completely immune to any and all lasers is a misconception. Trek shields have been shown to be damaged by electromagnetic radiation in sufficient levels, and due to the laws of physics, nothing is impervious to infinite amounts of energy. That means that, if you get a powerful enough laser (or a powerful enough flashlight beam, for that matter), you could punch through Trek shields with ease. It would just have to be extremely powerful to do so, becuase Trek weapons are already extremely powerful in their own right, and are more effective than lasers.

Also, while there is evidence that indicates that SW weapons are lasers, there is a lot of evidence that contradicts this, suggesting that they are some form of particle weapon or perhaps plasma cannon of some sort, and not lasers.

True, but you cannot get an infinate power source on a vessel in SW. Thus the weapons strength is bound by the system that supports it. In this case although you COULD punch through a ST shield, the vessels dont have the power to do that, so again the ST shields would probably absorb the majority of damage during a firefight. Also don't forget that without knowing how shields work in SW, I cannot comment further.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

True, but you cannot get an infinate power source on a vessel in SW. Thus the weapons strength is bound by the system that supports it. In this case although you COULD punch through a ST shield, the vessels dont have the power to do that, so again the ST shields would probably absorb the majority of damage during a firefight. Also don't forget that without knowing how shields work in SW, I cannot comment further.

Oh, I agree that SW weaponry doesn't have sufficient power output to punch through Trek shields, not without a prolonged bombardment, at least. I was just correcting the misconception that Trek shields are completely impervious to laser weapons, thereby making anything the SW universe fires at them completely useless.

[Rocketeer]

Just saying, but Star Wars sort of wins for weapons. I mean, what beats lightsabers? For just the awesomeness factor.
I haven't seen anything comparable in ST..
Then again, I haven't seen much of ST.
But lightsabers are still cool.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Just saying, but Star Wars sort of wins for weapons. I mean, what beats lightsabers? For just the awesomeness factor.
I haven't seen anything comparable in ST..
Then again, I haven't seen much of ST.
But lightsabers are still cool.

Three words: Widebeam phaser setting. } ; = 8 )

[Rocketeer]

Three words: Widebeam phaser setting. } ; = 8 )

Eh.
I still like lightsabers because they're cool and stuff..

[Lendosan]

"Admiral, Prepare my shuttle, Im going to head to that vessel there and kill them myself!"
"Yes Lord Vader"
~Moments Later~
Vader appears on the viewscreen.
"Why is my shuittle not moving admiral?"
"Lord Vader it appears your caught in a Tractor Beam/."
"Hmm."

OR

"Admiral, Prepare my shuttle, Im going to head to that vessel there and kill them myself!"
"Yes Lord Vader"
~Moments Later~
"Emperor, it appears Lord Vader has passed on."
"Explain yourself welp!"
"Well Emperor, he attempted to board a Federation vessel. However we didn't know that a Shuttle vs a Phaser could be so damaging."

Lightsabre or not, Vader has to get there ;)

[Rocketeer]

"Admiral, Prepare my shuttle, Im going to head to that vessel there and kill them myself!"
"Yes Lord Vader"
~Moments Later~
Vader appears on the viewscreen.
"Why is my shuittle not moving admiral?"
"Lord Vader it appears your caught in a Tractor Beam/."
"Hmm."

OR

"Admiral, Prepare my shuttle, Im going to head to that vessel there and kill them myself!"
"Yes Lord Vader"
~Moments Later~
"Emperor, it appears Lord Vader has passed on."
"Explain yourself welp!"
"Well Emperor, he attempted to board a Federation vessel. However we didn't know that a Shuttle vs a Phaser could be so damaging."

Lightsabre or not, Vader has to get there ;)

LOLOLOLOL

Okay fine Phasers win.

[acurebanas]

Federation = Vote on Rules, Order, Peace (when applicable).
Whales almost killed Earth.

Empire = Make the Rules, Destruction, Death Star.
Band of teenage rebels took out death star with like a dozen xwing's/ywings.

For some reason i think the Empire (movies 4,5,6) is alot larger with much more resources and would win in a straight up battle. although, the federation (specifically spock) has that whole time travel thing on their side (even though they aren't supposed to use it). So if they were just to go back in time and take out Anakin Skywalker they could win, but they have that whole morality thing.

[Daggaroth]

The United Federation of planets has superior technology and relies more on their ships then ground based forces, while the Imperials from star wars, seem to have a larger ground based fighting force. and they are technologically limited.

For example, The Imperials are limited to where their ships can take them, they have no transporter technology, while the Federation has transporter technology, a single ship, could slowly beam off every hostile off a planet into space without any resistance from the forces on the ground.

and a star fleet ship could beam a explosive device directly onto a imperial ship, or remotely fly a shuttle into the close enough to deliver a explosive payload.

and yes the Death star has the ability to destroy a planet, but we have seen in several episodes of star trek where they have destroyed suns, planets, moons, etc,etc.

The Imperals have more of a fighter to fighter space combat style, while the Federation uses "capital" ships more then fighers, relying on superior firepower and strength, they could easily destroy a swarm of 1 man fighters with a single well plased phaser blast.

[lumpking69]

I dont see how/why anyone could ever compare the two really....

[manticoran]

Ah, but the SDN relies very heavily on EU material, including the compromised ICS books, to get their figures. Sometimes even over contradictory evidence from the films themselves. I also view much of SDN's arguments and participants with distaste, because they tend to insult first, and just shout down anyone who voices an opinion that dissents from the stance dictated by Mike Wong and his 'cronies.'

Additionally, SDN's 'ST vs SW in Five Minutes' page is rife with flaws, such as an almost exclusive reliance on the TNG TM for technical details, despite many contradicting examples on-screen, and choosing bottom-end figures from the data that does come from on-screen despite many other references to much higher figures. Additionally, Wong uses a similar reliance on the SW Expanded Universe material over contradicting evidence from the film, including the afformentioned ICS books written by Curtis Saxxon (who was an active and prominent member of SDN and the Pro-Wars community before he wrote the first ICS book), and choosing high-end figures from the on-screen material despite many lower-end references.

yeah, the guy who runs this site seems to just hate Star Trek, I think he ended each of his reports with "there it is accept it.". I wonder why few people ever mention the Rebel Alliance in these battles. Are we going on the asumption that the Galactic Empire has defeated the Rebellion before entering the Star Trek Universe?

[Roberto]

I dont see how/why anyone could ever compare the two really....

Thats because you have a poor imagination.

[Deletham_Tomalak]

I would assume the Rebels and Feds would work together they do share similar principles.

[Lendosan]

Well the Rebels would be disturbed they are dragging the Federation into the fight and contact us. The Federation in turn would inform the Klingons and the Romulans of what was happening in the hope to get them on board (sorry Im very tired).

What Im getting at is in the end it would be, when it came down to total war (which is what the Galactic Republic would cause) would be:
Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Rebels & Ferengi
vs
Dominion, Cardassians & the Galactic Republic

The good guys would win because
A) They always do, but the bad guys keep coming back.
B) We have two races with cloak. They'd never finish building a Death Star so their only super weapon is boned.

[Leomhainn]

Why obsolete? What makes you say that? The Empire's technology has a pedigree that's thousands of years old. There is nothing to say that one franchise's tech is more or less obsolete than the others. Imperial ships simply pack more punch per ship. But there's nothing to show that Federation technology is more advanced than Imperial, with the exception of transporters.

First, I should point out that the Lumbering Giants that you speak of aren't really lumbering at all, specifically referred to when Han Solo mentions:
"I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk cruisers, mind you, but the big Correllian ships..."
Which alludes to the fact that a standard YT1300 (which is the make of the highly modified Millennium Falcon) could NOT outrun one as a general rule.

And, that's not to mention Ludicrous Speed...

And I've brought up before as well the fact that it hasn't been demonstrated that Trek sensors are any mroe capable than Star Wars sensors... they can both scan for life forms (literally thousands, millions of chemical combinations) they can both can vast sectors of space, and a standard nav computer on a small personally owned freighter (like the Falcon) can calculate a Hyperspace jump across thousands of light years in a matter of minutes, demonstrating that Trek computing power is not any more powerful than Wars computing power.

Add to that the sheer distances capable of being traveled in Hyperspace in a matter of weeks, versus the YEARS that it took the Voyager to travel the same distance.

Obsolete because just that, it is established technology 'thousands of years old' Nothing new, nothing impoved upon...just the same as its all ways been...stagnet technology signifing a stagnet society. In ST there is the constant expectation that tech can be improved upon. Also in ST you can cloak little ships as well as big things (like a planet).

Brute speed is one thing, but manuverabily is another thing altogether. In the last SW movie we see ISD slam into each other at apperently (to us, the casual observer) relativly low speeds.

I'm also not sure about the sensor capabilites:
1. They can't sense anything inside of hyperspace (as per A New Hope) when exiting and not finding the expected planet, but only it's debris.
2. they can's sense a ship litteraly right on top of them (when the Falcon seemingly escapes into thin air).
3. the computers calculating hyperspace jumps probably don't have anything to do with actualy scanning the environment, their calculations are likely based on astrological data stored in the computer banks(almost like charting a coarse in ye old naval days.
In ST there is apparently no difficulty in sensing anything(with range) even while traveling in warp.

[lumpking69]

http://www.tombowl.com/canthclroy/canthpics/swst2a.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxhrPaaCA4

Hope they haven't been posted already.

:D

[Himser]

one whould the dominion and the empire team up .. come on their both empires bent on domination... umm they compete they dont team. i can see the empire making deals with the more hostile treck races tho .. ( like dominion did to breen)


two races with cloack .. by captain whatshisnames comment " no ship that small has a cloackjing device" thus empire has cloack aqs well .. ( we dont kn ow how it works tho .. could be the same as romulans or like the SWEU type .. but since cannon doesnt include EU)

( also to state that no ship that small has one. means its too big for it, OR its too expensive, or ect)

also looking at ST vs SW .. that guy makes as many assumpitions as michal wong, lol acculy more .. but no defemnation.

also one coment to look as space battels due to bujets ( remnemebr star wars was a lowbujet film in its day) you have to look at tythe new movies, and ST Voy and DS9)

and they defently had shilds .. witch tro mee seemes as good as fed ones

[UfcFan78]

one whould the dominion and the empire team up .. come on their both empires bent on domination... umm they compete they dont team. i can see the empire making deals with the more hostile treck races tho .. ( like dominion did to breen)


two races with cloack .. by captain whatshisnames comment " no ship that small has a cloackjing device" thus empire has cloack aqs well .. ( we dont kn ow how it works tho .. could be the same as romulans or like the SWEU type .. but since cannon doesnt include EU)

( also to state that no ship that small has one. means its too big for it, OR its too expensive, or ect)

also looking at ST vs SW .. that guy makes as many assumpitions as michal wong, lol acculy more .. but no defemnation.

also one coment to look as space battels due to bujets ( remnemebr star wars was a lowbujet film in its day) you have to look at tythe new movies, and ST Voy and DS9)

and they defently had shilds .. witch tro mee seemes as good as fed ones

Lol.........they couldn't see to aim to fire or navigate unless routes were pre-programmed.....so I would say ST wins this, too.

EDIT--------in refrence to cloaking in SW

[Himser]

Lol.........they couldn't see to aim to fire or navigate unless routes were pre-programmed.....so I would say ST wins this, too.

EDIT--------in refrence to cloaking in SW

lol thats expanded universe, canon ( witch we are using) does not say this. we can asume eather the way i did the first time i saw the movie ( exaccaly like star trek cloak) or we can assume the way the SWEU did. eather way you cannot say star wars cloack is any better OR worse then star trek. ( exept maby in cost, remember han solo was a smuggaler how many independent smuggilers in star trek have cloaks. major millatarys defently do

[Himser]

also after watching episode one two and three the other day .. just by the look of the movies and that type of stuff a turbo laser seems ( based on no "sciantific" data) to be at least equil to a klingon bird of prey disruptors. and act very simmiler

[No1UKnow]

Quite frankly I was never a fan of Star Wars. Always been a fan of Star Trek. Don't know a thing about Star Wars, so I guess Star Trek ftw.

[KashikoiBaka]

I'm a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars. I love the ships the most out of both but never saw the point in comparing them. They both run on different technologies/physics and were conceived in different time frames changing what is possible. Star Trek has warp, Star Wars hyper space. Both could run away without someone being able to chase them down. Both could destroys suns. However both did these tasks in different ways. Stop comparing my apples and oranges and get back to arguing about NPC/PC Bridge crews.

[Roberto]

I'm a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars. I love the ships the most out of both but never saw the point in comparing them. They both run on different technologies/physics and were conceived in different time frames changing what is possible. Star Trek has warp, Star Wars hyper space. Both could run away without someone being able to chase them down. Both could destroys suns. However both did these tasks in different ways. Stop comparing my apples and oranges and get back to arguing about NPC/PC Bridge crews.

Silence your tongue! It's all done it interest of imagination.


Anyhoot, do you know where your avatar is from?

[mezlabor]

I think in the end you cant compare them. Doing so just leads to endless rantings on both sides. They are both fictional properties and neither have consitant data you can use for a fair comparison. Some of the published ISD stats are downright absurd. If a single turbo laser can shell out hungreds of gigatons why build a death star? You could level a planet with one isd. Trek is incredibly inconsistent with itself on starship capabilities. Both franchises require fictional license to tell compelling stories so the ships are as powerful lor as weak as the writers need them to be to tell the story they want to tell.

[yash]

i think the Empire would win they got the best ships in the Imperial Fleet :)

[Lendosan]

i think the Empire would win they got the best ships in the Imperial Fleet :)

Why though? Why are Imperial Ships better than the entire range of Star Trek vessels?

[yash]

will in that past fed starships are very easy to blow up by any big ship or Spacestation(like the Death Star) and plus the empire have the Death Star to back them up in a fight and on all imperial ships they have like louds of turbo laser and Ion Cannons equiped on them and can take down a feds shields and then they can be blown up

[mezlabor]

will in that past fed starships are very easy to blow up by any big ship or Spacestation(like the Death Star) and plus the empire have the Death Star to back them up in a fight and on all imperial ships they have like louds of turbo laser and Ion Cannons equiped on them

so? Uhg now I am gonna wind up arguing this too. Imperial star destroyers are pretty easy to blow up too. A single a wing fighter took out an entire super star destroyer. The deathstar was defeated twice. By a fighter with a single proton torpedo.

Trek tek is better. Lets take the Death star. The empire needed to build a space station the size of a large asteroid or small moon to blow aplanet up. The feds can do that with a single photon torpedo sized genesis device and that was 80 years ago. Phasers can bore through the crust and mantle of a planet and they dont need to build gigantic space stations to do it.

The empire may be bigger sure. But they dont have matter/energy conversion. This means Starfleet can build much faster and more effeicintly then the empire who needs to conquer half a galaxy to support their bloated starship designs. Sayign they have turbo lasers and ion canons is great but theres no realistic data to determine which one has superior armament. Yes theres that ics site but those numbers are absurd. If a star destroyers turbolasers could really put out that sort of devastation then there would have been no need for them to build a deathstar so I think its safe to assume these 100s of gigawatt/gigaton numbers are pulled out of thin air(which they are since the movies never once stated what actual power outputs are)

Imperial star destroyer crews suck. They tend to fail more often then not and then get choked by vader. We never see a competent bright young officer who saves the day. They just fail and die for it.

Starfleet officers are always portrayed as being bright and able to overcome extreme odds.

Starwars never shows the sensors so I am assuming their sensor technology is ineferior to the federations. What would take the death of many bothan spies to learn would be easily ascertained by a single sensor sweep of the federation.

[Himser]

so? Uhg now I am gonna wind up arguing this too. Imperial star destroyers are pretty easy to blow up too. A single a wing fighter took out an entire super star destroyer. The deathstar was defeated twice. By a fighter with a single proton torpedo.

Trek tek is better. Lets take the Death star. The empire needed to build a space station the size of a large asteroid or small moon to blow aplanet up. The feds can do that with a single photon torpedo sized genesis device and that was 80 years ago. Phasers can bore through the crust and mantle of a planet and they dont need to build gigantic space stations to do it.

The empire may be bigger sure. But they dont have matter/energy conversion. This means Starfleet can build much faster and more effeicintly then the empire who needs to conquer half a galaxy to support their bloated starship designs. Sayign they have turbo lasers and ion canons is great but theres no realistic data to determine which one has superior armament. Yes theres that ics site but those numbers are absurd. If a star destroyers turbolasers could really put out that sort of devastation then there would have been no need for them to build a deathstar so I think its safe to assume these 100s of gigawatt/gigaton numbers are pulled out of thin air(which they are since the movies never once stated what actual power outputs are)

Imperial star destroyer crews suck. They tend to fail more often then not and then get choked by vader. We never see a competent bright young officer who saves the day. They just fail and die for it.

Starfleet officers are always portrayed as being bright and able to overcome extreme odds.

Starwars never shows the sensors so I am assuming their sensor technology is ineferior to the federations. What would take the death of many bothan spies to learn would be easily ascertained by a single sensor sweep of the federation.

one big difference between the two is teh empire is all controling ( technically) thus most expereances are police in nature. ( destoying a small rebel base on hoth) shure in todays standards that snot police ..but when you have a million planets .. yea one insigificant one is a police action..

a fighter took out a SSD?? the entire rebel fleet was concentrating its fire on it and as soon as its sheilds fell ( quite a ways into the battle ) a fighter spun outa contriol and smacked into its bridge .. if a fighter spun outa control and smacked into ANY federation, klingon, ect bridge the ship( expent maby galaxy class due to 2 bridges) it would esentchilly put them outa cmmision as well.

( the SSD was wayy to close to a small moon ( deth star) so when it lost manuvrability it was only destroyed by gravidy + Moon) -- ever hear the quote .. (in the ongoing battle between millions of tiny medel flying objects and the ground , the ground has yet to lose) when you have a SSD 17k bethmoth, bigger then the entire federation fleet, wth more people hitting a moon. ( 300X the size of that SSD) what is going to blow up first .. :P

and fighters yes they did take out a deth star .. but how many times have fed ships ( ussaly ) taken out an powerful bad guy but exploiting a small near insignificant weakness. its true that federation doesent have fighters (I well their fighters are more small escort corvettes then fighters) so they dont use fighters like this. ( how many times have the defient used its smallish size to deal heavy dammage on bigger ships??)


also you are saying that the empire cannoit destroy a planet without a death star .. where does it say that .. remember allderan was obliterated. not just made uninhabable but literly is now an astroid feild. we as humans of the 21st centery can make a planet uninhabitable. im shure a ISD, can do the same thing given time .. but neither a ISD or a fed ship can obliterate a planet like the death star did. ( the fed can however destroy a star, biut with canon we dont know if the empire can OR cannot do the same thing)

yes phasers CAN drill into a planet .. but whos to say turbo laxsers cant ? they shure make short work of astroids.. witch yes are not planets but anything that can blow them up can take chunks outa a planet ..

and do you relly want to know WHY we never see a bright young impereal offocer pull off a victory .. hmm maby its because they are the bad guys .. have a breen officcer ever pulled off a victory being outnumbered 10 to 1 by the feds. or the romulans or the cardassians or the borg or the kazon or the dominion .. are these races are complete incompitints because they naver pull off outstanding victorys in the face of being outnumbererd by federation forces .. or may because they are traditinally bad guys ..

you ASSUMING the empires sensors are niot as good because you have not seen their sencers .. wow .. lol

where is any evidence their sescers are worse then the feds .. ?? i have watched every star wars movie many times .. and ive seen 95% of star trek episodes ( DS9 is boring thus i never seen them al) and i havent made that cionclusion.

and i do agree that feds CAN build their ships faster and can get more crews faster .. but i never seen them using this for some reasion .. ( come on all they need is the raw matereals and they can *zap* have a soverin class in a quick time .. and * zap* have a comp,ete crew in a short time .. but tehy dont use it like this so .. maby their morals are abouve cloaning and cheating ..

[Azurian]

Boy, I haven't seen one of these ST vs SW discussions in years. :D

I'm a fan of both series to a great extent. And to be honest they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

ST ship (not shuttles) vs SWs fighters: Shields or No Shields, they wouldn't stand a chance against Phasers. But if there is enough of them, Proton Torpedos would just do as much damage than Photon Torpedos. (Which would quickly overwhelm a ST Ship).

Captial Ship Manuverablity: ST Ships have this down easily. This coupled with accuracy of Phasers, could really be an advantage against SW Ships.

Captial Ship Firepower: No matter the sources say, I say these have this hands down. The power required to push something as massive as an ISD pales against the Warp Core of a Sovereign. And with 100+ Turbolasers fireing away, even a Tactical Borg Cube would have problems.

Tractor Beams: I doubt Large ST ships could tractor the larger Cruisers like ISDs, VSDs, and Calamari ships; but smaller ones they could. But the other way around, well last I checked ISDs were the only thing that had them, so if a ST ship got close enough, it would be in serious trouble.

Vulnerability: Honestly, I think SWs ships have the advantage here, because they have to take that heavy firepower. And pretty much a ST ship wouldn't have an easy time with these. But with their capable crews, they would quickly find the shield generators to level the field. However, as I said above, if a ST ship gets hit by a turbolaser, it would mean trouble.

Also, whereas you can easily take out a Warp Nacelle, whereas getting at a Hyperdrive in a ST ship is far from easy, since it's buried deep among tons of metal. Probably take a ST ship's arsenal of Photons or Quantums to get at it.

Hyperdrive vs Warp Drive: Long-Distance, Hyperdrive Hands down. Otherwise, a ST Ships Warp Drive could be an asset to avoid trouble and get to a nice hiding spot to avoid Imperial entaglement. :p



So really it comes down to the skill of the crew and how capable they are. Someone like Picard could fly rings around an ISD, avoiding it's massive firepower and wittling it down. And using shuttles to aid to assist would be a sound thing as well. While a SW Captain probably just blast away and sent fighters in hopes of taking a ST Ship down.


It would be funny for a brief STO vs SWG crossover to test this old question once and for all. :D

[Himser]

i dont know if phaser accersy is all its craked up to be .. shuddles and federation fighters are way bigger then empire fighters ( and sadly we didnt get to see how a remen viper works agaist the enterprise. )

but many times they miss eachother and most fed vs whatever encouunters are cap ship vs capatal ship

granted tho turbo9 laser accersy .. is well crappy .. thats hwy theres so many of the damed things .. ( and if he delta flyer cab avoid fire from its enimies .. ever seen the droid starfighters .. they fly circuls around the delta :P )

[Daggaroth]

alright to wrap this up.

Star wars: 1 planet has been seen blown up. and a few dozon ships

Star Trek : several stars, several planets. a solar system. hundreds of ships. have been seen blown up.


star trek wins

=P

[Himser]

alright to wrap this up.

Star wars: 1 planet has been seen blown up. and a few dozon ships

Star Trek : several stars, several planets. a solar system. hundreds of ships. have been seen blown up.


star trek wins

=P

lol 15 hours compared to 300+ :P

[Ilithi_Dragon]

have a breen officcer ever pulled off a victory being outnumbered 10 to 1 by the feds.

Actually, they did. Breen attack on Starfleet Headquarters that signified their entrance into the Dominion War. Militarily and tactically, it was a defeat for the Breen (if I recally correctly, it was stated that the Breen raiding force was completely destroyed, or at least sent packing with heavy losses, with minor losses to Earth's defense forces, and relatively minor damage to SFHQ and San Fransisco), but it was a major strategic victory, dealing a major blow to the Federation's morale by showing that not even Earth was safe from a damaging attack (even though the actual damage was really only superficial).


That said, in the environment created within the Imperial Fleet, you wouldn't see bright, young, competent officers rising to the top. You see bright, young, power-hungry, back-stabbing officers who are smart but not really competent at their jobs rising to the top, on the backs of the bright, not-so-young, power-hungry-back-stabbing, less-than-competent officers before them. Failure and mistake means death, and we saw plenty of over-confident, power-hungry senior officers (over-confident until Vader took an interest in their necks, that is). Officers can't learn from their mistakes in that environment, and ruthlessness and brutality are encouraged over independent thinkers who get the job done but don't follow orders to the letter.



As for SW weapons outputs... They have not demonstrated any yield comparable to Federation weapons outputs. We've seen Federation torpedoes demonstrate standard yields in the hundreds of megatons to low gigaton range, consistently, and we know Federation particle weapons have outputs in a comparable energy range. SW capital ship weapons have rarely, if ever, demonstrated yields above the sub-kiloton range (the largest implication of SW capital ship yields is a reference in the RotS novelization to turbolaser bolts capable of 'vaporizing a small town', which would be something on the order of 1-1.5 megatons per bolt, though could easily be much smaller, or a little larger, depending on your definition of 'vaporize' and 'small town'). The asteroid-popping sequences in TESB certainly don't demonstrate anything close to the high ExaJoule (200 Gigatons) range, or demonstrate even the low PetaJoule (low Megaton) range. They COULD possibly demonstrate yields that high, but only if you ignore certain laws of physics (such as the entire field of thermodynamics). They actually demonstrate yields somewhere in the low GigaJoule range for one of the ISD's larger guns, and the asteroid popping scene with Slave I in AotC in orbit around Geonosis demonstrates mid to high MegaJoule-range yields per pulse.

The asteroids popped by SW ships could have been popped just as effectively by chemical warheads, and the explosions caused by the impact of the heavy capital ship guns during the Clone Wars against ship hulls were decidedly sub-kiloton.

[Himser]

i agree fully tht the impereal navy is not conductive to thinking officers its more .of a do as your told withoit thinking atmosphere ..

and yes that was stratigic victory . but lol it was a tactical loss .

and watch the brgining ontro to episode three .. you will see many shots agaist capital shiops that are wayy larger then your supposed sub kiloton .. and juudging by all the star treks ive seen are at least equil if not more powerful .. ( shure many of the shots are quick firing battleship type shots or 17th centery ship of the line style but there is a few wepons on each of those ships that are desidingly more powerful .. ( and even those quick firing cannons do at least as mutch dammage as phasers do according to star trek nemisis i just watched :P )

[Zyrious]

Actually, they did. Breen attack on Starfleet Headquarters that signified their entrance into the Dominion War. Militarily and tactically, it was a defeat for the Breen (if I recally correctly, it was stated that the Breen raiding force was completely destroyed, or at least sent packing with heavy losses, with minor losses to Earth's defense forces, and relatively minor damage to SFHQ and San Fransisco), but it was a major strategic victory, dealing a major blow to the Federation's morale by showing that not even Earth was safe from a damaging attack (even though the actual damage was really only superficial).


That said, in the environment created within the Imperial Fleet, you wouldn't see bright, young, competent officers rising to the top. You see bright, young, power-hungry, back-stabbing officers who are smart but not really competent at their jobs rising to the top, on the backs of the bright, not-so-young, power-hungry-back-stabbing, less-than-competent officers before them. Failure and mistake means death, and we saw plenty of over-confident, power-hungry senior officers (over-confident until Vader took an interest in their necks, that is). Officers can't learn from their mistakes in that environment, and ruthlessness and brutality are encouraged over independent thinkers who get the job done but don't follow orders to the letter.



As for SW weapons outputs... They have not demonstrated any yield comparable to Federation weapons outputs. We've seen Federation torpedoes demonstrate standard yields in the hundreds of megatons to low gigaton range, consistently, and we know Federation particle weapons have outputs in a comparable energy range. SW capital ship weapons have rarely, if ever, demonstrated yields above the sub-kiloton range (the largest implication of SW capital ship yields is a reference in the RotS novelization to turbolaser bolts capable of 'vaporizing a small town', which would be something on the order of 1-1.5 megatons per bolt, though could easily be much smaller, or a little larger, depending on your definition of 'vaporize' and 'small town'). The asteroid-popping sequences in TESB certainly don't demonstrate anything close to the high ExaJoule (200 Gigatons) range, or demonstrate even the low PetaJoule (low Megaton) range. They COULD possibly demonstrate yields that high, but only if you ignore certain laws of physics (such as the entire field of thermodynamics). They actually demonstrate yields somewhere in the low GigaJoule range for one of the ISD's larger guns, and the asteroid popping scene with Slave I in AotC in orbit around Geonosis demonstrates mid to high MegaJoule-range yields per pulse.

The asteroids popped by SW ships could have been popped just as effectively by chemical warheads, and the explosions caused by the impact of the heavy capital ship guns during the Clone Wars against ship hulls were decidedly sub-kiloton.

Asteroids are not easy things to destroy. We arent talking comets here, which are composed primarily of ice, with a small iron core. We're talking about large lumbering rocks of mostly iron. Our entire nuclear aresnal currently could only put a small dent in a medium to large asteroid, and we could only ever hope to nudge it away from Earth. NASA issued a report on this a while back, clarifying the differences between NEO's.

In ESB, we see star destroyers disintegrating asteroids left and right. There is no visible debris or anything left after their destruction. This is upwards towards several gigatons of TNT in power, if not more.

Also, as i understand it, Turbolasers and the like are actually considered to be plasma weapons, which have a potential for unlimited amounts of strength. The hotter you make the plasma, the more power it would release at it's target. And plasma doesnt have any frequencies and it's not any form of channeled power/energy, it's just pure superheated plasma encased in some kind thin (possibly transparent) casing to protect it from the cold of space and propelled at the enemy. No kind of special "Energy Frequency" in any shields could really lessen the power released by plasma, you'd take the full brunt every shot. Readjusting the shields would be a worthless endeavor.

As for the whole behavior issue with officers, i actually think they are the last people who would backstab anyone. It's made clear in the movies any hint of betrayel or disobedience results in Death. And the leadership doesnt exactly need to be on board to crush your throat. Furthermore, the US military also follows a policy that you follow your orders to the letter, you dont do anything extra and you dont do anything less unless the leadership specifies that you can do as such. I think most militaries on Earth in real life actually follow that policy, other countries more so. In bootcamp, your individuality is removed completly, stripped from you. You become a soldier, not a free thinking individual with weapons training.

[Zyrious]

so? Uhg now I am gonna wind up arguing this too. Imperial star destroyers are pretty easy to blow up too. A single a wing fighter took out an entire super star destroyer. The deathstar was defeated twice. By a fighter with a single proton torpedo.

Trek tek is better. Lets take the Death star. The empire needed to build a space station the size of a large asteroid or small moon to blow aplanet up. The feds can do that with a single photon torpedo sized genesis device and that was 80 years ago. Phasers can bore through the crust and mantle of a planet and they dont need to build gigantic space stations to do it.

The empire may be bigger sure. But they dont have matter/energy conversion. This means Starfleet can build much faster and more effeicintly then the empire who needs to conquer half a galaxy to support their bloated starship designs. Sayign they have turbo lasers and ion canons is great but theres no realistic data to determine which one has superior armament. Yes theres that ics site but those numbers are absurd. If a star destroyers turbolasers could really put out that sort of devastation then there would have been no need for them to build a deathstar so I think its safe to assume these 100s of gigawatt/gigaton numbers are pulled out of thin air(which they are since the movies never once stated what actual power outputs are)

Imperial star destroyer crews suck. They tend to fail more often then not and then get choked by vader. We never see a competent bright young officer who saves the day. They just fail and die for it.

Starfleet officers are always portrayed as being bright and able to overcome extreme odds.

Starwars never shows the sensors so I am assuming their sensor technology is ineferior to the federations. What would take the death of many bothan spies to learn would be easily ascertained by a single sensor sweep of the federation.

Actually, a single fighter didnt take out the Super Star Destroyer. The entire Rebel fleet decided to focus it's fire on the SSD, and when the scene turned to the bridge you can already hear the background crew talking about how all of the shields are failing, and Admiral Piett tells them to increase their laser fire to prevent any missiles or fighters from breaking through to critical sections since their shields fell. The A-Wing was just the straw that broke the camel's back by taking out the primary bridge of an already battered ship.

Also, the ISD turbolasers actually arent that deserved. It's stated throughout the lore that a fleet of ISD's could turn the surface of a planet to molten lava, but the problem is you have to get a fleet together and bring it into low orbit of a planet, well within range of planetary defenses, to begin bombardment. The DS just enters the system, orbits the planet from about the same range Luna orbits Earth, and then one shot takes care of the problem.

And the reason you dont see a "Bright young officer save the day" is a plot device for the movies. The Rebels are the star so they get the spotlight. However, There are exceptions. The greatest is Admiral Thrawn, probably one of the best, if not the best, strategist of all time.

Making assumptions on sensors is a bad idea, since the issue is never ever even brought up in star wars. I can't even recall a time when they where any event necessitated any real use of sensors.

[Roberto]

Actually, they did. Breen attack on Starfleet Headquarters that signified their entrance into the Dominion War. Militarily and tactically, it was a defeat for the Breen (if I recally correctly, it was stated that the Breen raiding force was completely destroyed, or at least sent packing with heavy losses, with minor losses to Earth's defense forces, and relatively minor damage to SFHQ and San Fransisco), but it was a major strategic victory, dealing a major blow to the Federation's morale by showing that not even Earth was safe from a damaging attack (even though the actual damage was really only superficial).

Sounds like the Doolittle raid - good comparison.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

Sounds like the Doolittle raid - good comparison.

Yup, it was actually very similar to the Doolittle raid, with very similar, though not identical results.

and watch the brgining ontro to episode three .. you will see many shots agaist capital shiops that are wayy larger then your supposed sub kiloton .. and juudging by all the star treks ive seen are at least equil if not more powerful .. ( shure many of the shots are quick firing battleship type shots or 17th centery ship of the line style but there is a few wepons on each of those ships that are desidingly more powerful .. ( and even those quick firing cannons do at least as mutch dammage as phasers do according to star trek nemisis i just watched :P )

I have Episode III on DVD, and the only explosions above the sub-kiloton range we see are coming from the starships that are breaking apart, and the one, very-brief beam discharged from one of the Venators, which happens to be into a Separatist cruiser that is already breaking up. If you want, I can go through and grab screenshots of all the explosions after work. The Venator and the Invisible Hand exchange of fire is a prime example, because we see the heavy weapons from both ships, especially the Venator, being used.



Asteroids are not easy things to destroy. We arent talking comets here, which are composed primarily of ice, with a small iron core. We're talking about large lumbering rocks of mostly iron. Our entire nuclear aresnal currently could only put a small dent in a medium to large asteroid, and we could only ever hope to nudge it away from Earth. NASA issued a report on this a while back, clarifying the differences between NEO's.

Asteroids that are a few kilometers in diameter, yes, would take a lot of firepower to destroy. HOWEVER, the ISDs were NOT popping multi-kilometer asteroids. The asteroids were, at absolute most, 20 meters in diameter, and much more likely between 3 and 10 meters, something that modern, sub-kiloton chemical explosives could easily shatter. It would take a little more than a cherry bomb, yes, but chemical warheads could do it. Additionally, it is believed that many of the asteroids in our solar system are actually clusters of rock and dust, essentially big dirt clods in space, loosely held together by gravity (asteroid chain impacts against Jupiter, the moon, etc. give further indication of that). Such asteroids would have a far lower 'cratering energy' (the amount of energy required to create a crater the diameter of the asteroid) than solid rock. The behavior of the asteroids in the field also suggest that they are of the same type of asteroid (debris from an impact of two asteroids clustering in a small cloud, instead of flying away at high velocity as would happen with the shattering of solid rock, etc.).

In ESB, we see star destroyers disintegrating asteroids left and right. There is no visible debris or anything left after their destruction. This is upwards towards several gigatons of TNT in power, if not more.[/quote[

Yes, there is visible debris, I can pull up the screencaps to prove it, and the idea that the turbolasers would completely vaporize the asteroids instantly is false. It's simply bad science, because, due to the laws of thermodynamics, heat doesn't transfer instantaneously, especially through silicates. Even if it were solid metal, which it clearly isn't, the expansive force of the super-heated metal at the point of impact would rip the asteroid apart.


[QUOTE=Zyrious;153486]Also, as i understand it, Turbolasers and the like are actually considered to be plasma weapons, which have a potential for unlimited amounts of strength. The hotter you make the plasma, the more power it would release at it's target. And plasma doesnt have any frequencies and it's not any form of channeled power/energy, it's just pure superheated plasma encased in some kind thin (possibly transparent) casing to protect it from the cold of space and propelled at the enemy. No kind of special "Energy Frequency" in any shields could really lessen the power released by plasma, you'd take the full brunt every shot. Readjusting the shields would be a worthless endeavor.

Eh. Plasma has its energy frequencies as well, and all means of energy discharge have the potential for unlimited amounts of energy, in theory. In practice, they're all limited by the endurance and capabilities of the systems and components used, and the power available.

As for the whole behavior issue with officers, i actually think they are the last people who would backstab anyone. It's made clear in the movies any hint of betrayel or disobedience results in Death. And the leadership doesnt exactly need to be on board to crush your throat. Furthermore, the US military also follows a policy that you follow your orders to the letter, you dont do anything extra and you dont do anything less unless the leadership specifies that you can do as such. I think most militaries on Earth in real life actually follow that policy, other countries more so. In bootcamp, your individuality is removed completly, stripped from you. You become a soldier, not a free thinking individual with weapons training.

Ah, but the U.S. military, and most modern militaries, reward individual thinking and ingenuity. Yes, you have to follow orders, and there are strict rules of discipline, which are necessary in a military environment, but you aren't punished for or discouraged from coming up with good, out-of-the-box ideas. Nor is your individuality removed completely. I have several friends and family in various military branches, and they're far from automatons, even when in uniform. The ability to adapt to changing situations and get the job done is very much encouraged, and is usually preferable to a strict adherence to an order down to the letter, if it gets the job done.



Actually, a single fighter didnt take out the Super Star Destroyer. The entire Rebel fleet decided to focus it's fire on the SSD, and when the scene turned to the bridge you can already hear the background crew talking about how all of the shields are failing, and Admiral Piett tells them to increase their laser fire to prevent any missiles or fighters from breaking through to critical sections since their shields fell. The A-Wing was just the straw that broke the camel's back by taking out the primary bridge of an already battered ship.

Agreed. A straw broke the camel's back, but it was under a lot of strain already.



And the reason you dont see a "Bright young officer save the day" is a plot device for the movies. The Rebels are the star so they get the spotlight. However, There are exceptions. The greatest is Admiral Thrawn, probably one of the best, if not the best, strategist of all time.

Again, though, that is the EU noncanon (Thrawn, anyway). The Empire has always been shown as a totalitarian regime, bent on control and order, at the expense of liberty. Free thinking is the kind of thing that brings such regimes down, and would be thoroughly discouraged as a general rule.

[UfcFan78]

Making assumptions on sensors is a bad idea, since the issue is never ever even brought up in star wars. I can't even recall a time when they where any event necessitated any real use of sensors. How about when the Falcon parked on the back of an sd? Lol, anyone look out a window?

[Er-Murazor]

I think something that people are forgetting is in one episode of TNG, the Enterprise was threatened by a ship with lasers. Riker looked up in surprise and said, "They could run their lasers dry before they would ever do any damage to the Enterprise." Lasers are nothing more then focus radiation. A Starfleet ships navigation shields protect a ship from radiation and micro meteorites. Just because of that puts the Federation at a huge advantage.

[bitgolem]

I can't believe this thread is still going...
Star Wars technology is Enterprise era tech, anything beyond that in the Star Trek Universe is gonna dominate anything in Star Wars. Transporters alone would tip the balance all the way to the Star Trek side.

[Er-Murazor]

Very true, I doubt that the SW ship shields could repel a transporter beam. Nor would there sensors likely pick up transporter activity.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

I think something that people are forgetting is in one episode of TNG, the Enterprise was threatened by a ship with lasers. Riker looked up in surprise and said, "They could run their lasers dry before they would ever do any damage to the Enterprise." Lasers are nothing more then focus radiation. A Starfleet ships navigation shields protect a ship from radiation and micro meteorites. Just because of that puts the Federation at a huge advantage.

Actually, it has been very often remembered, but largely debunked, since there are many indications that SW weapons aren't lasers, and even if SW weapons are lasers, that doesn't mean that ST shields are impervious to them by default, no matter how much power they put out. It just means that ST shields are more effective against EM radiation, coherent and non-coherent, and that phasers and disruptors are more effective than EM radiation. Trek shields have shown often enough that they aren't impervious to EM radiation, though, so high enough energy levels can penetrate them.

[Er-Murazor]

True, even so, it would at least make it that most if not all SW fighters would to little to nothing against ST shields. This would make the Imperials seriously rethink their tactics.

[Ilithi_Dragon]

True, even so, it would at least make it that most if not all SW fighters would to little to nothing against ST shields. This would make the Imperials seriously rethink their tactics.

Actuallly, it's irrelevant, since SW weapons outputs are orders of magnitude less than ST weapons outputs (i.e SW weapons are in the high MegaJoule to lowish GigaJoule range, from fighters to capital ship weapons, where as ST weapons, as of the TNG era, are in the high PetaJoule to low ExaJoule range*)


*Kilo = 1,000
Mega = 1,000,000
Giga = 1,000,000,000
Tera = 1,000,000,000,000
Peta = 1,000,000,000,000,000
Exa = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

Low range: (rough approximation)
SW: 500,000,000
ST : 500,000,000,000,000,000

Hi range: (rough approximation)
SW: 50,000,000,000
ST : 10,000,000,000,000,000,000

[staticblue]

In the excellent book entitled, "Hyperspace", theorical physicist Michio Kaku mentioned about three kinds of civilizations:

Type 1, 2, & 3 Civilizations


Type I – this civilization harnesses the energy output of an entire planet.

Type II – this civilization harnesses the energy output of a star, and generates about 10 billion times the energy output of a Type I civilization.

Type III – this civilization harnesses the energy output of a galaxy, or about 10 billion time the energy output of a Type II civilization.


A Type I civilization would be able to manipulate truly planetary energies. They might, for example, control or modify their weather. They would have the power to manipulate planetary phenomena, such as hurricanes, which can release the energy of hundreds of hydrogen bombs. Perhaps volcanoes or even earthquakes may be altered by such a civilization.


A Type II civilization may resemble the Federation of Planets seen on the TV program Star Trek (which is capable of igniting stars and has colonized a tiny fraction of the near-by stars in the galaxy). A Type II civilization might be able to manipulate the power of solar flares.


A Type III civilization may resemble the Borg, or perhaps the Empire found in the Star Wars saga. They have colonized the galaxy itself, extracting energy from hundreds of billions of stars.



just fun facts

[Er-Murazor]

Then this whole argument is irrelevant. If Starfleet ships generate and can throw out more power then the SW ships, then the Empire would be nuts to go to war.

[bobh]

What is Star Wars?

[Roberto]

What is Star Wars?


I think its a show about Dinosaurs... from out of town?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjhJSD8RU4k

[Zyrious]

The Star Destroyer actually DID Vaporize asteroids. And a good portion of asteroids in our solar system are composed of Nickel iron. Metallic asteroids are much more common within an asteroid belt (where the ISD's were present). Also, the ISD's used small point-defense lasers when engaging the asteroid field (The anti-fighter weapons), so Large Turbolasers can be expected to be much more powerful. And as has been seen in NEO reports to congress, a 50 megaton Nuclear warhead still wouldnt destroy or even shatter a metallic asteroid even if it was only around 50-100 meters. Throughout ESB, the ISD's which are several kilometers in length vaporize asteroids clearly ranging from 50-150 meters when comapred to the diameter of the star destroyer itself.

and here's a quick GIF of Asteroids vaproized (http://www.mrpoesmorgue.com/usvsd/wmd/roidsequence2jl.gif)

[Lendosan]

What is Star Wars?

Its a story some dude wrote about some kids that blew up a planet killer. Go figure. :D

[Himser]

Very true, I doubt that the SW ship shields could repel a transporter beam. Nor would there sensors likely pick up transporter activity.


thats a complete assumption.


TNG Season 2, Ep# 36: "The Dauphin"

DATA: Sir, sensors indicate the communication originated from a terawatt source on the planet.

RIKER: That's more power than our entire ship can generate.

DATA: It is what is needed to penetrate the atmosphere.

RIKER: Which means we lack the ability to respond...

thats not peta or exa thats tera .

( stardestroyer.net may be defermary. but they have good points)

also i have not seen anywhere wher eit states that SW is limited to mega and giga ..