The Federation will be able to defeat any Empire invasion.

[Lach]

The Federation will be able to defeat any Empire invasion.

I was introduced to this forum by a friend.... time for my many cents.

I assume this is during the height of their respective powers, the Federation right before the

dominion wars and the empire during the Empire Strikes Back. My friend explained to me how most

arguments go.... only canonical sources are legitimate. This poses a problem as almost EVERYTHING

star wars is cannon and little star trek is... but I'll work with what I have.




The Empire has FAR superior weapons technology because George Lucas or whoever decided on the

rediculous energy output of them has *member* size concerns. The Empire has better weapons.





The Empire has the production capacity of 20,000,000 planets behind it. They also have a space

fairing civilization that is very, very old. A large part of the galaxy has been terra formed.

The Federation is not nearly as old, nor have they taken any massive terraforming. It is very

sparsely populated compared to the Empire. The Empire beats the federation in production ability

by orders of magnitude.





The "barrier" to the galaxy(made by the Q's but that is not in a cannon source.... it's existence

and effects are cannon though) is supposed to isolate the galaxy, we assume the empire SOMEHOW

manages to get their fleet through it without going insane.




Though the Federation could likely get help from other races in the galaxy, you can not depend on

that, so we can not use that.... the Klingon being allies though would likely help.




So we have a !significantly! smaller group with smaller weapons smaller ships and less production

capacity fighting an ancient space faring civilization who has FAR faster ships. What do we do?


On the few posts I have read so far, I see many star wars fans derisively snearing at time travel.

I derisively snear at the rediculous output of empires weapons. Star Wars also has the benefit of a

zillion cannon sources that like to make everything "big". Time Travel is no less "legal" then the

rediculous empire weapons. In a war, all weapons are used. The Federation knows how to do time

travel, how to do it is in the federation data base of seemingly every major base/large ship but

access is restricted. Time Travel however is very, very illegal in the Federation-it is hard to

break the prime directive any more then by traveling through time(besides forward and at speed 1x).

We KNOW they know how to do it. Let's look at their actual willingness to do it.

We have the original series doing it a number of times, mostly by accident. We have the original

movies doing it ON PURPOSE just to save Earth-while not legal it got a "pass" from the government.

The Next Generation has tons of time travel. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. LOTS of

willingness is shown to do it, often for stuff less then saving Earth.

Deep space nine has done it repeatedly, on purpose I believe once and many times by accident.

VOYAGER! Voyager, the undefiable proof of the federations willingness to use time travel. Voyager

used time travel..... alot. I can't count the number of times a small group of voyager crew

survived some catastrophe, worked their whole lives then went back in time to change it. This

happened-!ALOT!.

Enterprise........ oh man. The coffee came out bad this morning... time to turn back time!

Enterprise has shown both a willingness and an ability(the ability may not be legitimate to use

here... the willingness is). Enterprise shows a willingness to use time travel.


*EVERY* Star Trek source has shown a willingness to use time travel-its use in a conflict where an

energy force that dwarves the borg is unquestionable. The Federation has no way to win a

conventional war against such an enemy and their destruction is certain. Why would they NOT use

it? The answer is that they WOULD use it.

They have the ability. The Empire could NEVER defeat the entire Federation fleet, too many scattered ships to take it entirely out. The remnants would get to a chrono twistin!

The applications to win with time travel are.... well infinite. You could effectively get an ininite amount of recconacinse. You can get all the technology information of the enemy and study it for ultimate critical weaknesses. You can get hyper advanced technology for yourself.... you have ALL the time you need to do anything. The only limit on time is the limit of the life times of those involved but that is not a limit-there are many solutions to that. Go back in time to RIGHT when you were about to start on your work.... pass off the latest version of the notes. Repeat till you have the means to rape the empire. Go to a point where the Empire fleet will be in orbit around a sun.... in the future. Bring a solar detonator. Go back in time.... detonate the sun. There are SO MANY applications for time travel I do not think I need to list them all.

Summation: In the face of the most overwhelming enemy the federation has ever met, they will posses both the desire and the ability to travel through time, thus defeating the enemy.










































#### except it turns out time travel won't save THAT reality because when you time travel it makes alternate realities.

Ooops...... my friend explained this to me. FORTUNATELY the federation still wins in ALL realities How many times has the federation traveled to parralel universes? Numerously and even though the technology to do so is not well understood they have ALL the time they need to develop it to the point that they do, then go across realities to save that one too!



Final summation: The Empire could never conquer or defeat the Federation in all out war because after the all our war is lost by the federation the REAL war begins-a war where the federation gets infinite do-overs

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Explain why the Federation never used this ultimate weapon against the original Borg invasion or the Dominion, or even the Klingons in the Yesterday's Enterprise episode. If they have such a weapon, why would they let 100,000s or millions of people die without using it?

It probably is some sort of cultural handicap--the Feds can do it, but they won't do it. Whatever the cause, I think it's pretty clear that time travel is beyond the scope of any federation war plans--and thus unapplicable in this debate.

[Lach]

The answer is yes, yes they would. Horrible catastrophes have happened to the federation but they have not used it then. They HAVE used it when earth itself was in danger repetadly. Just because they did not in some specific instances does not mean they would not use it in others? Janeway used time travel to destroy a significant portion of the borg and save voyager.... do you think Janeway or someone like her would NOT use it in the face of a threat the level of which they have never encountered? Hell Janeway is now one of the "rulers" of the fleet, an Admiral.... isnt Picard one too after the movies(I forget... been a while heh)? Screw an unofficial use a time travel they might sanction it officially.

A specific captain may or may not choose to do it(I have not seen enterprise in about 2 months... very busy) but the overall willingness by starfleet personal to use timetravel is aparent. It seems almost impossible that at least one of them would not do it, it seems likley MANY would try it.

[Lach]

To be more specific....

"Explain why the Federation never used this ultimate weapon against the original Borg invasion"

The Borg are powerfull but the federation have beaten them back repetadly using more conventional means. Time travel is a "last resort" weapon.


" or the Dominion,"

Do you think the federation would use time travel BEFORE they lost to the empire? It would only be used as a last resort, if they failed. They didnt loose to the dominion. If they had lost, who knows?

" or even the Klingons in the Yesterday's Enterprise episode."

The loss was not large enough to justify the use of it. A couple million is not the equivelant of the entire federation/galaxy.

[Sidious]

we assume the empire SOMEHOW

manages to get their fleet through it without going insane.

Yea they remember there is a Z axis, make a course change, and hop over it.

This is gonna be a fun one to watch.

[Keevan_Colton]

And how do you address the other problem that they have been shown to be stuck to a couple of hundered years when travelling in time?
Add to this the fact they arent winning they're moving to a parallell universe (running away) and they've still lost no matter what it is they do.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The problem is Lach that even if they did go back in time they still cannot stop the coming invasion.

They have no idea where the SW galaxy is, and if they did it could be so far away that their ships would have no hope of reaching it.

[Lord Revan]

Doesn't the main site deal with his "arguments"

[Gustav32Vasa]

And how do you address the other problem that they have been shown to be stuck to a couple of hundered years when travelling in time?
Add to this the fact they arent winning they're moving to a parallell universe (running away) and they've still lost no matter what it is they do.

I really don’t want to involve myself in this but in the latest ENT episode they showed to be able to travel millions if not billions years back.

[Ted C]

The actual problem is that time travel never solves the actual problem for anyone but the person who travels through time. Because every incident of time travel creates a new divergent timeline, any defeat that the Federation reverses through time travel only creates a victorious timeline at best. You can never really go back to the original timeline in which you got defeated because of the "Parallels" effect.

Furthermore, there's no guarantee that you can actually succeed in your effort by going back in time. The Empire might smack down your time travellers. That means that your probably just creating a winning and losing parallel timelines.

The strategy is futile.

[Ted C]

Come to think of it, it's entirely possible that the Empire does know how to travel through time (if we assume that cross-universe laws of physics are the same, so time travel is possible in Star Wars using the same methods), but they've already recognized the futility of such activities, so they don't bother.

[Alyeska]

There have been a few situations where time travel appears to have occured within its own time line, but these are situations beyond the TNG/DS9 era Federation.

A nice little theory I had a while back. The Federation has the ability to travel within one time line. They send people and assets back in time as far as they can and their mission is to conduct research. These people are ordered to make contact at the point of the next time travel point and go back to research with their new technology and knowledge. Repeat a couple thousand times and now you've got a very advanced technology base.

Of course something to think about. Mentioning time travel is an effective concession to the traditional aspect of the debate. Thats partly why WMDs (time travel counts) are left out of the debate. WMD capabilities do not necessarily represent the proper debate of strategic and tactical capabilities.

[Lord Revan]

I really don’t want to involve myself in this but in the latest ENT episode they showed to be able to travel millions if not billions years back.

Are you talking about "Stormfront"? since can't racall any time travel in the range of millions years in it and it's the latest timetravel episode I can recall.

[DoctorObvious]

If the Federation begins dimension hopping, it'll end up in dimensions where the Empire isn't invading. Thus negating its usefulness.

[Mr Bean]

The Federation will be able to defeat any Empire invasion.

A bold claim, your off to a excellent start if you were looking for "livley" discussion

The Empire has FAR superior weapons technology because George Lucas or whoever decided on the

rediculous energy output of them has *member* size concerns. The Empire has better weapons.

*CoughGRIDFIREcough*
Their are universes out there that could make the Empire shit itself at the mear mention of their names, as far as power ratio goes, you don't think twenty five thousand year old plus civilisation that spans an entire Galaxy have such weaponry?

And if you want to make memeber jokes what about Gene's other work a little Universe called Andromida? Multi-Galatic, world destroying with a faster FTL system than the Empire has(With no were near the precision however) and decently matched ships

The "barrier" to the galaxy(made by the Q's but that is not in a cannon source.... it's existence

and effects are cannon though) is supposed to isolate the galaxy, we assume the empire SOMEHOW

manages to get their fleet through it without going insane.

As pointed out elsewhere, Barrier is not a shell, simply go up and "viola" your going around it, not to mention for the sake of the debate you don't throw in something such as a planet pops into existance and the entire SW fleet runs into it, if your going to have a VS you have to put the fighters in the ring

Though the Federation could likely get help from other races in the galaxy, you can not depend on

that, so we can not use that.... the Klingon being allies though would likely help.

A few thousand ships more does not help much when one is STILL facing ships that can take the concerated attack of the entire Federation anywhere from several minutes to several months(Depending on which shield calcuation you go with)
And whos guns as mentioned can take down a Federation ship with each shot(Or at the very least heavly damage it)

So we have a !significantly! smaller group with smaller weapons smaller ships and less production


[quote[ Time Travel is no less "legal" then the

rediculous empire weapons. [/quote]
Wrong, Time Travel because of the Parelles problem is a cop out rather than a valid tatic, the Lastest SWOTW(Super Weapon of the Week) mearly demstorates the lack of creative thinking on writers parts rather than the complete lack of thinking involved in time traval

*snip time no-war winning- traval examples
*EVERY* Star Trek source has shown a willingness to use time travel-its use in a conflict where an

energy force that dwarves the borg is unquestionable. The Federation has no way to win a

conventional war against such an enemy and their destruction is certain. Why would they NOT use

it?

Because of the Parrell universe problem by which your not "fixing" the problem via time traval just creating another Parrell were in one you went off to fix the problem

They have the ability. The Empire could NEVER defeat the entire Federation fleet, too many scattered ships to take it entirely out. The remnants would get to a chrono twistin!

Problem, the Federation communication system is just as limited as its subspace speed even if one assumes that the entire federation fleet scatters to the four winds, you still have the problem of the Empire ability to respond and reinforce weeks before the Federation ships get there, time traval or no

The applications to win with time travel are.... well infinite. You could effectively get an ininite amount of recconacinse.

How? Go to the SW Universe?
Assuming Wormhole rather than big long trip you still face the problem of trying to randomly guess exactly what period to jump to not face ships that can destroy you on sight

You can get all the technology information of the enemy and study it for ultimate critical weaknesses.

Explain how time traval helps you steal technology(Agian unless you mean gooing thousands of years back in time and waiting for the Empire to grow up... riight)

You can get hyper advanced technology for yourself.... you have ALL the time you need to do anything.

But not the resources and not the personnel

[Mr Bean]

#### except it turns out time travel won't save THAT reality because when you time travel it makes alternate realities.

Ooops...... my friend explained this to me. FORTUNATELY the federation still wins in ALL realities

Wrong you time traval, new reality, you time traval back, woops... new reality, the orgional one is just as screwed as when you left it

Traval to a diffrent reality? The more you traval the more Parrells you create and the less problems you solve



IN summination using time traval is the same as using Q, its a cop-out, its never worked before(Name one time Q saved the Federation from utter destruction, Name one time time Traval saved the Federation from utter destruction)

Side note, every time you time traval, you pollute the time stream, its been said multiple times in ST and each time they say it along with the note that more time traval= more fucking things up=baad

[brianeyci]

Explain why the Federation never used this ultimate weapon against the original Borg invasion or the Dominion, or even the Klingons in the Yesterday's Enterprise episode. If they have such a weapon, why would they let 100,000s or millions of people die without using it?

It probably is some sort of cultural handicap--the Feds can do it, but they won't do it. Whatever the cause, I think it's pretty clear that time travel is beyond the scope of any federation war plans--and thus unapplicable in this debate.

First of all, I agree that time travel is the ultimate cop-out, and that it really isn't applicable in the debate of whether the Empire would win or lose.

However, that doesn't mean we can't talk about time travel at all in the sense of what would happen after the Empire won. Time travel would only make sense if the time traveller's future was in danger. For example, the justification for the USS Relativity not travelling back in time to kill the Borg is that why would they need to? The Borg were defeated. They let hundreds of millions of people die because, frankly, those lives didn't effect the future of the Federation. The only possible thing that could would be a temporal incursion from the future, such as a Temporal Cold War, or time travel such as Scotty giving the formula for transparent aluminum in the past. So the USS Relativity would go back and fix time travel glitches, and protect against other time travelling goons. Not intefere with the timeline.

However an invasion by the Empire would destroy the Federation. It would destroy the entire galaxy. The "Temporal Prime Directive" could be more than just a normal Prime Directive. It could be an agreement by the various time-travelling races not to interfere with the timeline, for example the Krenim walking on Fed history. Suffice it to say that once the Empire took over the galaxy, this treaty would go out the window. An invasion by the Empire would threaten the Federation unlike any other threat because -- they would lose. They didn't lose the other conflicts. If they lost, then the USS Relativity could never be created, and all their families and loved ones would cease to exist or exist under the Imperial heel. This would be the equivalent of the Borg assimilating the Earth in ST:FC. The Dominion, the Borg and all else are nothing compared to Empire. The Empire would destroy the Federation. Every time the Federation (or Earth) is defeated, time travel is used. Not in danger of being defeated. Defeated.

Brian

[Stravo]

How does the Federation know that Imperial invasion and occupation is not part of the natural timeline? How do they know that it is not SUPPOSED to happen therefore changing time is violating the Prim Directive no? Is there some rule that states just because the Federation does not like the over all outcome they can ignore the Directive.

Time travel is a pure and simple cop out that would have absolutely no bearing on the outcome anyway since as soon as they go back in time they just crafted an alternate reality.

[Lach]

I'm back and responding to ALL posts, 1 moment.

[brianeyci]

How does the Federation know that Imperial invasion and occupation is not part of the natural timeline? How do they know that it is not SUPPOSED to happen therefore changing time is violating the Prim Directive no? Is there some rule that states just because the Federation does not like the over all outcome they can ignore the Directive.

Because the USS Relativity is the United Star Ship Relativity. The timeline has the Xindi being defeated by a Federation composed of Klingons and so on. This would obviously not exist if the Empire took over everything. Obviously, the Empire is not part of the timeline of Star Trek (duh).

Time travel is a pure and simple cop out that would have absolutely no bearing on the outcome anyway since as soon as they go back in time they just crafted an alternate reality.

Agreed. So there would be the existence of two parallel timelines, one in which the Empire won, and one in which the invasion never took place/the Empire was defeated.

Brian

[Lord Revan]

Because the USS Relativity is the United Star Ship Relativity. The timeline has the Xindi being defeated by a Federation composed of Klingons and so on. This would obviously not exist if the Empire took over everything. Obviously, the Empire is not part of the timeline of Star Trek (duh).

Just be small nitpick it was the sphere builders that got their assraped by the Federation the Xindi were part of the Federation.

[2000AD]

IN summination using time traval is the same as using Q, its a cop-out, its never worked before(Name one time Q saved the Federation from utter destruction, Name one time time Traval saved the Federation from utter destruction)

Side note, every time you time traval, you pollute the time stream, its been said multiple times in ST and each time they say it along with the note that more time traval= more fucking things up=baad

So anything that happens after First Contact is in a different timeline, hence why everyone and everything on Enterprise is violating established Star Trek history and/or fucking retarded! And also why Nemisis was absolutely retarded as well!

This explains everything!

[Alyeska]

brianeyci, your logic is flawed. When you cross two universes together you ALWAYS ignore the future because you have fundamentaly changed things. Trying to drag the 29th century federation in as proof that no matter what you throw at the 24th century federation will be defeated is insanely stupid. By your reasoning we can say that the 29th century federation is proof that the Culture couldn't even attack.

Not to mention its against the fucking debate rules. This is 24th century feds, not 29th century feds. What next, we do a TOS era debate and TNG gets dragged in because they want to "preserve" the timeline?

[Alyeska]

IN summination using time traval is the same as using Q, its a cop-out, its never worked before(Name one time Q saved the Federation from utter destruction, Name one time time Traval saved the Federation from utter destruction)

Side note, every time you time traval, you pollute the time stream, its been said multiple times in ST and each time they say it along with the note that more time traval= more fucking things up=baad

Actualy Time Travel has worked before. If time travel didn't work and all your doing was hopping between dimenssions this would already have been discovered a long time ago. Trek already has the ability to detect which multi-verse your from.

The while First Contact, ENT Regeneration, Q-Who is a perfect example of a single time line with time travel interferance.

The Borg send a Cube to Earth because they recieve a message sent 200 years in the past. The message was sent because a Cube attempted to go to Earth. In this instance time travel is possible but changing the timeline is impossible because time is happening simultaneously. Whatever you try and do is irrelevent because time has happened and will happen again. This was even explained in the Voyager episode Relativity. The Borg attempted to go back in time and as a consequence the Enterprise-E went back in time to prevent them. Apparently limited understanding of how to time travel means that changing time can't happen. Once you understand you need more knowledge you stop attempting to travel in time and the same thing still happens. At that level of understanding time is written out and can't be changed by people with a similar level of understanding. What happens happens because it is written.

However things do appear to change in the 29th century Federation. They do fear change in the time line and even developed shields that are designed to isolate them from time and protect them from changes in the past.

Apparently Time travel tech in Trek is very complex. Some times its dimension travel, some times its the real deal but they are merely fullfiling time as its destined to happen, and some times its the real deal with real intereference, but only if your from a really advanced part of Trek.

All of this means 24th century Feds can't do jack. If they are loosing the war and attempt to use time travel they will fail because they were destined to loose the war.

[brianeyci]

brianeyci, your logic is flawed. When you cross two universes together you ALWAYS ignore the future because you have fundamentaly changed things. Trying to drag the 29th century federation in as proof that no matter what you throw at the 24th century federation will be defeated is insanely stupid. By your reasoning we can say that the 29th century federation is proof that the Culture couldn't even attack.

Not to mention its against the fucking debate rules. This is 24th century feds, not 29th century feds. What next, we do a TOS era debate and TNG gets dragged in because they want to "preserve" the timeline?

Sigh the headaches of time travel. We know that the Relativity exists with temporal shielding, therefore it would be immune to any timeline changes. I would agree that bringing up the Relativity would be stupid, but the Relativity does interact with the 24th Century Federation. It wouldn't be dragging in the 29th Century Federation, since the Relativity does interact with 24th Century Federation, and affects the 24th Century Federation timeline.

But for a moment, let's ignore the Relativity. The two instances during which the Earth would have been defeated -- the Whale Probe and the Borg assimilation -- the Feds did not hesitate to change the future. The Whale Probe incident in particular.

The biggest problem is that the Empire, once they captured an intact warp drive, would figure out that warp drives allow time travel. Then we would have Empire agents going back in time, etc. and so on.

Best to leave time travel alone I think.

Brian