Gundams vs. the Empire

[CaptHawkeye]

With a name like "Jesus Yamato" I honestly can't take this guy very seriously from Post No. 1.

I've seen Gundam Wing but not the others. We never saw a single weapon, gadget, gimmick, ship, etc that the Empire didn't have in spades and way more powerful. Libra's ray gun was only about as powerful as a single shot from an ISD and that's being generous.

[Ford Prefect]

With a name like "Jesus Yamato" I honestly can't take this guy very seriously from Post No. 1.

Jesus Yamato is actually a derogatory nickname for the main character of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. So I'm not sure if he's being deliberately ironic, engaging in obscure self parody or just plain dumb.

[Jesus Yamato]

If the Gundams were used only as fighters (as in most series the ships were transporting them due to limited power/supplies. more likely the Gundams would get a small vessel with hyperspace and be able to travel to other planets and be able to build up their forces, after all in most Gundam series, the Gundam is the super mobile suit with support of a hundred weaker mobile suits. Also in most series besides Wing the Gundam is normally used only as a fighter, not an anti-warship unit, though as they got extremely overpowered they became that. The other part to consider is most Gundam pilots are what makes the mobile suit, they can normally manage to fight a new Gundam pilot with an insanely weak mobile suit, so it would be likely the pilots could infultrate bases, assasinations, steal fighters or even small vessels, and then just have the Gundam deal with fighters or ground support.

[Srelex]

Where would they get hyperdrive? Would they yank it out of their mechanical asses?

[Jesus Yamato]

Learn to read.

I said "they could get (as in "capture") a small vessel with hyperspace and be able to travel to other planets and be able to build up their forces."

[Srelex]

You said

more likely the Gundams would get a small vessel with hyperspace

. 'Get' is pretty damn vague. And even then, explain to me in detail how they would go about this.

[CaptHawkeye]

Ha! Mechawank! Now i'm entertained! I hear using bipedal humanoid robots is TOTALLY better than using designed fighter craft or space ships because... LEGS = ULTIMATE POWAAAAZ.

I love the black/white fallacy that's in that whole post between "zomg super gundams lol @ weak mobile suits".

[Jesus Yamato]

Ha! Mechawank! Now i'm entertained! I hear using bipedal humanoid robots is TOTALLY better than using designed fighter craft or space ships because... LEGS = ULTIMATE POWAAAAZ.

I love the black/white fallacy that's in that whole post between "zomg super gundams lol @ weak mobile suits".

A lot of the Gundams are transformable, and have a flight mode in addition to their bipedal mode...

[CaptHawkeye]

Soooooo...why have the fucking mech then? If it's only any good in space when it tries to be a fighter...than why not just build a god damn fighter? Wait! SUPA GUNDAMS!!!!!

[Jesus Yamato]

Because there are places where a fighter simply cannot go, where as a Gundam/mobile suit could, and despite what you guys seem to think, fighters don't nesscerly work in every single situation.

[Corpsman]

Because there are places where a fighter simply cannot go, where as a Gundam/mobile suit could, and despite what you guys seem to think, fighters don't nesscerly work in every single situation.

Such as...? I think repulsorlifts > legs in ANY situation.

[Batman]

And that is where you are mistaken. We definitely do. There's situations where fighters are called for, and there's situations where ground vehicles are called for. There's NOT situations were stupid transforming Mecha are called for.
We're still waiting for you to address the massive firepower differential (here's a hint-a Clone Wars era troop transport can annihilate Hawaii with a single shot from a single MTL) or the fact that Wars has seriously fast FTL across the board while Gundam...doesn't.

[lance]

The Empire vs G Gundam on the ground would be interesting, if only for an AT-AT being knocked over by a mighty Karate Kick.

[CaptHawkeye]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH. This is too good. A fighter can't work in every POSSIBLE situation that could happen. Therefore, you're better off designing a massively wasteful, expensive, stupid mech/fighter hybrid that works like Inspector Gadget. I bet a helicopter pops out of its head too!

Define "where a fighter cannot go". Do you mean the ground? Nah, got that covered.

Maybe you mean... buildings? Bunkers and such? S'ok, we got a unit for that job too.

But keep going dude. I want to hear more about your magical transforming silver bullets!

[Corpsman]

I bet a helicopter pops out of its head too!

Clearly, pogo feet would be cooler.

[Srelex]

I bet a helicopter pops out of its head too!

Funny you should say that...

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/g/gf13-066no.jpg

[Ghost Rider]

The Empire vs G Gundam on the ground would be interesting, if only for an AT-AT being knocked over by a mighty Karate Kick.

If only to watch them scream the power of love as Palpatine merges with the DS and Luke must unleash the Force Hadoken made of brolove with Domon.

Oh as for this farce. Yes, they'll grab a hyperdrive . And cavemen will capture a jet and be able to reverse engineer Boeing's designs. Goddamn another idiot.

[CaptHawkeye]

Man he left already. He even wrote Fanfics! We need more people in the world so willing to self-parody.

[Batman]

Yea. I mean YOU absolutely hang around this place 24/7. There couldn't possibly be a real world reason he wanted to be off for a while. Like actually having a life he has to deal with.
Gundam gets eaten, and royally so, and Jesus Yamato doesn't know beans about proper debating, but him taking a few hours off does NOT mean he LEFT.

[Serafina]

Yeah, so you capture one or two vessels with hyperdrive.

Great. Now what are you going to do with it?
It's unlikely that it contains coordinates for every single important installation the Empire has. At best, it contains coordinates but only code phrases "base gamma-137" "planet tau-62" and so on. Even if it contains names, you won't know what is important and what not.
And you only have one vessel. The Empire can easily destroy it - leaving all the troops it transported stranded.
And one vessel severely limits you - you can only get to one place at a time.

Also, all important planets have planetary shields - those can withstand bombardments of dozens of Star Destroyers for weeks (a SINGLE Star Destroyer can completely melt the crust of a planet).
You are simply outmatched - you have no weapons that could penetrate that.

Capturing a single hyperdrive vessel won't tip the strategic balance. Even doing so with dozens of vessels won't do it, for the aforementioned problems.

Oh, and in case you think that you could reverse-engineer it:
You can't. Reverse-engineering doesn't allow you to figure out something where you do not even have theoretical knowledge about. It simply doesn't work that way.


My prognosis:
The Empire sends a couple of Star Destroyers. With a bit of luck, you can take them out before they destroy Earth.
Seeing that you have enough firepower to do that, the Empire sends a taskforce of a Super Star Destroyer (~20 km long) with several Star Destroyers - they will drop out of Hyperspace over Earth and just blow everything up within minutes..
The Death Star is also an alternative.

If they want to capture Earth for some reason, they can simply
-threaten to annihilate it. I figure you will surrender at some time, at least most of Gundams forces. They could demonstrate their firepower on the moon, or just blow up some cities.
-Simply swamp you with troops. The Empire can easily send million of troops - it might take a while, but you'll be dead sooner or later.

[Darth Yoshi]

Nobody has FTL in any Gundam universe, and they're all restricted to the Earth's solar system. Really, this is about as balanced and interesting as a group of US Navy aircraft carriers taking on a bunch of primitives using paddle boats.

Isn't Jupiter about as far as any Gundam power has gone? So they're really limited to the inner solar system.

As for the mech thing, yeah, I'm a mecha fanboy, and I like giant robots because their cool, but realistically a transforming robot is a terrible war machine. All that crap that goes into the transformation mechanism could be ECM or thrust or weapons instead, making a far better fighter for the same cost. And like others have said, all the tech that would go into making a giant robot combat capable would still make a superior tank.

[Wyrm]

JY, you would do well to make sure Trekkies have not already thought of a species of what you're proposing before posting it. In many ways, the ST vs SW debate has already argued to death most of the strategies the Gundamites might try.

[Ford Prefect]

Isn't Jupiter about as far as any Gundam power has gone?

No, the Turn A Gundam - and presumably other mobile suits of its lineage - was an interstellar assault unit capable of FTL warping. It's implied that it was used in this capacity at some point in the past. Of course, the Turn A Gundam is much more powerful than essentially everything else in the entire Mobile Suit Gundam metaseries. It has a beam rifle which on max is more powerful than something like the Gryps Colony Laser, but a refire rate not much different than a normal beam rifle. Also it can teleport those beams into your cockpit, which is pretty hilarious.

[Vendetta]

Isn't Jupiter about as far as any Gundam power has gone?

No, the Turn A Gundam - and presumably other mobile suits of its lineage - was an interstellar assault unit capable of FTL warping. It's implied that it was used in this capacity at some point in the past. Of course, the Turn A Gundam is much more powerful than essentially everything else in the entire Mobile Suit Gundam metaseries. It has a beam rifle which on max is more powerful than something like the Gryps Colony Laser, but a refire rate not much different than a normal beam rifle. Also it can teleport those beams into your cockpit, which is pretty hilarious.

Turn A Gundam is a bonafide super robot though, it's as powerful as it needs to be to win. The various Real Robot gundams would be hopelessly outclassed by Imperial firepower, their puny acceleration in space would leave them sitting ducks for TIE Fighters and their inability to project serious force against capital ships capable of levelling continents without seriously thinking about it (and stand up to same punishment) will mean that the Imperials will have an unassailable strong point from which to launch attacks.

Gundam, like fellow real robot show Macross, is a low power universe more suited to matchups with things like Babylon 5 (and even there Gundam'd still lose, because of their lack of capital firepower and FTL mobility).

[Commander 598]

Isn't Jupiter about as far as any Gundam power has gone?

No, the Turn A Gundam - and presumably other mobile suits of its lineage - was an interstellar assault unit capable of FTL warping. It's implied that it was used in this capacity at some point in the past. Of course, the Turn A Gundam is much more powerful than essentially everything else in the entire Mobile Suit Gundam metaseries. It has a beam rifle which on max is more powerful than something like the Gryps Colony Laser, but a refire rate not much different than a normal beam rifle. Also it can teleport those beams into your cockpit, which is pretty hilarious.

Turn A Gundam is a bonafide super robot though, it's as powerful as it needs to be to win.

Nah, it's just ridiculously advanced and with a pilot that pretty much just presses buttons and hopes things work out.