Hypothetical challenge: Empire invading future Earth

[Star Wars 888]

Let's say that you're in charge of, say, the United States in 26th century Earth. You receive news that the Empire is planning an invasion of Earth and that they will arrive in 6 months.

You manage to unite the other nations and have 6 months to plan a defense.

Let's say that the Empire gets through via a wormhole, and, not wanting to risk their entire navy, sends 100 imperial 2 class star destroyers and their typical escort ships and starfighters with them. They have as much supplies as they can fit in that many ships.


Your forces:

You have access to 50 planets spread out over 10 star systems. Of them, 10% account for 50% of your total industrial capability. The separate star systems are interdependent. Your industrial capability is that you can produce your era's technology 100 times faster than modern day industries can produce their era's technology.

You have access to 100 billion civilians. 20 billion of them are fit for duty. 2 billion are willing to volunteer. To train 20 billion civilians with your capabilities would take a year.

You have access to 30 million soldiers, 100 million reserves and 300 million local militias. Your soldiers have different specializations matching modern day specializations.

You have access to 100 of your equivalence of a star destroyer and 500 frigates.

Each planet has 100 ground cannons as powerful as your equivalence of a star destroyer.

FTL travel is not available; fastest transport ships go at around 99.99% the speed of light with some sort of way to prevent the time dilation using some sort of hand-wavium technology. FTL communication is, however, and long distance communication speeds are comparable to Star Wars hyperdrive speeds.

Political stability is pretty high. Democratic, but for this scenario you are granted emergency powers.

Standard soldier:

Armor has sensors, radio, nanotechnology healing , targeting systems and such. Cover entire outside body while allowing for movement and such, and withstand up to 10,000 degrees F and can withstand a direct blaster pistol shot from 10 meters away.

Weapons are upgraded from modern technology; still relying mostly on projectile weaponry but with accelerated speeds, a pistol round would go at, say, 10,000 mph. Laser weapons available with power ranging from 500 gigawatts (pistol) to petawatts (mounted on vehicles).

Training varies, some being rookies and others being very well trained.

Armored vehicles:

Machine guns and cannons use almost relativistic speeds; a tank cannon round might go at, say, 20,000 mph. Armor can withstand said weapons at about the same rate as our armor can withstand out weapons. Lasers are also available, with power generation in the petawatts.

Airplanes:

Speed around 5000 mph, similar maneuverability to modern day planes when moving at that speed, uses weapons and armor similar to those on armored vehicles. Occasionally used in space.

"Star destroyers" equivalence:

Comparable in size to Star Wars star destroyers. Relativistic cannons of 500 kilograms going at 50% the speed of light, about 10 are mounted on your equivalence of a star destroyer. About 50 high energy lasers with about an exowatt of power are mounted as well. Hundreds of missile launchers, each with a yield of about 500 megatons, are mounted too. Armor involves some sort of semi-handwavium AB matter technology or nanotechnology armor or something like that, can somewhat withstand a 1 gigaton explosion. 500 point defense lasers can shoot down incoming projectiles and fighters with a power of about 10 pecawatts. Targeting system accurate to 5 meters in 100 kilometers. Combat range ranges from millions of kilometers for the missiles (which are homing, and the missiles and other projectiles technically won't stop until they hit something since space has no friction) to a few hundred thousand kilometers for the relativistic cannons. Can typically hold about 10,000 soldiers.

Frigates:

More maneuverable, faster and cheaper than the star destroyer equivalences, but 10 times slower and with 10 times less weapons. Similar armor time but less thick.

Did I miss anything?


Can you succeed? What's your strategy? In this scenario fending off the invasion force constitutes as a victory; the Empire collapses via ROTJ by the time the war is over.

[The Vortex Empire]

I believe the Imperials ability to go millions of time the speed of light will be the deciding factor here. They can jump around blasting away at planets from multi-lightsecond ranges and jump out before any return fire reaches them. Also, the Empire didn't collapse after RotJ, it was never wiped out and still controlled most of the galaxy for years. If the Earth ships can only go 99% of lightspeed, then they can't even engage Imperial ships unless the Imps allow them to.

[Batman]

If the Empire is INVADING, why isn't it sending any actual troop transports?

[Star Wars 888]

If the Empire is INVADING, why isn't it sending any actual troop transports?

Good point. OK, they get 1000 troop transports.

[Star Wars 888]

I believe the Imperials ability to go millions of time the speed of light will be the deciding factor here. They can jump around blasting away at planets from multi-lightsecond ranges and jump out before any return fire reaches them. Also, the Empire didn't collapse after RotJ, it was never wiped out and still controlled most of the galaxy for years. If the Earth ships can only go 99% of lightspeed, then they can't even engage Imperial ships unless the Imps allow them to.

This isn't a question of who would win, it's a question of how you would handle the defense of Earth and humanity. Basically, it's like that challenge thread about escaping a ship.

EDIT: BTW, about the frigates, 10 times slower was a typo; supposed to be 10 times smaller.

[The Vortex Empire]

Attempt to contact the Empire and get incorporated into it? Seriously, the Empire has such a massive strategic advantage that victory isn't possible.

[Star Wars 888]

Attempt to contact the Empire and get incorporated into it? Seriously, the Empire has such a massive strategic advantage that victory isn't possible.

BTW, the defending fleets would be reasonably dispersed across the 10 solar systems that this hypothetical future humanity occupies.

Well, maybe not in a straight up conventional war, but the Empire would have a very hard time occupying the planets. A 100 kilogram projectile moving at 50% the speed of light would generate about 10^18 joules of energy. which is actually more powerful than Mike Wong's estimates for the firepower of medium turbolasers. 100 ground defenses with that firepower and ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers and space fleets could damage star destroyers by quite a bit and actually possibly one shot them.

Note that this hypothetical future humanity would also have stuff that they would logically have, such as bunkers and some advanced form of the internet.

[Batman]

Weapons are upgraded from modern technology; still relying mostly on projectile weaponry but with accelerated speeds, a pistol round would go at, say, 10,000 mph.

So everybody can fire a pistol exactly twice, because the recoil would rip his or her arm off once he or she pulls the trigger. Yep, that's definitely useful.

Laser weapons available with power ranging from 500 gigawatts (pistol) to petawatts (mounted on vehicles).

Why would anybody WANT that in infantry weapons? You for all practical purposes can't use that pistol period because you'd fry yourself (and a good portion of the surrounding countryside) along with the target. Same for the vehicle, only worse.

Machine guns and cannons use almost relativistic speeds; a tank cannon round might go at, say, 20,000 mph.

Err-that's nowhere NEAR relativistic. Relativistic means approaching reasonable fractions of c. 1 PSL is 6.75 million mph. So how do the vehicles handle the recoil?

Armor can withstand said weapons at about the same rate as our armor can withstand out weapons. Lasers are also available, with power generation in the petawatts.
Airplanes:
Speed around 5000 mph, similar maneuverability to modern day planes when moving at that speed, uses weapons and armor similar to those on armored vehicles. Occasionally used in space.

Err-you CAN'T use airplanes in space. Airbreathing engines you know. Also, given you have granted future Earth power generation and firepower far exceeding Star Wars, how come your airplanes are apparently still structurally inferior to TIE fighters?

"Star destroyers" equivalence:
Comparable in size to Star Wars star destroyers. Relativistic cannons of 500 kilograms going at 50% the speed of light, about 10 are mounted on your equivalence of a star destroyer. About 50 high energy lasers with about an exowatt of power are mounted as well. Hundreds of missile launchers, each with a yield of about 500 megatons, are mounted too.

There's no such thing as an exowatt. And given the yields you already proclaimed, why bother with measly 500MT warheads to begin with?
That's impressive in B5 and Trek, not when you already grant them ray gun firepower dwarfing Wars.

Armor involves some sort of semi-handwavium AB matter technology or nanotechnology armor or something like that, can somewhat withstand a 1 gigaton explosion.

Instakill for any Wars warship Corellian Corvette and up.

500 point defense lasers can shoot down incoming projectiles and fighters with a power of about 10 petawatts

A bit excessive for PD but it'S your wank scenario.

Targeting system accurate to 5 meters in 100 kilometers.

Good thing the Wars forces will never have to get that close.

Combat range ranges from millions of kilometers for the missiles (which are homing, and the missiles and other projectiles technically won't stop until they hit something since space has no friction)

If it ISN'T homing, it's not a missile, it's a ROCKET, and with 500MT warheads those things are USELESS (both against Wars warships AND compared to your energy weapons).

[Serafina]

You know, there is nothing to say about this except two things:
&
Pure wank and stupidity.
You pull out extremely high figures out of thin air, but have other figures that do not fit with them AT ALL - they are off by orders of magnitudes. Heck, by a glancing look at your szenario, the best space combat tactic would be taking infantry rifles and mount them on starships Because they are much more stronger (especially when you would scale them) than your designated warship weapons.

So not only are you engaging in extreme wank, you are also too stupid to make it coherent.

[Star Wars 888]

Weapons are upgraded from modern technology; still relying mostly on projectile weaponry but with accelerated speeds, a pistol round would go at, say, 10,000 mph.

So everybody can fire a pistol exactly twice, because the recoil would rip his arm of once he pulls the trigger. Yep, that's definitely useful.

Laser weapons available with power ranging from 500 gigawatts (pistol) to petawatts (mounted on vehicles).

Why would anybody WANT that in infantry weapons? You for all practical purposes can't use that pistol period because you'd fry yourself (and a good portion of the surrounding countryside) along with the target. Same for the vehicle, only worse.

Machine guns and cannons use almost relativistic speeds; a tank cannon round might go at, say, 20,000 mph.

Err-that's nowhere NEAR relativistic. Relativistic means approaching reasonable fractions of c. 1 PSL is 6.75 million mph. So how do the vehicles handle the recoil?

Armor can withstand said weapons at about the same rate as our armor can withstand out weapons. Lasers are also available, with power generation in the petawatts.
Airplanes:
Speed around 5000 mph, similar maneuverability to modern day planes when moving at that speed, uses weapons and armor similar to those on armored vehicles. Occasionally used in space.

Err-you CAN'T use airplanes in space. Airbreathing engines you know. Also, given you have granted future Earth power generation and firepower far exceeding Star Wars, how come your airplanes are apparently still structurally inferior to TIE fighters?

"Star destroyers" equivalence:
Comparable in size to Star Wars star destroyers. Relativistic cannons of 500 kilograms going at 50% the speed of light, about 10 are mounted on your equivalence of a star destroyer. About 50 high energy lasers with about an exowatt of power are mounted as well. Hundreds of missile launchers, each with a yield of about 500 megatons, are mounted too.

There's no such thing as an exowatt. And given the yields you already proclaimed, why bother with measly 500MT warheads to begin with?
That's impressive in B5 and Trek, not when you already grant them ray gun firepower dwarfing Wars.

Armor involves some sort of semi-handwavium AB matter technology or nanotechnology armor or something like that, can somewhat withstand a 1 gigaton explosion.

Instakill for any Wars warship Corellian Corvette and up.

500 point defense lasers can shoot down incoming projectiles and fighters with a power of about 10 petawatts

A bit excessive for PD but it'S your wank scenario.

Targeting system accurate to 5 meters in 100 kilometers.

Good thing the Wars forces will never have to get that close.

Combat range ranges from millions of kilometers for the missiles (which are homing, and the missiles and other projectiles technically won't stop until they hit something since space has no friction)

If it ISN'T homing, it's not a missile, it's a ROCKET, and with 500MT warheads those things are USELESS (both against Wars warships AND compared to your energy weapons).

*sigh*

Recoil and other problems are solved by some sort of technology, ok?

And no, this isn't a wank scenario, hence why they don't get FTL or armor capable of withstanding Star Wars turbolasers.

Upon further thought, you make a good point in that the relativistic cannons are far more powerful than the other weapons by an unrealistically large degree. Let's make it fair and scale down the number of cannons on each star destroyer equivalence to 1 per ship, and have a reload time of 30 minutes.

[Asdeed]

Fifty targets and one hundred star destroyers? Well the ground forces are insanely uberpowered so there's no reason for the Empire not to just drop out of hyperspace at the edge of all ten systems and lob a volley of long range fire then bugger off long before you have a hope in hell of hitting them back. Your planets are defenseless so... they can either surrender or go the way of the Dodo.

[Serafina]

You claim it's not wank, but in the same post you say that recoil is magically handwaved away?

Seriously, kid - how old are you? Do you even have a basic grasp on physics?

[Batman]

Firepower massively exceeding Wars but because of no FTL, it isn't wank. Also, 500MT warheads used in the presence of massively more powerful lightspeed weapons.
This isn't just wank, it's stupidly inconsistent wank.

[Sarevok]

Your future USA is fucked for two reasons.

1 ) Lack of shield technology : There is nothing stopping an Imperial strike force from hypering in, salvoing a few turbolaser blasts then hypering out again. The ground defenses, cities, military bases have no protection from being eliminated from orbit within a few minutes of an ISD task force appearing. Sure you can shoot back but by the time defensive guns actually bring down an ISDs shields your civilizations manufacturing and military base is gone.

2 ) Lack of FTL : The entire Imperial force assigned to pacify this sector can be brought to bear upon individual pockets of resistance. An ISD can strike anywhere in this regimes controlled space within minutes. Their adversary meanwhile needs YEARS to move ships between systems.

[Rossum]

My answer (warning, lots of wanking and ranting):

The Empire is centuries if not millennia ahead of Star Trek technology and their Hyperdrive, Turbolasers, and other military technology mean they can outrun and outgun pretty much anyone who even bothers to have 'a realistic tech level.' Oh, they also control an entire galaxy, if you don't have a galaxy you are also hopelessly outnumbered.


If I was in charge of any sort of futuristic Earth and had any idea that the Empire was coming (and knew that they were the sort of people who have a military tactic that involves melting the surface of a planet our outright blowing it up via Deathstar) then all bets are off. I'm not even going to bother with human soldiers or generals. I'll just take our top AI researchers, get them to build a friendly (to us) AI, get some self-replicating industry stuff going on and prepare to upload all human minds into transhuman robot bodies.

If its a war against the Empire, the technology gap is much too far to even attempt to cross with puny human minds. I'm turning everyone into robots, linking them together into some kind of giant super-mind, and then invent time travel just for some extra safety precautions. The Empire isn't going to come to Earth to find a bunch of puny, stupid, squabbling humans working with (to them) stone age equipment. The Empire is going to find something weird like cybermen or daleks all working in unison to build the nastiest thing that science fiction physics will allow. Oh, and thanks to time travel I'll have it all set up before the Empire even exists.

You can't expect a fare fight with the Empire unless their opponent also has ludicrous speed ships, a whole galaxy to work with, or has some completely game-breaking advantage to make up for the lack of those. If its earth-like humans vs the Empire and we don't have Empire level tech then I'm going posthuman.

So yeah... my first order is to invent a superintelligent mixture of Skynet, the Cybermen, and the Daleks with Time Travel. Once the Empire shows up, I'll cheat like an automated cheating machine until I steal every piece of Empire technology, assimilate the skills of Empire personnel, and then go back in time to start erasing them from existence and adding them to my horrible collective of cybernetic doom.


Though... for starters (before any time-travel nonsense comes into play) I'll have my self-replicating legions convert entire planets into massive weapons platforms. In Empire Strikes Back, the rebels were able to damage Imperial ships with a ground-to-space cannon. I'll just have my legions of self-replicating robots coat the whole planet with defense platforms. Any Star Destroyer tries to attack my planets will find that I'm not even bothering with civilian residencies or military bases or anything... my planets are going to be nothing but factories, power plants, and surface-to-space lasers.

They bring in a star destroyer? "Wait, that's not a planet! It's a space station built around a planet!" And then I'll blow them out of the sky with a continents worth of lasers firing all at once! They send in a Death Star? My planet is a Death Star! Then I'll loot the remains of their ship, reverse engineer the tech they have, then time travel backwards to give the tech to my past self who can then use it to build a fleet of cybermonster Star Destroyers before the Empire even shows up!

If you are going against the Empire, you either need hyperdrive, turbolasers, a galaxy at your disposal, or enough wanktastic level cheating tech to acquire them before the Empire even shows up. Otherwise, they take over and you have to live under the tyranny of sociopaths who think that blowing up an entire civilized planet is good policy.

[Batman]

Wow. That reply is even MORE stupid than Moron888's OP.

[Star Wars 888]

You claim it's not wank, but in the same post you say that recoil is magically handwaved away?

Seriously, kid - how old are you? Do you even have a basic grasp on physics?

Are you serious? You're saying that it's not fair for me to hand wave problems in developing technology when they're facing a foe that hand waves the laws of physics itself?

What is your fucking problem? Since when does hand wacing recoil (which can and has been reduced) make my side "wanking" when the other side has hyperdrives capable of making a ship go hundreds of millions of times the speed of light?

It's both amazing and disturbing how hypocritical and ironic some people can be.

[Rama]

I do the smart thing and surrender.

After all I've just been pitted against an opponent that is backed by a billion a worlds, 70 million of which have a sufficiently high enough populations worthy of Imperial representation, the industrial capacity to literally drown my systems in metal with just a minor alteration in the weekly budget, an exotic FTL drive that can allow them to cross my territory in SECONDS compared to the decades it would take me to mobilize and respond to distant threats, can outrace my own distress signals and communications over interstellar distances and possesses a galaxy spanning territory that I'm tactically and strategically impotent to do anything against.

As it stands my civilization currently ranks in the "small animals that I'm not sure that I just hit with my car - I better get out and check" category of specific threat levels to the Empire, so rather than watch my people die a miserable and torturous death in what I predict to be the week it takes for my industrial and population base to burn to the ground thanks at the hand of an enemy that can molest my territory at will, I promptly organize a treaty that guarantees some sanctuary as Imperial protectorates.

Heck, I would lick the boots of the mission commanders if would at least save billions of my men from a terrible bloody end.

[Star Wars 888]

In the OP I specified tha the imperial invasion force does not get the industrial backing of the entire empire.

[Asdeed]

In the OP I specified tha the imperial invasion force does not get the industrial backing of the entire empire.

Which matters why? 100 Destroyers and their escorts can easily exterminate all life in the 'future Earth' territories, in a short period of time, without any real risk.

[Rama]

Plus my fleet is literally isolated across ten systems divided by half a decade of travel, each of which can only reliably be defended by sixty vessels at any one point (ten cruisers plus fifty frigates), whereas the Empire is coming in with a marauder fleet that can concentrate 100% of its forces (which include escorts such as the Nebulon-B, Carrack, Lancer and any other fleet standard escorts that the OP has failed to elucidate upon) at any one objective without the threat of reprisal.

Me? I'm stuck with only 10% of my total isolated fleet in one area at a time, effectively hamstringing me to fight against 10:1 odds at best in any naval engagement which is guaranteed to leave my planetary defenses terribly exposed at range since the Empire has no need to get within range of the few ground cannons that happen to face the direction of an invading fleet; each of which has to cover an area of space thousands of kilometers wide due to their limited numbers. Meanwhile, as Commander of the operation, I can only receive and send real-time communications between said battles, as any attempt at reinforcing neighboring systems will not only take years, but will leave other systems exposed whenever the Empire intends to casually jump into the next barely defended star system.

So when the Empire arrives in full force to take the weaker worlds, there is literally nothing I can do but offer moral support over the FTL radio.

Yep, I surrender before we even get far enough to piss off a galactic civilization.

[Shroom Man 777]

Can I postulate my own hippothetical society? Where in the future, in the year 1756 BC, humanity has evolved to transcend mere biological limits, with advanced ultratech indistinguishable from magic integrated into their pseudophysiologies? In this future Earth, human beings can routinely ejaculate sperm cells yielding in 1 gigaton, and with each sperm's flagella (that tadpole tail) being able to propel it to .c fraction speeds (.9 c to be exact) up to several lightyears before the super-futuristic semen runs out of fuel for the sperms. As these guys are super-virile, each ejaculation can spew out 300 million sperm. So with each sperm yielding at a gigaton each, this is 300 million gigatons worth of ejaculated death! And the fact that these are posthumans, they don't lose their mojo after each ejaculation, they're like women who can ejaculate many times in a row! Hell, if they want to, they can NEVER STOP EJACULATING! Their cocks can spew out death to the enemy forever!

With ten quintillion humans, each capable of sending out 300 million gigatons per shot from his dick, and with many of these future humans having multiple dicks, how would we organize their defense against an invasion by the Galactic Empire?

Note that these humans are space capable. They have organic jetpacks integrated into their colon, and using organic technology they can produce enough thrust to let them fly to .c fractional speeds too.

Males are unable to go FTL. But females can have wormhole generators implanted inside their futuristic breasts. The men can have these too, but most prefer to fill their extra body surface area with additional turbo-penises. So females can go FTL, and like those Star Wars microfighters, the males can attach themselves to the females using their cocks (which provide additional menergy to the female FTL systems), and with this power boost their FTL can propel them to fifty petaton-lightyears per nanosecond! Calculate that, bitch!

These guys can vaporize more asteroids with their cocks than even the Death Star. Hell, if you combined two Death Stars with one Galaxy Gun in between them, forming a huge Imperial planet-busting cock, you might have a chance against this. Better use a Suncrusher instead of a Galaxy Gun, but the Suncrusher is a tiny little prick, and nobody wants a tiny little prick.

BTW these futuristic people's skins are so thick that their epidermis can withstand bathing in the core of a Type-XXX quasar. Their turbococks are even more durable due to the thickened layer of neutronium-ingrained callouses present therein.

So, Warsies, whatcha gonna do now? My future Earth has more gigatons then yours, so it is better! More fans will like it because firepower yields are the most important thing, and if my firepower yields are bigger then your penis then your "story" sucks! Hahahaha!

These guys would also kick the shit out of Star Wars 88's assholes.

Oh, the only weakness in my humans is an exhaust shaft... IN THEIR ASS! You'd need an X-Wing to shove a proton torpedo up their exhaust asses to defeat them! But their targeting computers aren't up for it!

[lordofchange13]

Insulate mass suicides to save the population from their eventual ass fuck! But it would probably even get to that; if this is the future of OUR universe, I’m pretty sure people would be freaked out from seeing Sci-Fi soldiers invented by a guy who’s been dead for over 5 centuries. Just for example: wouldn’t you be freaked out if you just randomly sow Del Spooner (from I, robot) in his hovercar running over androids?

[Solauren]

I position my forces- so that when the Empire arrives, they will see that taking the worlds, while possible, would be very bloody.

I then order them hailed when they arrive, and say 'Hi. We have some pretty impressive weapons tech. You have tech we lack. We have no interest in you destroying us, and you wouldn't get much by doing so. I think we have common ground. Specifically - We'd like to become a self-governing province within the Empire. You supply us with what we need to create shields + FTL and other techs you have we lack, and we start building you Star Destroyers with superior weapons capabilities."

I just stopped the invasion of Earth's little nation, and got us a tech upgrade to boot.

[Star Wars 888]

Which matters why? 100 Destroyers and their escorts can easily exterminate all life in the 'future Earth' territories, in a short period of time, without any real risk.

Why would they do that? They're invading future Earth in this scenario, and I doubt that they'd invade simply for the heck of it; they would invade to take control of our planets.

The ground defense cannons (and, I'd suppose, orbital space stations and stuff) have relativistic cannons that actually have a good chance of one-shoting a star destroyer, although on hindsight maybe I made those cannons too powerful.

I would order the construction of emergency, large bunkers for the civilians to evacuate to. I'd then mass produce artificial trees and lots of other things that can be used as cover. When an imperial star destroyer arrives at a planet, the defending fleet would stay within range of the ground defense cannons. When the imperials come within range, concentrate the cannons so that they destroy a large number of imperial star destroyers. They would out-range the imperial turbolasers. Lasers and missiles could be used against the smaller frigates, transport ships and supply ships. If the imperials end up taking a planet, when their troops land have snipers and other infantry units lying in ambush, and target many stormtroopers and their supply lines. Poison the water and food supply (but have clean water and food supplies in bunkers and such). Move the industrial stuff underground, leaving enough stuff on ground that the imperials have an inventive to not do a delta zero. Have the cities filled with detonation devices so that, when the stormtroopers move into a city, they get blown up.

Build lots of orbital defense platforms and ground defense platforms, especially in important planets such as Earth. In the earlier parts of the war target supply ships and transport ships to weaken their logistical capabilities.