Xeeleeverse Humanity (Exultant era) vs. Galactic Empire

[ChosenOne54]

Having just read Exultant, I was just wondering how humanity, from that novel, would fare against the Empire. This is humanity at the start of Exultant (not their more powerful form at the end). Who would win?

[Modax]

The xeeleverse humans use time travel as a fundamental part of their military strategy. They were able to hold their own against the near omnipotent Xeelee. I don't think the empire are really in the same league. Even if humanity's weapons would initially be ineffective against SW ships, they would be able to find away to defeat the empire, though it might take them a long time to do so.

[Modax]

To clarify, in a tactical battle between ships, the empire is going to win. But in any sort of large scale campaign the xeeleverse humans cannot lose. They could send ships into the SW galaxy's past and prevent the empire from forming. Overthrowing the empire without destroying its history would be a lot more complicated but the bottom line is that the empire poses no threat to xeeleverse humanity.

[ThomasP]

Kard’s metallic Eyes gleamed in the complex starlight. ‘Lethe, I love it all. Is there any sight more beautiful than starbreaker light shining through the rubble of a planet?’

This was a globular cluster, orbiting far out of the Galaxy’s main disc. The sky was packed with stars, orange and yellow, layer upon layer of ancient lanterns that receded to infinity. But before those stars, paler lights moved purposefully. They were human-controlled ships. And Xera saw scattered pink sparks, silent detonations. Each of those remote explosions was the dismantling of a world.

The flitter’s hull was transparent because Rear Admiral Kard liked it that way. Even the controls were no more than ghostly rectangles written on the air. It was as if Xera, with Kard and Stub, their young pilot, was falling defenceless through this crowded sky, and she tried to ignore the churning of her stomach.

Xera said carefully, ‘I compliment you on the efficiency of your process.’

He waved that aside. ‘Forget efficiency. Forget process. Commissary, this cluster contains a million stars, crowded into a ball a hundred light years across. It’s only four decades since we first arrived here. And we will have processed them all, all those pretty lights in the sky, within another fifty to sixty years. What do you think of that?’

‘Admiral—’

‘This is the reality of Assimilation,’ he snapped. ‘Ten thousand ships, ten million human beings, in this fleet alone. And it’s the same all over the Expansion, across a great spherical front forty thousand light years across. I doubt you even dream of sights like this, back in the centre. Commissary, watch and learn ...’

Without warning, planets cannonballed out of the sky. She cowered.

That's the scale of industry and firepower you're dealing with from the Coalition humans.

[Modax]

^that should probably have been in a spoiler tag. The OP's scenario was based on Humanity's capabilities in the first part of Exultant.

[ThomasP]

The OP's scenario was based on Humanity's capabilities in the first part of Exultant.

Exultant takes place around 13,000 years after that incident, when the Coalition has completed that expansion process. They don't have less capability, if that's what you're trying to hint at.

[Modax]

Yeah, I didn't realize that. I still think, though, that the SW ships would win in tactical battles if not badly outnumbered.