Tyranids vs the Galactic Empire

[PainRack]

You're right. They're not analogous. The Empire never faced anything like the Imperium has. If you seriously consider one Force-enhanced farmboy and a rag-tag group of rebels to be the equivalent of the Horus Heresy, or Abaddon the Despoiler, or Goge Vandire, or any of the other existential threats the Imperium has faced and weathered, then you are an idiot.

If you tossed the Rebellion into the Warhammer universe, (in terms of their relative abilities, numbers and competence), they would be squashed by the Imperium so hard it would barely make for a tolerable short story. The Tyrant of Badab had a larger fleet and more psychic powers than the entire Rebellion, including Luke and Corran Horn, and he literally is a footnote in the timeline of the Imperium (although he did get more play in the Chaos Codex).

There's a considerable difference. In the Empire, the Rebellion faced considerable difficulties in getting top notch equipment and defecting military units could not defect wholesale. The closest equivalent to any senior military leader turning traitor with a massive military force behind him is Admiral Zaarin.... and he was stopped in his tracks before he could carve out an empire by Thrawn.

Similarly, no warlord could actually gather any similar concentration of troops as the Emperor withdrew his heavy warships into the Core, remainding directly loyal to him.
The closest would probably be the "warlord" depicted in the Glove of Darth Vader series, and that's a bunch of moffs propping up a Darth Vader as a political counterpart to the authority on Coruscant under Prestage.

Looked at that way, especially given the fact that the CIS just a generation ago was able to amass large droid armies and warships, the Empire internal security arm was extremely capable at preventing heavy concentration of military forces from falling outside the Empire grip.

Do you really think there haven't been rebellions in Warhammer 40,000? The most direct and comparable event in the WH40k universe to the Rebellion is the Horus Heresy. Both Endor and the Battle with Horus reduced both leaders to ghosts, fond memories and the institutions they left behind, but where the Empire shattered and faded within a century the Imperium has flourished for 10,000 years.

And? As the Confederacy of Light shows, the Imperium was just as vulnerable to a political rebellion as the Empire. The New Republic set up new political insitutions sure, but then again, so did Thor and the new High Lords of Terra.

The Genestealers managed to in one the Caiphas Cain books, to replace the governor of an Imperial Planet and run undetected for a while. I hardly think that is particularly "not complicated".

Considering we're talking about the exact same event, its clear you're not understanding the rebuttal. Shroom is claiming the Gravalax incident shows that the Genestealers can plan strategically long term, what with their attempt to involve the Tau and the Imperium in a shooting war, so that the subsequent Nid incursion will face weaker defences on the whole.

[PainRack]

They are detailed, to some extent in Dark Heresy. The agents that belonging to Imperium wide organizations like the Administratum or the Adeptus Mechanicus are part of Imperium wide networks. Imperial Governors will have their own planet wide organizations, of course. Lord Sector Hax, ruler of the Calixus Sector, is notoriously paranoid and has multiple agencies (including the infamous Chaliced Commissariat) operating throughout the sector.

There are some problems with liason though. The Arbites and the planetary governors, adiministratum and the Inquisition, and god forbid, the Ecclesiarchy all have problems sharing their intelligence together at anything other than sector level. This is probably due to the nature of the threats they face and how they operate. There's a plethora of stories where the Inqusition remains "hidden" investigators, stumbled upon by Guardsmen, Space Marines or the arbites. Not surprising given that open revelation will lead to their exposure and then destruction.

Hell, its even been mentioned that both the Arbites/Administration, the Inquisition has ideological conflicts with the Ecclesiarchy intelligence methods, this even as the Ecclesiarchy plays a vital role in hunting down Chaos and mutant heresy.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Genestealers managed to in one the Caiphas Cain books, to replace the governor of an Imperial Planet and run undetected for a while. I hardly think that is particularly "not complicated".

Considering we're talking about the exact same event, its clear you're not understanding the rebuttal. Shroom is claiming the Gravalax incident shows that the Genestealers can plan strategically long term, what with their attempt to involve the Tau and the Imperium in a shooting war, so that the subsequent Nid incursion will face weaker defences on the whole.

I still maintain its complication. While "pit one enemy against another enemy to make them kill each other so I can kill both of them easier" isn't exactly that complicated or strategically long term, the Tyrannids were able to implement this plan competently and - Jesus, man - these genestealers evolved for strategic long-term planning. I mean, genestealer operations are supposed to run for generations to the point where single infected individuals end up spawning a whole extended family made out of clawed and carapaced chitinous corrupt co-conspirators to help them conduct and carry out their conspiracies. That is VERY long term, longer than my alliteration even.

They managed to understand and exploit political situations to their advantage, not only on a planetary level but if the plan succeeded it would've had broader implications for the whole sector of space they were in. Come on, it's not like they're dumb animals. Genestealers can be Planetary Governors, they can be members and officers of the PDF, members of the nobility, of the citizenry, the peasantry, supporters of both the Imperium and the Tau. The whole nature of their modus operandi is pretty complicated.

There are some problems with liason though. The Arbites and the planetary governors, adiministratum and the Inquisition, and god forbid, the Ecclesiarchy all have problems sharing their intelligence together at anything other than sector level. This is probably due to the nature of the threats they face and how they operate. There's a plethora of stories where the Inqusition remains "hidden" investigators, stumbled upon by Guardsmen, Space Marines or the arbites. Not surprising given that open revelation will lead to their exposure and then destruction.

Hell, its even been mentioned that both the Arbites/Administration, the Inquisition has ideological conflicts with the Ecclesiarchy intelligence methods, this even as the Ecclesiarchy plays a vital role in hunting down Chaos and mutant heresy.

Are not internal squabbles between various agencies also known to the Empire? Don't their people also go undercover, and don't they also protect their secrets from guys like Bothan spies so their Death Stars won't get exploderized and stuff? I mean, we can even see these differences when high-ranking officers strangle each other with telekinesis when having a board room meeting.

[Simon_Jester]

So, Shroom, how long would the Imperium last if the GEoM died and it became public knowledge? (Not "ascended to warp-godhood", out-and-out died.) Ignore the likely effect of the Eye of Terror swelling up to swallow chunks of the Imperium and so on.

For strategic purposes the Emperor is dead; he makes effectively no decisions. His sole contribution to the continued function of the Imperium is that they use his head as a giant lighthouse. If Palpatine were reduced to the God-Emperor's state, the Empire would collapse in short order as we've seen, even if his vital signs were still nominally ticking over. It might not collapse as fast as it would with a living Palpatine taking refuge in the Deep Core and explicitly screwing with things for the hell of it, but people like Ysanne Isard would need no special orders to screw things up, given the opportunity.

That was sort of what I was getting at. I suspected that the Imperium has gigantic fleets but all the firepower in the world isn't useful unless it gets to where it's going at the right time. Beyond sheer impracticality, the Maus and Ratte fantasy tanks the Germans came up with would have been silly because they could fight but couldn't get where they were needed when they were needed; from what you say, I get the impression that the Imperium fleets have a similar problem because of FTL limitations.

That's half the picture. The other half is that the Imperium has spent the last ten to fifteen thousand years churning out these massive ship designs (and, aber naturlich, "Maus and Ratte-style fantasy tanks"... ) from hundreds or thousands of factory worlds scattered around the galaxy. And those ships have life expectancies measured in centuries or millenia. So they have a big damn fleet, and are capable of sowing the galaxy with capital ships densely enough that a naval task force can usually reach any given planet in fairly short order. Of course, knock out the local sector fleet and it may be months or years before significant reinforcements can arrive, travelling at about 1000c. And that's their great weakness.

The Tyranids are unable to exploit it because they aren't fast enough, but against an enemy that can concentrate more force in one place and that is far more mobile than they are, they're in trouble. This is a big part of the reason they have difficulties with the Necrons, who can basically teleport and whose small ships have as much firepower as Imperium heavies.

Well, of course. But the important part of my point was that the Empire can arrive with its large forces when there is the maximum concentration of targets and wipe out both the C&C and supply aspects of an invasion force as well as obliterating the numbers of ground forces required to consume a planet. The Imperium may have a large spacefleet but could they arrive with large numbers when the Hive Fleet was at its most vulnerable to massive space assault?

Only by luck or good timing. A sufficiently capable Imperium strategist could probably make that plan work by gauging the rhythm of the Tyranid attack and launching his fleet at the right moment, but it would be much, much easier for the Empire because they don't have to worry about the Shadow in the Warp jamming their commo and FTL drives.

What I've been getting at is that even the Imperium, which has lower ship power-to-weight ratios than Galactic Empire and which is enormously handicapped by trying to fight a galaxy-sized war at FTL speeds of ~1000c, finds most of its success against the Tyranids fighting them in space. Using the (somewhat) deadlier and (enormously) faster ships of Star Wars*, they're not a problem.

*Or of a number of other settings; the Grand Fleet of Civilization from Doc Smith's Lensman novels would wipe the floor with Tyranids...

See, that is a result of my unfamiliarity with the universe; the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines are so different that I didn't remember that they were collectively part of the same galactic power. So the GE would field a force roughly comparable to the Imperial Guard, it would seem, albeit with slightly better infantry armor.

More or less, except that the Guard is much more diverse. Some of their regiments come from primitive planets and are technically clueless (hell, you still see horse cavalry instead of mechanized or air sometimes!). Others are very technically sophisticated, with a lot of heavy armor or air support. One constant is that most Guard units that aren't specifically "light" (horse cavalry/airborne) use an enormous amount of ballistic artillery, rather than relying on direct fire beam weapons for everything.

But yes, on the ground, the Imperial Guard is roughly comparable to the Galactic Empire's army, though probably with a higher average level of combat experience, and possibly with weaker basic infantry weapons. It's in space where there's a significant gap in performance.

Here is a another question;
Once the Nid invasion vector is made clear, what is to stop the Empire from rapidly fortifying the worlds in that area and in the path of the invasion? Planetary shield technology *alone* is going to utterly vex the Nids, as they rain spores that shatter on the shields, without the ability to rapidly infest like they have always relied on.

True, but you can't run planetary shielding 24/7 now can you? Sooner or later you're going to need resupply or power or whatever, and I have often wondered if planetary shielding for any prolonged period might carry adverse enviromental effects as well (think Coruscant) I'm ont sure you could really "shield" every planet in the Empire anyhow, or they would care about every planet. Most of the core ought to have large scale planetary shielding anyhow, and they're more likely to say "fuck off" to the Outer Rim. And even if they do shield every Imperial territory in the Outer Rim, that doesn't include those factions outside the Empire.

I think the point here isn't so much to make every world immune to Tyranid attack; it's to create a firebreak of fortified worlds in the path of the Tyranid invasion, forcing them to expend large amounts of biomass for little return against planetary shields and heavy turbolaser batteries.

The great threat of the Tyranids is that they'll sneak up on you, eat their way through a large swath of lightly defended worlds, hit your defenses with the combined biomass of those planets, and then roll right over you. The logical counter is to stop them as far forward as possible, before they have time to get a decent meal.

Also, I would suggest that the AT-AT role is that of a heavy transport, as opposed to that of a superheavy tank meant to engage other tanks. The Titan role..... is probably for siege warfare, although its origins meant conceptually, it was a heavy tank.

Hmm. I dunno. The AT-AT can serve as a heavy transport, but it also acts as a long-range artillery platform. Yes, it's got a huge target profile, but by the same token it's also got great elevation for its main guns. Given that Star Wars usually limits itself to direct fire weapons, a taller firing platform has longer range. So the AT-AT may be a sort of hybrid between the armored transport role and the tank destroyer "sniper" role.

[PainRack]

I still maintain its complication. While "pit one enemy against another enemy to make them kill each other so I can kill both of them easier" isn't exactly that complicated or strategically long term, the Tyrannids were able to implement this plan competently and - Jesus, man - these genestealers evolved for strategic long-term planning. I mean, genestealer operations are supposed to run for generations to the point where single infected individuals end up spawning a whole extended family made out of clawed and carapaced chitinous corrupt co-conspirators to help them conduct and carry out their conspiracies. That is VERY long term, longer than my alliteration even.

They managed to understand and exploit political situations to their advantage, not only on a planetary level but if the plan succeeded it would've had broader implications for the whole sector of space they were in. Come on, it's not like they're dumb animals. Genestealers can be Planetary Governors, they can be members and officers of the PDF, members of the nobility, of the citizenry, the peasantry, supporters of both the Imperium and the Tau. The whole nature of their modus operandi is pretty complicated.

And as my rebuttal said, this hinges entirely on Amberly guess about what the Stealers were trying to do post hoc.
Its entirely possible that what happened was that the Genestealer cult on Gravalax did not amount to anything else other than incite conflict along the current fault line, something we already know they're capable of doing.
The sector wide thingy could equally be attributed to the fact that genestealer cults were calling for the Hive Fleet and its entry along those sectors.

Are not internal squabbles between various agencies also known to the Empire? Don't their people also go undercover, and don't they also protect their secrets from guys like Bothan spies so their Death Stars won't get exploderized and stuff? I mean, we can even see these differences when high-ranking officers strangle each other with telekinesis when having a board room meeting.

For them, the relative ease of interstellar communications and computers means sharing of relatively sensitive intelligence is orders of magnitude easier.

[PainRack]

What I've been getting at is that even the Imperium, which has lower ship power-to-weight ratios than Galactic Empire and which is enormously handicapped by trying to fight a galaxy-sized war at FTL speeds of ~1000c, finds most of its success against the Tyranids fighting them in space. Using the (somewhat) deadlier and (enormously) faster ships of Star Wars*, they're not a problem.

The problem is, the GE fleet is quantitatively underpowered when compared to the Imperium.

[starfury]

For strategic purposes the Emperor is dead; he makes effectively no decisions. His sole contribution to the continued function of the Imperium is that they use his head as a giant lighthouse. If Palpatine were reduced to the God-Emperor's state, the Empire would collapse in short order as we've seen, even if his vital signs were still nominally ticking over. It might not collapse as fast as it would with a living Palpatine taking refuge in the Deep Core and explicitly screwing with things for the hell of it, but people like Ysanne Isard would need no special orders to screw things up, given the opportunity.

So it was back to the Russia vs Germany analogy for the Two empires, on the Outside the GE seemed far more stable and normal, then seemingly random and erratic imperium, but once the most important piece, Palpatine was killled the Whole house was cards seemed to literally descend to into massively destrutive civil war that wiped most fleet assets, the imperium which was relatively decentrailzed to begin with, actually seeming to benefit from precisely that, Age of Apostasy didn't become a horus hesrey MK II and turn the imperium into a bunch of battling min-empires. In accounting for the new republic and later imperium rebuilding takeover, the transition seem smoother for the rather loose imperium compared to rather rigid empire, which the new state had to start from scratch by comparion, even accounting for the differnt mindset of the empire vs the new Republic.

[Srelex]

What I've been getting at is that even the Imperium, which has lower ship power-to-weight ratios than Galactic Empire and which is enormously handicapped by trying to fight a galaxy-sized war at FTL speeds of ~1000c, finds most of its success against the Tyranids fighting them in space. Using the (somewhat) deadlier and (enormously) faster ships of Star Wars*, they're not a problem.

The problem is, the GE fleet is quantitatively underpowered when compared to the Imperium.

What do you mean? A few sources describe the GE fleet as numbering in the millions, which would put it on rough par with the higher figures for the Imperium fleet, if you mean numbers--anyway, judging by info in the ROTS ICS, both the Republic and the CIS were both able to build fleets of millions in a short time, so the point is pretty moot.

[Serafine666]

For strategic purposes the Emperor is dead; he makes effectively no decisions. His sole contribution to the continued function of the Imperium is that they use his head as a giant lighthouse.

That's half the picture. The other half is that the Imperium has spent the last ten to fifteen thousand years churning out these massive ship designs (and, aber naturlich, "Maus and Ratte-style fantasy tanks"... ) from hundreds or thousands of factory worlds scattered around the galaxy. And those ships have life expectancies measured in centuries or millenia. So they have a big damn fleet, and are capable of sowing the galaxy with capital ships densely enough that a naval task force can usually reach any given planet in fairly short order. Of course, knock out the local sector fleet and it may be months or years before significant reinforcements can arrive, travelling at about 1000c. And that's their great weakness.

The Tyranids are unable to exploit it because they aren't fast enough, but against an enemy that can concentrate more force in one place and that is far more mobile than they are, they're in trouble. This is a big part of the reason they have difficulties with the Necrons, who can basically teleport and whose small ships have as much firepower as Imperium heavies.

Only by luck or good timing. A sufficiently capable Imperium strategist could probably make that plan work by gauging the rhythm of the Tyranid attack and launching his fleet at the right moment, but it would be much, much easier for the Empire because they don't have to worry about the Shadow in the Warp jamming their commo and FTL drives.

What I've been getting at is that even the Imperium, which has lower ship power-to-weight ratios than Galactic Empire and which is enormously handicapped by trying to fight a galaxy-sized war at FTL speeds of ~1000c, finds most of its success against the Tyranids fighting them in space. Using the (somewhat) deadlier and (enormously) faster ships of Star Wars*, they're not a problem.

*Or of a number of other settings; the Grand Fleet of Civilization from Doc Smith's Lensman novels would wipe the floor with Tyranids...

It sounds like you and me agree enough that there's no point in further dispute. BTW, Eleventh Century Remnant's analysis was like reading Mike dissing on the concept of bioships in general... good times.

More or less, except that the Guard is much more diverse. Some of their regiments come from primitive planets and are technically clueless (hell, you still see horse cavalry instead of mechanized or air sometimes!). Others are very technically sophisticated, with a lot of heavy armor or air support. One constant is that most Guard units that aren't specifically "light" (horse cavalry/airborne) use an enormous amount of ballistic artillery, rather than relying on direct fire beam weapons for everything.

But yes, on the ground, the Imperial Guard is roughly comparable to the Galactic Empire's army, though probably with a higher average level of combat experience, and possibly with weaker basic infantry weapons. It's in space where there's a significant gap in performance.

Fortunately for the GE, it is through space that the 'Nids must travel to get to the next food source. Given that the SW universe provably has ways of tracking things going factors of ten faster than the speed of light, it seems that once the 'Nids are detected, they could be corralled and beaten on coming and going. Squish.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What I've been getting at is that even the Imperium, which has lower ship power-to-weight ratios than Galactic Empire and which is enormously handicapped by trying to fight a galaxy-sized war at FTL speeds of ~1000c, finds most of its success against the Tyranids fighting them in space. Using the (somewhat) deadlier and (enormously) faster ships of Star Wars*, they're not a problem.

The problem is, the GE fleet is quantitatively underpowered when compared to the Imperium.

What do you mean? A few sources describe the GE fleet as numbering in the millions, which would put it on rough par with the higher figures for the Imperium fleet, if you mean numbers--anyway, judging by info in the ROTS ICS, both the Republic and the CIS were both able to build fleets of millions in a short time, so the point is pretty moot.

Millions? Last I heard, a million might be really pushing the figure. Where do you get that bit? The Republic had millions of warships? That is new. I don't think KDY even at its peak could churn out 100,000 Venators in 2 years.

Fortunately for the GE, it is through space that the 'Nids must travel to get to the next food source. Given that the SW universe provably has ways of tracking things going factors of ten faster than the speed of light, it seems that once the 'Nids are detected, they could be corralled and beaten on coming and going. Squish.

Assuming the Empire reacts fast enough, and the 'nids haven't immobilized local sector resistance. They seem quite capable of going beyond the Yuuzhan Vong in sowing disorder.

[Srelex]

Millions? Last I heard, a million might be really pushing the figure. Where do you get that bit? The Republic had millions of warships? That is new. I don't think KDY even at its peak could churn out 100,000 Venators in 2 years.

The ROTS ICS describes millions of warships fighting in the Outer Rim alone. If you want a specific quote or page number...

Assuming the Empire reacts fast enough, and the 'nids haven't immobilized local sector resistance. They seem quite capable of going beyond the Yuuzhan Vong in sowing disorder.

The problem is that the Tyranids are sloooooooooooow by Star Wars standards, to say the least.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Millions? Last I heard, a million might be really pushing the figure. Where do you get that bit? The Republic had millions of warships? That is new. I don't think KDY even at its peak could churn out 100,000 Venators in 2 years.

The ROTS ICS describes millions of warships fighting in the Outer Rim alone. If you want a specific quote or page number...

I'd say most of them are probably fighters and corvettes rather than actual capital warships. I will find it hard to believe that KDY and Rendili and other major shipyard manufacturers still allied with the Republic can possibly churn out half a million warships for a demilitarized Republic that could barely scrap together a decent fleet at the outset of the war. Heck, during the Stark Hyperspace War, it was barely even a fleet worthy of note that was scrapped together to deal with a bunch of mangy pirates.

The problem is that the Tyranids are sloooooooooooow by Star Wars standards, to say the least.

After they consume a planet, their numbers more than double last I checked. So it's up to the Empire to figure out whether it is a threat, or if the 'nids have crippled sectorial communications networks to delay local response. Go figure which comes faster in terms of numbers.

[Srelex]

I'd say most of them are probably fighters rather than actual warships. I will find it hard to believe that KDY and Rendili and other major shipyard manufacturers still allied with the Republic can possibly churn out half a million warships for a demilitarized Republic that could barely scrap together a decent fleet at the outset of the war.

No, it specifically states warships.

After they consume a planet, their numbers more than double last I checked. So it's up to the Empire to figure out whether it is a threat, or if the 'nids have crippled sectorial communications networks to delay local response. Go figure which comes faster in terms of numbers.

The 'Nids can't cripple Imperial communications like they do with the Imperium because their method of doing that is related to the warp, which is unrelated to Imperial comms. All that's needed to betray a Tyranid invasion is an SOS on the Holonet by a governor or any Imperial personnel, or even a random frigate or probe on patrol. Hell, given by the speeds people have described earlier in the thread, the Empire could prepare a huge response between the moment a Tyranid fleet is detected and when it arrives at a world. As for doubling, I think that relates to the various ground critters rather than hiveships, although I may be wrong.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The 'Nids can't cripple Imperial communications like they do with the Imperium because their method of doing that is related to the warp, which is unrelated to Imperial comms. All that's needed to betray a Tyranid invasion is an SOS on the Holonet by a governor or any Imperial personnel, or even a random frigate or probe on patrol. Hell, given by the speeds people have described earlier in the thread, the Empire could prepare a huge response between the moment a Tyranid fleet is detected and when it arrives at a world. As for doubling, I think that relates to the various ground critters rather than hiveships, although I may be wrong.

You have heard of the Genestealers right? You don't assume the Tyranids come aknocking without some ground reconnaissance? They did that for the Imperium, hundreds of years before they actually made any substantial moves.

No, it specifically states warships.

There is nothing in canon that ever suggests KDY or any of the known shipyards can possibly churn out half a million capital warships in that short period of time as the Clone Wars. Likely they are lesser warships that aren't capital rated. (and hell knows where most of them are produced since most of the Republic's manufacturing was taken, never mind how the hell the Republic managed to raise millions of navy crewmen to crew the ships when it probably takes at least 6mths to a year to fully train them. Not even the most efficient cloning technology was that efficient!) Even with the galaxy fully mobilized in the Yuuzhan Vong War, the NR's main forward fleets were replenished to about probably thousand or so ships in strength each, if we judge from the Battle of the Black Bantha where there were something like 1500-2000 warships, and there were 5 or so forward fleets. I am not sure about the tail end, since that was never ever detailed.

Heck, I remember reading somewhere it takes 6months or so (probably more?) to produce an Imperator Star Destroyer. Even if a Venator was less than half that, and something like 25,000 ISDs at the minimum were produced over the course of 10-20 years, what does that tell you? Most of these ships are likely corvettes and frigates and some cruisers at best.

[Srelex]

You have heard of the Genestealers right? You don't assume the Tyranids come aknocking without some ground reconnaissance? They did that for the Imperium, hundreds of years before they actually made any substantial moves.

Genestealers can be a pain in the ass, but besides, they don't have centuries of infiltration like they did here. In any case, no genestealer cult can possibly hope to cut off all commications from a world, especially as many citizens own individual methods of interplanetery communications. Or even scout vessels zooming off to break the news. Furthermore, not all genestealers are utterly inconspicous, and with SW tech they can be detected if you know where to look.

There is nothing in canon that ever suggests KDY or any of the known shipyards can possibly churn out half a million capital warships in that short period of time as the Clone Wars. Likely they are lesser warships that aren't capital rated. (and hell knows where most of them are produced since most of the Republic's manufacturing was taken, never mind how the hell the Republic managed to raise millions of navy crewmen to crew the ships when it probably takes at least 6mths to a year to fully train them. Not even the most efficient cloning technology was that efficient!) Even with the galaxy fully mobilized in the Yuuzhan Vong War, the NR's main forward fleets were replenished to about probably thousand or so ships in strength each, if we judge from the Battle of the Black Bantha where there were something like 1500-2000 warships, and there were 5 or so forward fleets. I am not sure about the tail end, since that was never ever detailed.

Heck, I remember reading somewhere it takes 6months or so (probably more?) to produce an Imperator Star Destroyer. Even if a Venator was less than half that, and something like 25,000 ISDs at the minimum were produced over the course of 10-20 years, what does that tell you? Most of these ships are likely corvettes and frigates and some cruisers at best.

You can accept the Empire building a 900km wide Death Star in less than six months, but a few million warships over a few years breaks your suspenion of disbelief? Well, now that I reread the quote, it refers to Separatist warships (I guess I misremembered it before, so apologies), but it stands to reason that the Republic would possess similar numbers (it refers to millions of Separatist warships just in the Outer Rim), and besides, the Empire possess more and superior industry to the Seps, who considered the Death Star an impossible task and owned significantly less planets. In any case, the various engineering feats by the Empire and others--the Death Star, the KDY shipyards--show that such fleet numbers are viable, so get over it.

[NecronLord]

Fingolfin, are you trying to be daft? There are millions of worlds. What do you mean "there is nothing in the canon to suggest they can make that many?" It's a galaxy wide war. Almost every planet would be producing some kind of war materiel.

[Black Admiral]

IIRC it's implied/stated in one of the Republic Commando novels (Order 66, I think; have to check - got it round here somewhere) that KDY alone can build thousands of warships at once (with a build-time of about five months from keel-laying to space trials).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Fingolfin, are you trying to be daft? There are millions of worlds. What do you mean "there is nothing in the canon to suggest they can make that many?" It's a galaxy wide war. Almost every planet would be producing some kind of war materiel.

And just how many worlds have the infrastructure? A fraction likely. Mostly the core worlds which are industrialized enough to produce the necessary resource chain to produce the ships, and a few rim worlds such as Mon Calamari.

Not to mention, it takes time to start up the infrastructure, from one end of the logistics chain to another, to get the entire production line going.

IIRC it's implied/stated in one of the Republic Commando novels (Order 66, I think; have to check - got it round here somewhere) that KDY alone can build thousands of warships at once (with a build-time of about five months from keel-laying to space trials).

Probably likely the lesser ships (<1km long). ISDs alone take 6mths or more.

[Srelex]

And just how many worlds have the infrastructure? A fraction likely. Mostly the core worlds which are industrialized enough to produce the necessary resource chain to produce the ships, and a few rim worlds such as Mon Calamari.

Not to mention, it takes time to start up the infrastructure, from one end of the logistics chain to another, to get the entire production line going.

Not necesserily. With hyperdrive and automation, the process can be quite fast. Furthermore, do we know how many ships an individual shipyard can produce at any given time?

Probably likely the lesser ships (<1km long). ISDs alone take 6mths or more.

What's your specific source on this?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Genestealers can be a pain in the ass, but besides, they don't have centuries of infiltration like they did here. In any case, no genestealer cult can possibly hope to cut off all commications from a world, especially as many citizens own individual methods of interplanetery communications. Or even scout vessels zooming off to break the news. Furthermore, not all genestealers are utterly inconspicous, and with SW tech they can be detected if you know where to look.

Starting a local planetary revolt might work to disrupt the Imperials and divert attention.

You can accept the Empire building a 900km wide Death Star in less than six months, but a few million warships over a few years breaks your suspenion of disbelief? Well, now that I reread the quote, it refers to Separatist warships (I guess I misremembered it before, so apologies), but it stands to reason that the Republic would possess similar numbers (it refers to millions of Separatist warships just in the Outer Rim), and besides, the Empire possess more and superior industry to the Seps, who considered the Death Star an impossible task and owned significantly less planets. In any case, the various engineering feats by the Empire and others--the Death Star, the KDY shipyards--show that such fleet numbers are viable, so get over it.

The Death Star wasn't even remotely as "complete" as of the Battle of Endor, and has many months of construction left. It was largely a shell, with the superlaser operational, and hypermatter reactor and barely any of its surface weapons were ready. Moreover, many of the components were in a state of R&D long before construction actually begun, particularly the hypermatter reactor.

Moreover, it's the time scale. It takes time and precision to finish certain components. Take a real world example. To complete a Nimitz carrier, it takes at the bare minimum 4-5 years to complete one, and up to 10 years in some cares. No faster. You can only do so much if components such as reactor cores take finite time to complete. Granted Star Wars tech has significantly advanced, but it take shit load of time to produce the millions you speak of.

[Xess]

The Death Star wasn't even remotely as "complete" as of the Battle of Endor, and has many months of construction left. It was largely a shell, with the superlaser operational, and hypermatter reactor and barely any of its surface weapons were ready. Moreover, many of the components were in a state of R&D long before construction actually begun, particularly the hypermatter reactor.

The DS2 was roughly 60% complete by the time of the Battle of Endor. It was much more than a shell at that point.

[Srelex]

Starting a local planetary revolt might work to disrupt the Imperials and divert attention.

Tarkin Doctrine comes into play here. Without rebel or other military support, fear of BDZ will help stave things off, unless you mean that the cults themselves attack.

The Death Star wasn't even remotely as "complete" as of the Battle of Endor, and has many months of construction left. It was largely a shell, with the superlaser operational, and hypermatter reactor and barely any of its surface weapons were ready. Moreover, many of the components were in a state of R&D long before construction actually begun, particularly the hypermatter reactor.

Moreover, it's the time scale. It takes time and precision to finish certain components. Take a real world example. To complete a Nimitz carrier, it takes at the bare minimum 4-5 years to complete one, and up to 10 years in some cares. No faster. You can only do so much if components such as reactor cores take finite time to complete. Granted Star Wars tech has significantly advanced, but it take shit load of time to produce the millions you speak of.

The Death Star was 60% complete at least, and that's still a very impressive construction time. Furthermore, the Republic still managed to construct a diverse and large military--Acclamators, the varioius ground forces--in a very short time either way. Hell, the CIS practically produced a vast army out of nowhere--even if we be generous and assume they started production the second it was founded, it's still impressive. Furthermore, you need to back up your statement--do you know how many ships a shipyard can produce at a time? Do you know the precise number of shipyards? Do you know how long it takes? Yes, even if I grant your statement about ISD time, the Empire still has smaller ships that are still not to be taken lightly in firepower.

[NecronLord]

Fingolfin, are you trying to be daft? There are millions of worlds. What do you mean "there is nothing in the canon to suggest they can make that many?" It's a galaxy wide war. Almost every planet would be producing some kind of war materiel.

And just how many worlds have the infrastructure? A fraction likely. Mostly the core worlds which are industrialized enough to produce the necessary resource chain to produce the ships, and a few rim worlds such as Mon Calamari.

Not to mention, it takes time to start up the infrastructure, from one end of the logistics chain to another, to get the entire production line going.

And it's a galaxy wide war.

[Darth Hoth]

The Death Star wasn't even remotely as "complete" as of the Battle of Endor, and has many months of construction left. It was largely a shell, with the superlaser operational, and hypermatter reactor and barely any of its surface weapons were ready.

In other words, it was operational with ~60 per cent of its bulk already constructed. Do you want to run the numbers on how many millions of Executor-class Super Star Destroyers, never mind ISD-IIs, that volume is equivalent to?

Moreover, many of the components were in a state of R&D long before construction actually begun, particularly the hypermatter reactor.

Are you here implying that smaller-scale reactors suitable for warships were somehow a rare and undeveloped technology even remotely comparable to the totally unprecedented scale of the DS-I? This is a non-argument if ever there was one.

Moreover, it's the time scale. It takes time and precision to finish certain components. Take a real world example. To complete a Nimitz carrier, it takes at the bare minimum 4-5 years to complete one, and up to 10 years in some cares. No faster. You can only do so much if components such as reactor cores take finite time to complete. Granted Star Wars tech has significantly advanced, but it take shit load of time to produce the millions you speak of.

The DS-II was built in situ by automated construction drones, in a matter of months. Why should it take much longer to build millions of smaller reactors?

Fingolfin, are you trying to be daft? There are millions of worlds. What do you mean "there is nothing in the canon to suggest they can make that many?" It's a galaxy wide war. Almost every planet would be producing some kind of war materiel.

And just how many worlds have the infrastructure? A fraction likely. Mostly the core worlds which are industrialized enough to produce the necessary resource chain to produce the ships, and a few rim worlds such as Mon Calamari.

Not to mention, it takes time to start up the infrastructure, from one end of the logistics chain to another, to get the entire production line going.

Which is why the DS-II was built in situ in a matter of months, with no on-site infrastructure except what the Imperials brought or built from scratch as they went along . . . Oh, wait.

There is nothing in canon that ever suggests KDY or any of the known shipyards can possibly churn out half a million capital warships in that short period of time as the Clone Wars. Likely they are lesser warships that aren't capital rated. (and hell knows where most of them are produced since most of the Republic's manufacturing was taken, never mind how the hell the Republic managed to raise millions of navy crewmen to crew the ships when it probably takes at least 6mths to a year to fully train them. Not even the most efficient cloning technology was that efficient!) Even with the galaxy fully mobilized in the Yuuzhan Vong War, the NR's main forward fleets were replenished to about probably thousand or so ships in strength each, if we judge from the Battle of the Black Bantha where there were something like 1500-2000 warships, and there were 5 or so forward fleets. I am not sure about the tail end, since that was never ever detailed.

Yes, it is terribly difficult to raise a force to crew millions in a galaxy inhabited by quadrillions of people. Assuming that these "millions" of ships were actually a hundred million and all required ISD-equivalent crew numbers, this yields, somewhat rounded, three point seven trillion officers and crew. Which, according to Saxton's low-ball estimates for Coruscant, is at most a single percent of said planet's population. This is a smaller fraction of the population than most militaries on Earth employ today in peacetime, never mind a major war, and as noted this assumes that all naval recruitment is done on Coruscant.

Heck, I remember reading somewhere it takes 6months or so (probably more?) to produce an Imperator Star Destroyer. Even if a Venator was less than half that, and something like 25,000 ISDs at the minimum were produced over the course of 10-20 years, what does that tell you? Most of these ships are likely corvettes and frigates and some cruisers at best.

Ah, yes, the 25,000 number that came from Pellaeon, that astute economist (as well as mouthpiece for ultra-minimalist author Timothy Zahn) who also thought that the construction of a single Super Star Destroyer nearly bankrupted the Empire and who was canonically considered incompetent and/or dishonest by his superiors, hence his lack of promotion for decades until he went warlord and fled from Endor. Next we will surely hear how the Republic only ever deployed three million clones at once in the Clone Wars. Considering the WEG order of battle from the Imperial Sourcebook, as well as he fact that Super Star Destroyers were commonly used as Sector-level command ships, that number is untenable at best. Either it is total crap, or it must be reinterpreted somehow (e.g., it actually referred to the production run of the ISD-I model only, and if so that one must then have been comparatively rare).

The ROTS ICS describes millions of warships fighting in the Outer Rim alone. If you want a specific quote or page number...

I'd say most of them are probably fighters and corvettes rather than actual capital warships. I will find it hard to believe that KDY and Rendili and other major shipyard manufacturers still allied with the Republic can possibly churn out half a million warships for a demilitarized Republic that could barely scrap together a decent fleet at the outset of the war. Heck, during the Stark Hyperspace War, it was barely even a fleet worthy of note that was scrapped together to deal with a bunch of mangy pirates.

What the Hell? Since when does "warship" legitimately mean "fighter" in any context? What is this, Star Trek?

[Eviscerator]

[quote="Fingolfin_Noldor"]
You have heard of the Genestealers right? You don't assume the Tyranids come aknocking without some ground reconnaissance? They did that for the Imperium, hundreds of years before they actually made any substantial moves.

[quote]quote]

But can they communicate with the Hive Fleet as in "The world here has X defenders and Y places are important" or do they send a general "Hey look there's lots of life here, dinner at 8!".

There's an Deathwatch graphic novel in which the Inquisitor set into place a program to poison the population against the Tyranids. Specifically triggers were put into the population to mutate when the aural keening call of the Tyranids proper was heard. The call to the hive fleet was sounded by the coven/patriach/what have you, but it's never stated they can send a "wave-off" signal

Similiarly, thanks to the Kryptman Doctrine, the call was sent to bring the fleet down on Ork Planets.
So do they send specific signals or a general signal? That's the question.