Warhemmer 40K vs. Stargate

[ChosenOne54]

An interesting idea I got from Factpile, this battle pits the 40K universe against the Stargate universe in all out war. Some rules for this match:

-Gods or ascended beings in either series are out
-Both are at their current incarnation
-Takes place in a neutral galaxy
-Both have one month of prep time
-Space-time manipulation is permitted, but no jumping to a previous point in time

Which side wins?

[Elheru Aran]

Okay... all of 40K against all of Stargate?

Ugh. This might get tricky against the Ori and Replicators, but honestly, all 40K has to do is point the Orks and Tyranids in Stargate's general direction and go "hey, boys! Big fight that-a-way!" and stand out of the blood splatters. Stargate has almost always been shown as fairly small groups of military forces fighting each other; only very rarely have there been large armies depicted. There are billions, if not, trillions each of Orks and Tyranids...

Now, the two forces that I see standing up most strongly against 40K are the Ori and the Asgard. I honestly don't know much at all about Ori as I stopped watching the series before they became a serious presence, but I know the Asgard have a definite technological edge. They don't have much in the way of numbers, however, and pretty much *every* force in 40K has numbers. The smallest races are Eldar and Dark Eldar, but in all fairness I wouldn't expect them to do much fighting.

Stargate is just honestly generally one of the lower-powered sci-fi universes, while 40K is definitely in the upper tier. This is pretty awfully lopsided...

[speaker-to-trolls]

I think Stargate has faster ships as well, though, aren't the Asgard able to flit between two galaxies pretty easily? The Asgard also had some pretty potent weapons, if I remember, they could more or less make Goa'uld motherships vanish with a single shot from their blue beams of death.

Of course, I hear the Asgard comitted collective suicide or something late on in the series, so maybe this is a non issue.

[Panzersharkcat]

Orks go on one big WAAAGH and squish Stargate.

[Darksider]

Stargate ships have a definite advantage over 40K warships in acceleration and FTL speed, but an enormous deficiency in firepower and shielding. 40K warships will essentially be immune to their ship-borne energy weapons, and only vulnerable to massed attacks of Naquadah/Naquadria enhanced nukes, perhaps not even those.

40K is generally considered to be a fairly even match with a high-end SW galaxy. SG-verse is much lower on the totem pole.

As for ground combat, Earth gets stomped horribly due to superior numbers and tech. Everyone else gets horribly raped. I mean, could you imagine a massed Jaffa or Ori soldier attack on a Guard trench? It'd be a bloodbath.

[Solauren]

Unless the SGC drops a 'slow-time' bubble or bubbles to catch the 40k stuff, this is going to be a blood-bath

mind you, if they do pull that one off (and we've seen them do it as a tactic), 40K is going down when the SGC starts using (or building) surplus Stargates to blow apart Stars...

[Whiskey144]

mind you, if they do pull that one off (and we've seen them do it as a tactic), 40K is going down when the SGC starts using (or building) surplus Stargates to blow apart Stars...

Not that I dispute SGC's ability to deploy said slow-time bubble(s), or their ability to use a Stargate to blow up a star, but-

The Imperium is a truly galactic-scale power; AFAIK SGC has never faced an enemy of such scale that was (relatively) united against them. Toss in the part with-

1) Does SGC have the knowledge to build more Stargates?
2) Does SGC have the materials to build more Stargates?
3) Does SGC have the industry to build more Stargates?

And I consider it very, very unlikely that SGC would be able to defeat, well, the majority of 40K (at least) with such a tactic. Also, has SGC actually used a Stargate to destroy a star, and consequently the planets?

As a side note, the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Chaos are going to be really difficult to take on with such a tactic; the Eldar are scattered amongst the Craftworlds and Exodite worlds- locations of which are either unknown or on galactic-scale orbital tracks. The Dark Eldar don't even live in realspace, and reside almost entirely within the webway, while I'm doubtful that the SGC (or any SG faction) would have much success against worlds within the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom- hard to mess with stuff that tells reality to go cry in the corner, especially when that's pretty much how it works in-setting.

Stargate ships have a definite advantage over 40K warships in acceleration and FTL speed, but an enormous deficiency in firepower and shielding. 40K warships will essentially be immune to their ship-borne energy weapons, and only vulnerable to massed attacks of Naquadah/Naquadria enhanced nukes, perhaps not even those.

Evidence that SG has an acceleration advantage? Calcs place the Phalanx, the Imperial Fists Astartes Fortress Monastery, as having acceleration on the order of 300 Gs (low end, begins at 75% c, decelerates entire journey) to 1700 Gs (high end, midpoint 75% c, accel/decel phases)*

Given that, I'd guesstimate Imperial warships as being on the range of 1000-10000 Gs averaged, depending on factors such as make, tonnage, and design variation (such as a 5 km Retribution vs an 8 or 15 km vessel of the same). As a very quick-and-dirty method I use for fanfiction writing, and given that the Phalanx is tactically immobile, I take the the average acceleration (1000 Gs), and consider that as "5cm Speed/Turn" in reference to the BFG stats; this means that a Retribution-class battleship can pull a healthy 4 kilogees, with the slower Emperor class coming in at 3000G, and light cruisers&escorts ranging around 5-6 thousand gees, and attack craft&torpedoes pulling a quite impressive 8-12,000 gees.

Keep in mind that, as I said, it's a very quick&dirty method to scale from the tabletop values- but it does give some useful concrete numbers for fanfiction use. As noted above, I generally consider an average velocity to be anywhere from 1-10 thousand Gs, but lower accelerations, like 10s-100s of Gs are easily possible.

*Calcs taken from here

[Elheru Aran]

Phalanx can safely be assumed to be a special case, however, as a.) it's Heresy era; more or less the Imperium's high point tech-wise, and b.) it's an Adeptus Astartes headquarters craft commanded by no less than a Primarch. Kinda goes without saying that it'll be far better equipped than the great majority of Imperium craft.

The rest of your numbers seem a bit... um... optimistic to me. However I don't have the time to chase down more information on them, so I'll leave it at that. I think we can agree that the Imperium and other 40K powers have almost certainly more than enough space assets to make mincemeat of the Stargate powers.

[Whiskey144]

The rest of your numbers seem a bit... um... optimistic to me. However I don't have the time to chase down more information on them, so I'll leave it at that.

I dunno though; I think they represent a mid/high-end range, as some of the Eisenhorn stuff, from reading various 40K analysis threads and comments of Connor's, indicate even higher acceleration ranges.

Also keep in mind that my class-specific numbers are of a quick&dirty sort that I use for fanfiction writing- and not versus debating.

Phalanx can safely be assumed to be a special case, however, as a.) it's Heresy era; more or less the Imperium's high point tech-wise, and b.) it's an Adeptus Astartes headquarters craft commanded by no less than a Primarch. Kinda goes without saying that it'll be far better equipped than the great majority of Imperium craft.

The high point of humanity's technology was during the DAoT..........and Heresy-era or not, Phalanx is still around, tech was more evenly distributed during the Heresy era, and the vessel is still a tactically immobile battlestation.............somewhat like the Death Star, come to think of it, though minus the planet-booming raygun.

That said, I'm still of the opinion that 40K ships have hundreds to thousands of gees of acceleration under most circumstances; and as yet there's no indication that Stargate has an acceleration advantage (the original reason I brought that up), especially as we have no SG acceleration numbers here.

[ChosenOne54]

Hm, from all the debates I've seen over the internet, I got the impression that Stargate was actually near the high end of the Sci-Fi tech scale.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It has some absurdly high-end stuff going on, like Asgard FTL that can (depending on calculation) cross the observable universe in a few decades, or the Stargates themselves, but the problem is they are all the province of advanced aline races, not SG-Earth. Also, most of the stuff is either leftovers (the Stargates) or possesed by races now no longer extant (the Asgard).

SG-Earth is very low on the scale of sci-fi powers, but they occasionally punch far above their weight by authorial fiat and rule of cool (blowing up suns comes to mind).

[Batman]

Wherever did you get that idea? It may be high end for televised SciFi but that's about it. Single GT weapons are a big deal in this universe, as are power sources roughly on par with Wars fighter reactors (ZPMs). A 302 can't make orbit with a Stargate attached because the gate is too heavy (when the gate weighs in at all of 9 tons or so). Atlantis with three fully functional ZPMs can NOT keep orbit, keep the shield up, and keep firing at the same time, and that's Ancient technology, about as high end as it gets in SG.
Compared to Star Wars leave alone the stuff that could eat the GE for breakfast, Stargate is pretty small fry.

[Ahriman238]

It's slightly more complicated than all that. Stargate Humanity has done things even the Asgard could not, sometimes through the use of Ancient technology, and sometimes because the Asgard were never crazy/stupid/desperate enough to try. It was also sort of a theme that the Asgard had gotten so used to technology being the answer, and even more advanced technology being the answer when that failed, that they tended to overlook simple, direct. and/or violent solutions to their problems.

To make matters more interesting, the Asgard turned over all of their advanced technology, science and history to Stargate Humanity, along with the most helpful and user-friendly search engine ever created. Even so, it will probably take them a long time to get through all that data.

For a while now, there's been a figure attached to the Asgard 'pew-pew lasers' floating around the web. 200 petawatts (quadrillion watts.) I'm not really sure where it came from, since I can't recall off the top of my head anytime the Asgard weapons struck anything that wasn't a.) a shield or b.) the hull of an alien starship, probably composed of some advanced material inexplicable to earth science. None the less, it's out there. There was a guy who put up 50 yottajoules (septillion) for a ZPM, but he actually posted his calcs, I'll see if I can't find them.

Even without immediatly becoming the Asgard, the Stargate galaxy is full of odd one-shot (or, being Stargate, two-shot) devices that could be creatively used to really ruin someone's day. Like time-travel, time-dilation, the time-loop machine, two distinct body-swapping devices (useful for subversion, and they've demonstrated a willingness to use them) various dimension-door/dimension shunt tech, large-scale "phasing," Mind control (so many kinds, used so many ways,) multiple instant evolution tech (ascend on, apply directly to the forehead) and many more.

[ChosenOne54]

So it's basically a case of Stargate tech used LOGICALLY being incredibly powerful?

[The Reaper]

The only way that the SG had a chance is due to a debater sating A. The Replicators are invulnerable to energy weapons, B. could time dilate themselves during the prep time, C. and using ZPM's mass produced would have EXATON level shielding according to his Coronal Mass Ejection calcs. Which as none of us know much about SG, could not disprove him.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's full of deus ex machina weapons because as the series progressed, their plot and story got pretty lousy and after they built up their bad guys, their heroes really couldn't beat them without an ancient/mysterious superweapon that upon activation destroys all of the bad guys and resolves all the conflict in the end of the episode. Like, didn't SG-1 have entire seasons devoted to their characters questing and searching the galaxy for one ridiculous plot device after another?

In a way, it's kind of like Doctor Who. Except the Doctor is so awesome, so he can just pull out his DEM at the last minute and blow up all his supposedly unstoppable enemies, while the SG guys have to run around looking for their super-artifacts for a few episodes to stop their supposedly unstoppable enemies and save the galaxy.

I guess a universe or a franchise where stories and conflicts are resolved in ways that don't involve handwave magic artifacts saving the day at the last minute because the writing was too lazy to contrive up another solution have a disadvantage in a shortage of lazy deus ex machina weapon/devices.

[Ahriman238]

So it's basically a case of Stargate tech used LOGICALLY being incredibly powerful?

More like... used creatively. A stargate, for instance, is not designed or built to be used as a time machine or as a star-killer. Yet the gates are used for both of these purposes.

Stargate is great because every so often they haul out the one-shot uber-device from three seasons ago and use it when it makes sense to do so. Then again, there are also occasions where they don't use one-shot plot devices that would have been insanely useful, but you can relatively easily explain most of these away, if you've a mind to.

[Agent Sorchus]

Does this neutral galaxy have the webway or a gate network though? It should but the OP didn't state anything of the like. Without the webway there would be no eldar and without the gates there are less DEM for the stargate forces to throw around.

As for star killer gate use there is the Dark Eldar's ability to steal stars from space and put them into their webway city, so stellar engineering is well within their grasp. And the Dark Eldar are amazingly underestimated by even the other Eldar as to their numbers and success. I wouldn't be surprised if the dark eldar number into the trillion range. (I'd put the Orks at hundreds of Trillions, but most of those would be feral rather than space ship using scum.)

The Imperium would be unable to do much with only one month of preparation since that is not much more than the time it might take a message to cross their space.

With time-space manipulation being allowed Chaos is a threat even if the Tari use slow time bubbles, since Chaos can do some of the same level of time manipulation and have all sorts of internal threats they can provide.

Does anyone have a good reliable figure and arguments for the durability of Ori Vessels? I know they are pretty tough by Stargate standards, but I have a half recollection that they aren't so durable that a fleet of Tari or Jaffa ships couldn't threaten one individual ship.

As an alternative thought, how would a good sized collation of system lords do versus a single sector of Imperium space? We should ignore ground warfare, since it is doubtful that the Jaffa are going to do much versus super heavy tanks. This would involve less DEM and might even be within the abilities of the System Lords to do.

[Ahriman238]

With time-space manipulation being allowed Chaos is a threat even if the Tari use slow time bubbles, since Chaos can do some of the same level of time manipulation and have all sorts of internal threats they can provide.

No Gods, remember? And can't they just effect the flow of time within the Warp anyway?

Does anyone have a good reliable figure and arguments for the durability of Ori Vessels? I know they are pretty tough by Stargate standards, but I have a half recollection that they aren't so durable that a fleet of Tari or Jaffa ships couldn't threaten one individual ship.

Hard to say, since all the fleets thrown at the Ori do basically squat. No Ori ship is destroyed or even signifigantly damaged, except for the one special instance with the Supergate, until the SGC gets their uber-upgrade from the Asgard. The latest Asgard weapons, backed by a fully-charged ZPM can kill Ori ships, but only after a dozen or so shots.

Meanwhile, the Ori casually one-shot anything with lesser shield tech than the Asgard.

As an alternative thought, how would a good sized collation of system lords do versus a single sector of Imperium space? We should ignore ground warfare, since it is doubtful that the Jaffa are going to do much versus super heavy tanks. This would involve less DEM and might even be within the abilities of the System Lords to do.

The Goa'uld should be able to do just fine against most any Agri-world, Savage World, Feudal World, or Civilized World. But the first world with half-decent defenses should be able to stalemate them, a Chapter World could repulse a small to moderate sized Goa'uld fleet with it's surface-to-space defenses alone.

The first time they run into a decent concentration of Imperial Navy, or Imperial Guard, they're in some trouble. The first time they attract the attention of a Space Marine Chapter, they are dead.

[Shroom Man 777]

No gods, that means Chaos powers won't work, that they can't summon warp storms or demons? Or is this just barring direct involvement of the deities? Cause if it's entirely no-gods, then won't that make the Ori Priors neutered?

[DrMckay]

Well, SG-1 as a whole should get a ridiculous invulnerable save based on their character shields alone, and once Teal'c gets into close combat, it's all over...

O'Neill should get some crazy C-4 power...

Hmmm. I wonder who would win, Anubis super soldiers or Astartes.

The IG could eat Jaffa for breakfast, and their armor would actually be something lasguns could penetrate. Not even counting the heavy weapons.

[Ahriman238]

No gods, that means Chaos powers won't work, that they can't summon warp storms or demons? Or is this just barring direct involvement of the deities? Cause if it's entirely no-gods, then won't that make the Ori Priors neutered?

Beats me. Ask the Chosen One, he set up the scenario and made the rules.

Hmmm. I wonder who would win, Anubis super soldiers or Astartes.

Astartes. Definitly Astartes. Don't get me wrong, Anubis' drones can take a hell of a lot of punishment, but Space Marines can take and give a hell of a lot of punishment.

We could always revive the old Sw vs 40k argument, and say that Stargateverse energy weapons are all technically plasma weapons, and should be treated as such against 40k armor.

[MrDakka]

The IG could eat Jaffa for breakfast, and their armor would actually be something lasguns could penetrate. Not even counting the heavy weapons.

You wouldn't even commissars to "encourage" the IG troops.

However, replicators fighting Nids should be pretty fun to watch.

[ChosenOne54]

No direct intervention from Gods.

[Shroom Man 777]

How do you define that, aside from that simplistic statement. Does that mean that Ori lose their ability to convert believers, or use their powers, because there is no godly involvement (and because their powers are directly drawn from their gods)? Warp shit in 40k like warp storms and other weirdo effects brought about by rituals can be construed as involvement from gods, in fact the very notion of Chaos is that their followers draw powers from worshipping gods. Does this mean, for example, Nurglites can no longer get their biochemical "blessings" from Nurgle?

Do superhuman characters like Saint Sabbat, who is like blessed with miraculous shit by the Emperor or something, get neutered? Does Ciaphas Cain's stroke of Emperor-favored luck run out?

How direct is direct?

Because generally, 40k doesn't have Chaos gods appear and do shit for them, because the Chaos gods aren't really "sentient beings" in a human sense, but they do control and empower those disciples of theirs who do things in their name.

That's different from, say, Ascended beings who have their own definite personas. I don't think 40k Warp deities have been personified or characterized in that sense. They're more like Lovecraftian entities than actual characters, in a way.


EDIT:

Wait. No direct action from Gods. Does this mean that the likes of Thor, Apohis, Ra, Ba'al, etcetera are excluded from this scenario?