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As I understand it the Empires military is entirely built up with the aim of maintaining their control over the galaxy. They have already conquered it and there is no great need to expand further. Nor is there any major remaining nations that can challenge them. In short the Empire is like the player faction in a Total War game after he has much of the world and all his enemies are protectorates or are cowering in fear.

So this raises the question. The Empire is merely keeping order in their conquered territories. But what if they they found a similar galactic power in a neighboring galaxy within hyperspace range. Assume this galactic power is similar to OR of Kotor era (heavily militarized plus their Jedi are more like soldiers than keepers of the peace). It is possible that this galaxy was settled around same time as the Republic rose.

This is not a question of how the Empire would fight some fanon nation. But what would an Imperial military, geared for war, a really epic galactic scale war look like ? Would there be dozens of Death stars, hundreds of thousands of ISDs involved ? How would the tactics of stormtrooper corps who now have to invade countless worlds instead of occupation duty change ? What about the Emperors personal Order of the Lightstick - would they increase in numbers to counter enemy Force users ?

So, are you basically asking Sith Empire Vs Jedi Republic, but with a similar military build up and strength? Also, what are the goals of the two galaxies?
If the forces are equal and the goals are preservation without invasion then you would probably get a standoff.
If it is just total annihilation of your enemy, well, then that is what you will probably get, but in a mutual kinda way.

Edit: If it is Palpatine's Empire the way it is at the beginning of ROTJ, as far as who is present in the galaxy, then the Jedi Republic would have the only real advantage, because of the amount of fully trained battle tested Jedi of the Old Republic has vs the Darksiders and adepts that the Emperor keeps on a short leash so as not to challenge his power.

So, are you basically asking Sith Empire Vs Jedi Republic, but with a similar military build up and strength?

Well not really. This more of a question what the Empire mobilized for war against an equal strength power look like.

Also, what are the goals of the two galaxies?
If the forces are equal and the goals are preservation without invasion then you would probably get a standoff.
If it is just total annihilation of your enemy, well, then that is what you will probably get, but in a mutual kinda way.

I suppose a few details could be useful. Assume the other galaxy republics aim is to liberate what they see as their original home galaxy. For the Empire they just want to conquer because Palaptine wants to do so.

If it is just total annihilation of your enemy, well, then that is what you will probably get, but in a mutual kinda way.

Conquest is the goal here.

Aratech once did a calc on how many Imperators could've been built in the same time frame, using the same resources, under the same restraints, and sources of labour (60% complete in six months from one shipping/construction company in complete secrecy). Multiplying that a couple of times for other industries and ship types would still be rather conservative I'd think.

Sarevok wrote:

So, are you basically asking Sith Empire Vs Jedi Republic, but with a similar military build up and strength?

Well not really. This more of a question what the Empire mobilized for war against an equal strength power look like.

So...yes?

Also, what are the goals of the two galaxies?
If the forces are equal and the goals are preservation without invasion then you would probably get a standoff.
If it is just total annihilation of your enemy, well, then that is what you will probably get, but in a mutual kinda way.

I suppose a few details could be useful. Assume the other galaxy republics aim is to liberate what they see as their original home galaxy. For the Empire they just want to conquer because Palaptine wants to do so.

In this case, Palpatine's galaxy wins as he would be content to rule whatever is left, where the new galaxies forces would be constrained to as little collateral damage as possible if they are to be liberators.

I know, you are asking for more specifics on the actual combat so I will try to get a more detailed description soon.

If it is just total annihilation of your enemy, well, then that is what you will probably get, but in a mutual kinda way.

Conquest is the goal here.

Sarevok wrote: But what would an Imperial military, geared for war, a really epic galactic scale war look like ?

Basically, if 2 copies of Palpatine's Empire were to fight?

Sarevok wrote:Would there be dozens of Death stars,

Probably not. This goes double for the more esoteric superweapons like the Galaxy Gun or Sun Crusher. The Tarkin doctrine doesn't work against a powerful, dedicated opponent.

The Death Star is simply not an efficient use of resources, except for the intimidation factor. The superlaser has firepower far in excess of any conceivable military need. Further, the DS actually seems rather vulnerable to much smaller forces, unless we assume shielding in excess of anything seen in the movies, beyond even that of planetary shielding. A large (but not compared to the DS) fleet, including at least two Eclipse-class dreadnoughts, could probably keep it engaged long enough for one of the dreadnoughts to use its own superlaser to take out the DS.

Even if you give the DS enough shielding to withstand Eclipse-type superlasers (plausible for a dedicated battlestation), a sphere is a poor shape for a warship, especially one designed to house a superlaser (for which the primary physical constraint appears to be length). A long, thin ship presents a smaller target profile (at least straight on, not if badly flanked), and can concentrate fire much better. Not coincidentally, this is the same shape almost all warships already have. Even if the war results in command ships 900 km long, I expect they'll look more like Eclipse or Executor than the Death Star.

The suncrusher, for all it's grandiosity, is practically worthless. 11 systems would be pocket change in a war of this magnitude. Though it's apparently invulnerable to conventional weapons (of reasonable magnitude), a pair of frigates with tractor beams could immobilize and capture it. Any system that doesn't warrant that much of a garrison is toast anyway.

The galaxy gun is an interesting case, as it MIGHT actually be able to take out important systems/people (like the Emperors). That said, I'm going to assume that lane mining of the type used in the YV war, or at least a hyperspace sensor net of similar magnitude, is practical, as otherwise the war is likely to be either very short regardless (MAD, see below). If that's true, then there should be enough warning for irreplaceable people to be evacuated, or possibly even to call up a force capable of stopping it.

If there is only sufficient warning to evacuate dignitaries, the it becomes a (likely very expensive) way to blow up single targets, with both sides spreading out facilities. Most capital ship construction/maintenance facilities appear to be space-based already; moving them a safe distance from planets would make sense any any case. In this case, both sides would might want one, to force the enemy to react, but using it regularly would probably not be cost effective.

If it's possible to muster enough force to stop it, then it mostly becomes a way to force the enemy to react. There are almost certainly easier ways to do that.

Sarevok wrote:hundreds of thousands of ISDs involved ?

More than that. A very conservative upper limit for the volume of the Eclipse-class (the most massive I've seen) would be 1000 km^3. An similarly conservative upper limit for the Imperator-class SD would be 40 km^3. Using the 900 km value for the second death star (which seems to be the best one), gives a volume of ~1.2e8 km^3 for the volume. Meaning the second death star, which was built in secret and was new technology, appears to require the same amount of resources as more than 100k massive command ships, or more than 3 million ordinary star destroyers. The sustained efforts of a public program using mature technology would be much greater. Either there's going to be A LOT of ships, or ships are going to get MUCH bigger (like the 900 km commandship suggested above), or both.

Sarevok wrote:How would the tactics of stormtrooper corps who now have to invade countless worlds instead of occupation duty change ?

Ground invasion is probably not a major component, at least until one side achieves clear dominance. Space>ground. If one side controls a system, then it can more or less deal with any ground defense (except major ground-to-space artillery, which is part of "controlling the system") at its leisure. Even in a contested system, either side could probably burn out a planet relatively quickly. Since the foes are equal and not concerned about morality, scorched earth is probably the order of the day, rather than letting the enemy have intact infrastructure.

Sarevok wrote:Conquest is the goal here.

Any "conquest" gained would fall in two types:
1) Raw (very raw) materials. Celestial objects to extract energy from, from the rubble of shattered or burned out planets, gases from gas giants.
2) Late war effects. After a certain point, if one side gains a significant advantage, a fair number of systems may surrender without (too much) of a fight, and by that point the winners may have enough force to protect them.

That's just the way things work when two equal powers go to war. If you don't deny the opponent infrastructure whenever you can, they out produce you and you lose. It's MUCH easier to destroy a planet than conquer it; and wasting time conquering planets (especially since the retreating enemy will try to destroy or evacuate anything of value) while give the enemy a relative infrastructure advantage. Then they outproduce you and you lose.

Sarevok wrote:What about the Emperors personal Order of the Lightstick - would they increase in numbers to counter enemy Force users ?

There are 2 wild cards that I have not addressed; the Force and Centerpoint station. Either one could possibly decide the outcome of the war. However, I find the effects of both to be fickle and hard to quantify, so I have not included them in the above.

I see 3 ways this can go.

If interdiction mining/hyperspace sensor pickets are not effective, then the attacker will have an enormous initiative advantage. A concentrated assault fleet will probably be orders of magnitude stronger than any possible garrison. Enter a system, blast through the defense force, blow up any strategic assets (including the planets) and get out before the cavalry arrive. Rinse, Repeat. A majority of the planets in both galaxies are toast. The "winner" gets to rule a pair of mostly dead galaxies, but at least most people will die more or less instantly in torrents of turbo/superlaser fire.

If mining/sensors are moderately effective, then the attacker loses its overwhelming advantage, but maintains the initiative. A well coordinate assault can keep ahead of the defense response, at least for a while, and capture large swathes of territory. However, the defense will be able to mobilize before and prepare a counter assault before too much is lost, and can do a lot of damage to any force that overextends. Deep strike missions are risky or impossible, so trying to win the war in one decisive stroke is not practical. This is the only scenario where trying to capture strategic assets intact might be a valid strategy; even here, though, it's probably easier to bring World Devastators along then trying to capture shipyards intact. Probably the best situation for the eventual winner, as it provides systems on the losing side a strong incentive to surrender, even if not adjacent to the battlefront, but allows a successful defense to preserve their own systems and newly acquired systems from reprisal.

If mining/sensors are highly effective, the attacker doesn't gain much initiative, and the defender can gain the advantage of fixed defenses. Here, it's a slow, grinding war, with copious amounts of blood being shed over every significant system. Any strategic resources will probably take too much of a beating to be useful once they're finally captured. The winner's home galaxy may escape significant much harm, but the vast majority of conquered systems are likely to be very badly damaged. Expect the losing Emperor to be holed up in the Deep Core for a LONG TIME before finally being defeated.

Major changes: Big-Ass fleets (see above),
Big-Ass ships (see above), including a mix of different roles. I would expect a different types of dreadnoughts/commandships, some carrying Eclipse-style superlasers, some just being heavy weapons platforms.
Expect to see (Spaarti-style) cloning and/or automation grow a lot; casualties will build up much faster than natural population growth can replace them.
In scenarios 2 and 3:
Major deployments of minefields/sensor posts, and possibly significant innovation in that area.
Heavy use of World Devastator variants, especially on the offensive, to provide supplies and reinforcements near the (moving) battle front, and reducing the vulnerability of infrastructure.
Scenario 3: Creation of fortress systems in strategic locations, at least if non-mobile or less mobile artillery provides significant advantages over hyperspace capable warships (as is apparently suggested by, for example, the effectiveness of the Hoth ion cannon).

lordofFNORD wrote:Probably not. This goes double for the more esoteric superweapons like the Galaxy Gun or Sun Crusher. The Tarkin doctrine doesn't work against a powerful, dedicated opponent.

I disagree. They widely expand the tactical and strategic options available to the operational forces and they can be constructed in secret using off-the-table cash from unrelated ministries while not in wartime.

The Galaxy Gun significantly aided the progress of Operation SHADOWHAND, which was a general, conventional, civil war effort against an opposing faction for control of the state.

lordofFNORD wrote:The Death Star is simply not an efficient use of resources, except for the intimidation factor. The superlaser has firepower far in excess of any conceivable military need.

I disagree. No one would dedicate the enormous opportunity cost in resources and infrastructure to a Death Star project in wartime unless it filled important niches strategically. Which the CIS did with their Ultimate Weapon.

Prior to the innovation of the Death Stars and comparable-scale siegecraft/weapons-of-mass-destruction, sufficiently hardened (Alderaan and her immensely powerful deflector shield, where any known lesser weapon would've been insufficient) and powerful segments within the state (such as Great Powers like Corellia, Alderaan, and Chandrilla) could conceivably resist it without immediate fear of annhiliation. The Death Star was necessary to expand the scope of Tarkin Doctrine to all members of the galactic community.

lordofFNORD wrote:Further, the DS actually seems rather vulnerable to much smaller forces, unless we assume shielding in excess of anything seen in the movies, beyond even that of planetary shielding. A large (but not compared to the DS) fleet, including at least two Eclipse-class dreadnoughts, could probably keep it engaged long enough for one of the dreadnoughts to use its own superlaser to take out the DS.

This is completely unsubstantiated by canon evidence. The Death Star can handedly absorb the recoil momentum of a relativistic planetary mass-scattering blast. A fleet a small fraction of the Death Star could be rammed with impunity. Its mass probably is comparable to a planet. Its shielding is probably planetary in scale (and planetary shield can be immensely powerful, as we observe in the case of Alderaan, able to diffuse the Death Star's blast for fractions of a second). Even disregarding shielding, it has the heat dissipation capacity to deal with even the slightest inefficiencies in the superlaser mechanism, which would be immense in magnitude. And lastly, the Death Star is completely covered with conventional arms which are quite capable of reducing most starfleets to scrap, considering the power output of the main reactor.

lordofFNORD wrote:Even if you give the DS enough shielding to withstand Eclipse-type superlasers (plausible for a dedicated battlestation), a sphere is a poor shape for a warship, especially one designed to house a superlaser (for which the primary physical constraint appears to be length).

Or not, because the superlaser of the Death Stars I and II is substantially shorter than any axis of the weapon. Furthermore you discard the structural requirements of such immense mass and heat dissipation considerations. Do I think the Death Star is a capable opponent against it's tonnage and logistical equivalent in standard warships? No. Really, it is a massive siegecraft/WMD, and depends on conventional warmaking capability to secure it and its logistics train from harassment. The biggest threat to the Death Star is probably hyperramming by gigantic mass drivers or similar craft.

lordofFNORD wrote:A long, thin ship presents a smaller target profile (at least straight on, not if badly flanked), and can concentrate fire much better. Not coincidentally, this is the same shape almost all warships already have. Even if the war results in command ships 900 km long, I expect they'll look more like Eclipse or Executor than the Death Star.

And what makes you think the Eclipse or Executor hullform would be desirable or efficient or even possible on Death Star scales? What aspect of canon evidence?

lordofFNORD wrote:The galaxy gun is an interesting case, as it MIGHT actually be able to take out important systems/people (like the Emperors). That said, I'm going to assume that lane mining of the type used in the YV war, or at least a hyperspace sensor net of similar magnitude, is practical, as otherwise the war is likely to be either very short regardless (MAD, see below). If that's true, then there should be enough warning for irreplaceable people to be evacuated, or possibly even to call up a force capable of stopping it.

The Galaxy Gun is a terrifying effective and quickly-responding weapon with immense firepower. However, lane mining, whatever is claimed in NJO, is an impotent, impossible tactic, and must be discarded in a legitimate and realistic discussion of possible war. Anyway, beyond that the Galaxy Gun lacks the refire capability to be truly strategically important in its own right - similar to the Death Stars, it is capable of eliminating very important compact hard targets, but it cannot eliminate warmaking on a strategic scale unless the opponent is psychologically-weak-kneed. Furthermore, the Galaxy Gun is lighter and probably less resource intensive in the long-run than the Death Star, but probably more easily countered. It does not rely on overwhelming brute force but technological gimmicks and "cheats" such as its hyperdrive transit, its strong shields, its shield penetrator, and its magic mass-to-energy chain-reaction-catalyzing warhead. It may be effective, but it won't make or break a war on its own.

lordofFNORD wrote:More than that. A very conservative upper limit for the volume of the Eclipse-class (the most massive I've seen) would be 1000 km^3. An similarly conservative upper limit for the Imperator-class SD would be 40 km^3. Using the 900 km value for the second death star (which seems to be the best one), gives a volume of ~1.2e8 km^3 for the volume. Meaning the second death star, which was built in secret and was new technology, appears to require the same amount of resources as more than 100k massive command ships, or more than 3 million ordinary star destroyers. The sustained efforts of a public program using mature technology would be much greater. Either there's going to be A LOT of ships, or ships are going to get MUCH bigger (like the 900 km commandship suggested above), or both.

The ISD is NOT 40 cubic kilometers. Relatively speaking, the Death Star II is equivalent to around a hundred and eighty Death Star I's, some tens of billions of commonest one-mile Star Destroyers, and high tens to low hundreds of millions of large warships. The Death Star I is equivalent to hundreds of millions of ISDs, and bare millions or high hundreds of thousands of large warships.

lordofFNORD wrote: Any "conquest" gained would fall in two types:
1) Raw (very raw) materials. Celestial objects to extract energy from, from the rubble of shattered or burned out planets, gases from gas giants.

Galactic-scale resource extraction entails mining of wholescale systems, preferably forming ones (the economics favor mining planetsimals with negligible gravity as opposed to coalesced planets with significant gravity and where the majority of metals have already sunk to the core, leaving you to have to dig your way down through useless silicates). Stellar corpses are finer sources of energy than main sequence or young stars, because they contain the mass-energy of a star but very compactly, therefore constructing a shell to capture all the radiant energy is much more efficient than the equivalent on a normal star (a Dyson shell).

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The Galaxy Gun significantly aided the progress of Operation SHADOWHAND, which was a general, conventional, civil war effort against an opposing faction for control of the state.

Against a opponent that was very nearly coming apart at the seams anyway. Intimidation worked against the New Republic because it was unstable, and unable to enforce loyalty from member systems. The mere threat of the Galaxy Gun was enough to significantly reduce opposition. It wouldn't work against Palpatine's Empire; any system would rightly fear reprisal for an unauthorized surrender as much as an attack.

I'm also assuming that interdiction mining/hyperspace sensor can give decent warning about incoming projectiles. If they can't, the Galaxy Gun may be an efficient method of destruction, compared to fleets. But it's MAD regardless. That amount of mining is a major project on its own; possibly practical for the Empire preparing for war, but not for the New Republic struggling to assert itself

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

lordofFNORD wrote:The Death Star is simply not an efficient use of resources, except for the intimidation factor. The superlaser has firepower far in excess of any conceivable military need.

I disagree. No one would dedicate the enormous opportunity cost in resources and infrastructure to a Death Star project in wartime unless it filled important niches strategically. Which the CIS did with their Ultimate Weapon.

Prior to the innovation of the Death Stars and comparable-scale siegecraft/weapons-of-mass-destruction, sufficiently hardened (Alderaan and her immensely powerful deflector shield, where any known lesser weapon would've been insufficient) and powerful segments within the state (such as Great Powers like Corellia, Alderaan, and Chandrilla) could conceivably resist it without immediate fear of annhiliation.

I'd expect the Eclipse-class or larger ships to play a major role, and they can crack planetary shields. If planetary shields get stronger, the largest needed ship size will get larger, but the "blasting to little pieces" is wasted energy. I suppose it's possible that a dedicated siege platform could be more efficient that superlasers in combat ships, but even then I think it would be more like the Tarkin, not the Death Star. The initial design iterations might include a Death Star like design, but once ships like the Tarkin and the Eclipse become practical, they are a superior choice.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The Death Star was necessary to expand the scope of Tarkin Doctrine to all members of the galactic community.

The Tarkin doctrine is great for subduing an unruly galactic population, it's bad for fighting an approximately equal military power.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

lordofFNORD wrote:Further, the DS actually seems rather vulnerable to much smaller forces, unless we assume shielding in excess of anything seen in the movies, beyond even that of planetary shielding. A large (but not compared to the DS) fleet, including at least two Eclipse-class dreadnoughts, could probably keep it engaged long enough for one of the dreadnoughts to use its own superlaser to take out the DS.

This is completely unsubstantiated by canon evidence. The Death Star can handedly absorb the recoil momentum of a relativistic planetary mass-scattering blast. A fleet a small fraction of the Death Star could be rammed with impunity. Its mass probably is comparable to a planet. Its shielding is probably planetary in scale (and planetary shield can be immensely powerful, as we observe in the case of Alderaan, able to diffuse the Death Star's blast for fractions of a second). Even disregarding shielding, it has the heat dissipation capacity to deal with even the slightest inefficiencies in the superlaser mechanism, which would be immense in magnitude. And lastly, the Death Star is completely covered with conventional arms which are quite capable of reducing most starfleets to scrap, considering the power output of the main reactor.

Eclipse-class dreadnought's superlaser is of the same order as the Death Star superlaser, though certainly weaker; it can definitely crack planetary shielding, so unless the Death Star has significantly more shielding than planets, a shot (or two) from an Eclipse superlaser is likely to cripple the death star. It would have to act quickly destroy any Eclipse-class dreadnoughts-class dreadnoughts in superlaser range. It seems that the only thing it has that can do that is it's own superlaser, which has limited ability to rapidly destroy multiple targets. It certainly won't have time to ram them.

It might take more than 2 dreadnoughts, I concede. But 2 or 5 or 20 or 1000, it's still a small out-set of resources compared to the Death Star.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

lordofFNORD wrote: especially one designed to house a superlaser (for which the primary physical constraint appears to be length).

Or not, because the superlaser of the Death Stars I and II is substantially shorter than any axis of the weapon. Furthermore you discard the structural requirements of such immense mass and heat dissipation considerations.

Because the Death Stars are both incredibly large. For those stations, the sheer dimensions are not important. The Eclipse, despite being many orders of magnitude smaller, is clearly able to deal with the mass and heat dissipation issues; it's telling that the Eclipse superlaser apparently runs the entire axial length of the ship.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Do I think the Death Star is a capable opponent against it's tonnage and logistical equivalent in standard warships? No. Really, it is a massive siegecraft/WMD, and depends on conventional warmaking capability to secure it and its logistics train from harassment.

Then, in a all-out war, it would be efficient to replace it with it's equivalent in conventional warships, and maybe dedicated siege platforms (which the DS is not).

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The biggest threat to the Death Star is probably hyperramming by gigantic mass drivers or similar craft.

I assume they have some way of dealing with that, or that would be the most effective attack against most large ships/stations.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

lordofFNORD wrote:A long, thin ship presents a smaller target profile (at least straight on, not if badly flanked), and can concentrate fire much better. Not coincidentally, this is the same shape almost all warships already have. Even if the war results in command ships 900 km long, I expect they'll look more like Eclipse or Executor than the Death Star.

And what makes you think the Eclipse or Executor hullform would be desirable or efficient or even possible on Death Star scales? What aspect of canon evidence?

There are no canon warships that size, but there is no canon reason why that form should cease to be efficient on scale-up. The form of the Death Stars is not evidence against it; they are weapons of intimidation, they are most effective with a distinctive shape.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:However, lane mining, whatever is claimed in NJO, is an impotent, impossible tactic, and must be discarded in a legitimate and realistic discussion of possible war.

I hope you understand my reluctance to discard a technology that plays a major plot role in a significant canon source. It may seem implausible, given the vast size of interstellar space, but we don't know how hyperspace technology works.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:the Galaxy Gun lacks the refire capability to be truly strategically important in its own right - similar to the Death Stars, it is capable of eliminating very important compact hard targets, but it cannot eliminate warmaking on a strategic scale unless the opponent is psychologically-weak-kneed. Furthermore, the Galaxy Gun is lighter and probably less resource intensive in the long-run than the Death Star, but probably more easily countered. It does not rely on overwhelming brute force but technological gimmicks

I agree. But the implementation of the brute force in the death star is poor, and the technological gimmicks of the Galaxy Gun may at least give a momentary initiative advantage and/or force the enemy to waste resources responding.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The ISD is NOT 40 cubic kilometers. Relatively speaking, the Death Star II is equivalent to around a hundred and eighty Death Star I's, some tens of billions of commonest one-mile Star Destroyers, and high tens to low hundreds of millions of large warships. The Death Star I is equivalent to hundreds of millions of ISDs, and bare millions or high hundreds of thousands of large warships.

As I said, those were conservative upper limits, made back of the envelope and ensuring I was not underestimating the resources needed for the warships. I included them as a quick way to show that the 100k figure was at least an order of magnitude too low. Those figures seem reasonable.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Galactic-scale resource extraction entails mining of wholescale systems, preferably forming ones (the economics favor mining planetsimals with negligible gravity as opposed to coalesced planets with significant gravity and where the majority of metals have already sunk to the core, leaving you to have to dig your way down through useless silicates). Stellar corpses are finer sources of energy than main sequence or young stars, because they contain the mass-energy of a star but very compactly, therefore constructing a shell to capture all the radiant energy is much more efficient than the equivalent on a normal star (a Dyson shell).

I agree. I just want the OP to know that it may be different from his idea of "conquest".

Edit: quoting screwup, meant to hit preview.

There's no need to introduce a fanon faction into a larger-scale scenario with the Empire. It had already discovered a significant threat only a few years before the Death Star's completion (the Silentium), and the upper-most echelons of the Empire were apparantly aware of the barbaric Yuuzhan Vong hiding in the great intergalactic void. They had two good reasons to keep a highly unparallelled military already, besides the Rebel threat.

VT-16 wrote:There's no need to introduce a fanon faction into a larger-scale scenario with the Empire. It had already discovered a significant threat only a few years before the Death Star's completion (the Silentium), and the upper-most echelons of the Empire were apparantly aware of the barbaric Yuuzhan Vong hiding in the great intergalactic void. They had two good reasons to keep a highly unparallelled military already, besides the Rebel threat.

The Yuuzhan Vong, at least, are not THAT significant a threat. In just the war against the New Republic, the ranks of their warriors were significantly depleted by attrition. That, despite the enormous depletion of the military following the fall of the Empire and the pathetic response during the earlier invasion. There is no way they would have been a serious threat to the existence of Palpatine's Empire, militarily. And, of course, Palpatine would have no qualms about developing and using Alpha Red.

I don't really know enough about the Silentium to say for sure, but given that they haven't made any major attacks on the galaxy that I know of, and it's implied that the Yuuzhan Vong drove them from their galaxy, I don't think they're that much of the threat.

The real threat, obviously, was internal discord and revolution.

lordofFNORD wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The Galaxy Gun significantly aided the progress of Operation SHADOWHAND, which was a general, conventional, civil war effort against an opposing faction for control of the state.

Against a opponent that was very nearly coming apart at the seams anyway. Intimidation worked against the New Republic because it was unstable, and unable to enforce loyalty from member systems. The mere threat of the Galaxy Gun was enough to significantly reduce opposition. It wouldn't work against Palpatine's Empire; any system would rightly fear reprisal for an unauthorized surrender as much as an attack.

The Galactic Empire under the reincarnated Galactic Emperor was already victorious against a New Republic with the "military upper hand" according to their own intelligent staff before the introduction of the Galaxy Gun. It was merely insult upon injury.

lordofFNORD wrote:I'm also assuming that interdiction mining/hyperspace sensor can give decent warning about incoming projectiles. If they can't, the Galaxy Gun may be an efficient method of destruction, compared to fleets. But it's MAD regardless. That amount of mining is a major project on its own; possibly practical for the Empire preparing for war, but not for the New Republic struggling to assert itself

Interdiction mining is impossible except against specific point-targets. Why not develop one's shielding to resist the penetrator? Or work on penetrating the projectile's shielding more easily? Or disrupting the chain reaction triggered by the magic warhead? Any one of these countermeasures will defang the Galaxy Gun against hard targets, forcing the enemy to rely on fleet siege or the much less cost-effective Death Star.

You're using no-limit fallacies with respect to the Galaxy Gun's duplication, deployment, and unique - probably highly-sensitive technological tricks. Also we see this fallacy with your arguments regarding interdiction mining - it simply lacks credibility in a galaxy, space is too big.

lordofFNORD wrote:I'd expect the Eclipse-class or larger ships to play a major role, and they can crack planetary shields.

RPG fluff does not contradict canon. The film shows Alderaan dissipating a 1e38 J blast for visible fractions of second - which is an eternity for 1e38 to hit a planet without hemispheric-scale phase transitions. This is FAR beyond the threshold of the Eclipse-class beam, which is "continent searing"; merely the 1e10-11 megaton range (which places it maybe a dozen orders of magnitude beneath the Death Star I's firepower). Eclipse may be uniquely able to confront shielding due to its significant size, and therefore the large size of its unitary power source and prime weapon, which is much more favorable in its intensity and concentration than the same power generation and firepower output distributed over a constellation of weapons on a single ship, to say nothing of individual weapons scattered amongst an equivalent fleet. However, power must come from somewhere and the Eclipse is limited by its size. It may be able to disable shields like the weak Coruscant shield of The Krytos Trap or the weak theater shield around Blackmoon in Rogue Squadron. However, the Alderaani shield is far beyond the Eclipse.

Its really just another example of no-numbers stupidity out of WEG and a no-limits fallacy.

lordofFNORD wrote:If planetary shields get stronger, the largest needed ship size will get larger, but the "blasting to little pieces" is wasted energy. I suppose it's possible that a dedicated siege platform could be more efficient that superlasers in combat ships, but even then I think it would be more like the Tarkin, not the Death Star. The initial design iterations might include a Death Star like design, but once ships like the Tarkin and the Eclipse become practical, they are a superior choice.

You're assuming that mere mass-scattering or disruptive blasts could also have punched through the Alderaani shield; perhaps the highest-performance shields mandate Death Star-level firepower to demolish.

lordofFNORD wrote:Eclipse-class dreadnought's superlaser is of the same order as the Death Star superlaser, though certainly weaker; it can definitely crack planetary shielding, so unless the Death Star has significantly more shielding than planets, a shot (or two) from an Eclipse superlaser is likely to cripple the death star. It would have to act quickly destroy any Eclipse-class dreadnoughts-class dreadnoughts in superlaser range. It seems that the only thing it has that can do that is it's own superlaser, which has limited ability to rapidly destroy multiple targets. It certainly won't have time to ram them.

This is simply no-numbers nonsense. I suppose the mass of the Death Star permitting it to diffuse immense momentum is totally irrelevent, so are the heat dissipation requirements, the fuel density issues, the weapon size issues, etc., etc.

lordofFNORD wrote:It might take more than 2 dreadnoughts, I concede. But 2 or 5 or 20 or 1000, it's still a small out-set of resources compared to the Death Star.

The Eclipse's maximum firepower is 1,000,000,000,000 times less than that of the Death Star I. I don't see why it would be incapable of handling planetary shielding perhaps on the Alderaan-scale.

lordofFNORD wrote:Because the Death Stars are both incredibly large. For those stations, the sheer dimensions are not important. The Eclipse, despite being many orders of magnitude smaller, is clearly able to deal with the mass and heat dissipation issues; it's telling that the Eclipse superlaser apparently runs the entire axial length of the ship.

The Death Stars are that big because maybe you have to build a ship that big to put out anything like that firepower? I suppose that if you take the ICS figures and scale them up directly from the Acclamator and ISD et al to Death Star, it fits, that's a coincidence? That the Eclipse can manage the recoil of throwing the Earth 6 million meters per second?

lordofFNORD wrote:Then, in a all-out war, it would be efficient to replace it with it's equivalent in conventional warships, and maybe dedicated siege platforms (which the DS is not).

How is the DS not a dedicated siege platform? The by-far largest volume and mass requirements are powering, moving, firing, and protecting the superlaser.

lordofFNORD wrote:I assume they have some way of dealing with that, or that would be the most effective attack against most large ships/stations.

The Death Star is uniquely large and immobile compared to normal large ships.

lordofFNORD wrote:There are no canon warships that size, but there is no canon reason why that form should cease to be efficient on scale-up. The form of the Death Stars is not evidence against it; they are weapons of intimidation, they are most effective with a distinctive shape.

Uh, no, that's not the most reasonable basic assumption regarding a tool of war. There is a very good reason why the shape should not be suitable infinitely - its called size matters, and the fallacy is the "no-limit" kind. One you seem to be fond of.

lordofFNORD wrote:I hope you understand my reluctance to discard a technology that plays a major plot role in a significant canon source. It may seem implausible, given the vast size of interstellar space, but we don't know how hyperspace technology works.

Saxton has given us a basic tachyonic scheme. We know mass shadows require significant mass and density (background gas density does not do it), and we know they are small (ships can jump around or very near to a planet compared to its diameter). It totally lacks credibility. I'm hardly the only one who has said before the most extreme or least credible claims of the EU may be discarded on the grounds that the sources are arguably pseudohistorical. You can look up Mike's posts here to see exactly what I mean.

If you can block space on the galactic scale, its not space as we understand it, SOD fails, and a logical, reasoned debate on this hypothetical is pointless from the outset.

lordofFNORD wrote:I agree. But the implementation of the brute force in the death star is poor, and the technological gimmicks of the Galaxy Gun may at least give a momentary initiative advantage and/or force the enemy to waste resources responding.

More no-limits. Look up "Ender" and read his power-density and different calculation posts.

I already covered this issue at great length regarding the Death Star, see here.

It seems to my completely unqualified eye that efficiency would be something less than a serious concern to the Galactic Empire, which has the resources of an entire galaxy, for all intents and purposes limitless, to draw upon. An extra gigawatt of energy makes no difference when you produce orders of magnitude more per ship, yes?

The laws of economics don't cease to apply just because you're drawing from a large pool.

Another question: how would the power structure in a fully mobilized Empire would look like? The 25k ISD may look ridiculously low for a Galactic organization, however fits well for an Empire, ruled by a single leader. How can Palpatine and the Inner Circle manage the things after such a build up? Will some new ranking system be created? Will firepower on planetary destruction level be delegated to some low ranking subordinate? How to demobilize after the war? How to prevent massive scale warlordism?

Won't an Empire mobilised for war actually has less ISDs? The ISD proved useful for its jack of all trade purpose, being able to project power, provide carrier protection, troops, as well as defend lesser warships and intercept smaller vessels.

However, a fullscale war might find more utility in larger, more dedicated warships such as the Praetor class. Especially since intergalactic warfare would require large warships with large fuel capacity.

If you really want to get technical, the likely "full might, ,gloves off" Empire would probably be spamming out huge numbers of computer/droid controlled warships, especially from self-replicating droid factories or "decentrailized" ship construction (like what built the Death STars)

Barring droids, I imagine you'd use some sort of clones (possibly with extensive cybernetic augmentation).

Offensively you'd rpboably use something like World Devastators or mobile shipyards as well (or whatever the Hutts used to build Darksaber.)

I also imagine that they'd make rather hefty use of hyperspace suicide/ramming vehicles (something like a galaxy gun projectile, but either as a kinetic impactor or a warhead - the basis would be some small freighter or fighter sized vehicle equipped with hyperdrive.)

And of course, we'd be seeing spammed droid armies.

Really, its the mechnical/droid capability that has been demonstrated in Star Wars that represents the true nastiness the SW universe could dish out. Can you imagine hordes of Dark troopers or SD-10 battle droids (or a YVH analogue?) Deployed on huge computer-controlled vessels..

I thought computer/droid controlled ships and such weren't effective as they develop "personality" over time. Isn't that why Palpatine favored clones over droids in the first place? Also didn't TTT say something about the dangers of slaving massive fleets together with the dreadnaught fleet that every one was chasing?

A centralised master control computer, such as the one in charge of the Katana Fleet or the World Devastators, would not be ideal, assuming that the command core could not be completely protected and outfitted with failsafe transmitters and unbreakable codes (which should be more or less completely impossible to cover adequately). Rather, one could use smaller computers or 'droid brains to control individual ships or smaller task forces, but still provide them with adequate human supervision and overrides. I seem to recall the Empire reaching that solution with the Viper X-1 "Automadon" war droids, for example.

havokeff wrote:I thought computer/droid controlled ships and such weren't effective as they develop "personality" over time. Isn't that why Palpatine favored clones over droids in the first place? Also didn't TTT say something about the dangers of slaving massive fleets together with the dreadnaught fleet that every one was chasing?

Not neccesarily. Alderaan used purely droid/slave-rigged vessels For the vessels that accompanied the whole Another Chance thing and they operated for decades. There was also the Will AI in the "Eye of Palpatine" (it malfunctioned, but onyl due to direct sabotage.) There are also countless examples of Imperial battle/war droids (From Darktroopers to the SD-10 droids) as well as NJO era versions like the YVK that had no problems. And technically the Separatist warships are all "Droid controlled."

Alot of vessels have also been fully slave-rigged without difficulties as well - Mara Jade and Lando Calrissian both used full slave rig tech on their ships without problem (The only danger there is in who has control - in the cae of the Katana fleet it was an ill/insane person who had control.)

The reasons whyh clones were used by Palpatine is probably the same reason why you never see the Rebels using droid armies or warships - they probably qualify as a "WMD" by Star Wars standards and are restricted (Clones would be an alternative, nothing more. Palpy probably encouraged Clone use in the Clone Wars to give him an excuse to create stormtroopers.)