New Guy's first topic

[whiteknightleo]

I just found Mr. Wong's ST v SW page recently, and his hate mail pages led me here.

So here's my first topic: to commemorate the release of Heart of the Swarm...


The Swarm vs the Federation?

The Swarm vs the entire ST galaxy?

Would it matter who was leading the swarm (Overmind or Kerrigan)?


I'm not a huge Star Trek fan, so I can't answer this question with direct series knowledge. Thus I am using what I have garnered about Trek tech from Wong's essays on the subject.

Further, to better compare Trek to SC, I'm considering the Federation to be something more comparable to the Protoss than the Dominion.

Except unlike the Protoss, the Federation is pretty limited to one world, can't transport across star systems, can't transport entire structures, doesn't maintain personal shielding systems, doesn't have diversified ground troops....

You get the idea.

So while I think the Empire would be, realistically, more than a match for the entire Korpulu sector combined, I also think that any one of the three main SC races could tear the Federation apart.

I also think Kerrigan would make a better leader for fighting a Terran opponent, but not by much.

What say you all?

[whiteknightleo]

It occurs to me...


re: Obscure fandoms

I don't think Starcraft is obscure, but just in case, I am referring to the Zerg when I say "the Swarm".

[Lord Revan]

Blizzard games are a big question mark when it comes to their "actual" capabilities opposed to their gameplay abilities, there's nowhere enough reliable data to say really anything about them.

[gigabytelord]

Blizzard games are a big question mark when it comes to their "actual" capabilities opposed to their gameplay abilities, there's nowhere enough reliable data to say really anything about them.

In space maybe, but from I've seen on screen the Feds have piss poor ground combat capabilities, even compared to modern day militaries, where as SC grounds forces are, for lack of a better description, light "SPEES MAREENS!" with fewer calories.

[Ahriman238]

The Federation would probably have real problems with the Zerg. If it became a huge thing like the Dominion War with everyone chipping in and having input into strategy, I see the Trek powers eventually winning. It may be that 'victory' is the Klingons and Romulans insisting on the sort of scorched earth tactics the Protoss use, but they'd come out on top.

All this assumes some enterprising Starfleet lab tech doesn't whip up a better can of Raid.

Kerrigan is more dangerous than the Overmind, she's more focused and driven, and understands how humans and humanoids think.

[whiteknightleo]

The Federation would probably have real problems with the Zerg. If it became a huge thing like the Dominion War with everyone chipping in and having input into strategy, I see the Trek powers eventually winning. It may be that 'victory' is the Klingons and Romulans insisting on the sort of scorched earth tactics the Protoss use, but they'd come out on top.

All this assumes some enterprising Starfleet lab tech doesn't whip up a better can of Raid.

Kerrigan is more dangerous than the Overmind, she's more focused and driven, and understands how humans and humanoids think.

Sorry, two things: imagine that, in this scenario, Kerrigan wants the ST powers personally destroyed, as much as she does Mengsk.

Secondly, I really don't think any of the ST races would be a match for the Protoss, and they have serious trouble with the Zerg even with their advanced tech and scorched earth tactics.

[Lord Revan]

the problem is that we no know next to nothing about the capabilities of the Protoss, there's some minor hints in the story line but everything else is gameplay so we can't use that.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'm just about to start the final mission in the HOTS campaign, it occurs to me that with the way the swarm has behaved in absorbing "essence" from other races, they're behaving as the StarCraft equivalent of the Borg. The Zerg hive mind seems to support this also. In ground combat, the Terrans certainly outclass the Federation since they can bring all manner of vehicles (in fact any of the 3 factions could curbstomp the Feds in this regard), but in space it's the other way round. There's no sign of any antimatter tech in use by the Terrans, and their biggest weapons are still atomic.

Another important point is that Terran ships lack shields of any form, which puts them at an immediate disadvantage. The Protoss don't have this limitation, so would be far more of a challenge to the Feds in space combat. Scouts for example, are armed with antimatter missiles, which the piss-poor point defences of the Feds won't be able to intercept, and the Protoss carriers (removed for HOTS) with their interceptors will present a unique opponent for the Feds to deal with.

[Lord Revan]

I'm just about to start the final mission in the HOTS campaign, it occurs to me that with the way the swarm has behaved in absorbing "essence" from other races, they're behaving as the StarCraft equivalent of the Borg. The Zerg hive mind seems to support this also. In ground combat, the Terrans certainly outclass the Federation since they can bring all manner of vehicles (in fact any of the 3 factions could curbstomp the Feds in this regard), but in space it's the other way round. There's no sign of any antimatter tech in use by the Terrans, and their biggest weapons are still atomic.

Another important point is that Terran ships lack shields of any form, which puts them at an immediate disadvantage. The Protoss don't have this limitation, so would be far more of a challenge to the Feds in space combat. Scouts for example, are armed with antimatter missiles, which the piss-poor point defences of the Feds won't be able to intercept, and the Protoss carriers (removed for HOTS) with their interceptors will present a unique opponent for the Feds to deal with.

actually Terrran battlecruiser do have shields "in-lore" though we don't know much beond their existance about them, we know that a single blast from Yamato-cannon can drop the shields to "30" and that means the shields are near collapse at that point, sadly we don't know what the 30 refers to. Also we know that the shield don't provide 100% protection as the Hyperion was taking hull damage even before that Yamato cannon hit.

[Imperial528]

We don't know the shielding capabilities of the Minotaur-class battlecruisers, nor the Hyperion (which is a unique ship so I don't think it should be counted as representative of the Behemoth class which it was originally built as).

However, we do know that stock Behemoth-class battlecruisers have a surface-hugging shield that blocks debris impacts, radiation, boarding, craft, etc. but does not stand up to combat conditions. This is likely present on Minotaur-class ships as well, as they are the replacement class for the Behemoth post-Brood War. Other Terran shielding capabilities have been seen in containment cells in HoTS and the defense matrix technology.

In terms of Terran nuclear capabilities, we know that Korhal was reduced from a temperate world to a desert via nuclear bombardment by apocalypse-class missiles. In the original game manual it states that a thousand missiles were fired from Tarsonis to Korhal though later sources also state the existence of a smaller weapon with the same name that is launched from battlecruisers. This may be a contradiction or it may be down-scaling of the old warheads to smaller yields due to the political fallout from the destruction of Korhal.

An important thing to remember in discussion, I think, is that ultimately the technology itself does not matter (such as A/AM vs atomic), compared to what it actually does. An ancient hunter kills prey using a rock, so do the civilizations that put engines on asteroids, they're just using bigger rocks.

[Lord Revan]

main problem is that we really don't have anything subtancial about the capabilities of SC weapons since the only mumbers we got on them is the in-game stats which we cannot use.

[Imperial528]

We can analyze the cinematics and literal statements but that's it. Protoss have some pretty hefty firepower, though. Dragoons are able to vaporize the flesh of a person off of their bones and near-vape a person and metal watch tower basket.

Terran firepower examples, outside of nuking, are hard to quantify due to material unknowns and such. Zerg likewise. Though Zerg examples are mostly breaking things and shooting things full of spines.

[Batman]

Except it's physically impossible to vapourize the flesh off the bones of a person without doing not inconsiderable damage to the bones, at least in the timeframe presumably depicted, so that was almost inevitably something technobabble rather than a DET weapon.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

If we knew how many habitable worlds there were in the Koprulu sector we might be able to guesstimate the industrial strength of the factions. Also, seems the Earth Terrans had advanced considerably tech wise in the 30 years since the exiles were sent from Earth. Originally, their warp tech took them 60,000 ly in 30 years, already twice as fast as the Federation. Fast forward to Brood War and they seemed to have covered the same distance with the UED fleet in far less time (though ingame dialogue at the start suggests that part of the journey was spent in stasis). Given the fleet was launched when they learned of the Zerg and Protoss and they arrived not long after the war finished, it seems the same journey took months at most.

[Imperial528]

Except it's physically impossible to vapourize the flesh off the bones of a person without doing not inconsiderable damage to the bones, at least in the timeframe presumably depicted, so that was almost inevitably something technobabble rather than a DET weapon.

I forgot to mention, the bones melted shortly after.

EDIT: To be more specific, we see the Dragoon fire the blast, it hits and envelops the person, he goes all glowy for a frame, then it's some glowing bones, which fall down into a glowing pile on the ground that quickly fades leaving a sort of dust or mush.

[Batman]

Still seems rather technobabbly to me but definitely addresses my 'the bones weren't affected' complaint.

[Lord Revan]

Still seems rather technobabbly to me but definitely addresses my 'the bones weren't affected' complaint.

tbh it could just been limits of the cinematics of that time.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

IIRC, that was when a sentry at a Terran outpost spotted a damaged Dragoon, so his commanding officer ordered it destroyed by some sort of three-wheeled tractor-like vehicle (can't remember if it was a missile or an artillery shell, certainly blew the crap out of the unit whatever it was), at which point a Protoss force teleported in. That makes me wonder if the Dragoon was in fact a decoy sent to reveal the position of the Terran base and the Protoss couldn't find it via sensors for some reason, or whether it was coincidence.

Thinking more about Protoss tech brings me to their cloaking abilities, most of which depend on having an Arbiter (which for balancing purposes cannot itself be cloaked) nearby. The factor determining its usefulness in battle is the range of the field, since it'll become a priority target when battle starts.

[Imperial528]

The weapons are called "phase disruptors" but I think they kind of fit as self-contained plasma weapon. As soon as they hit a target the containment fails and the ball rapidly disperses and there is a sort of blast or fireball to go with it.

Here's the relevant cinematic:



It starts at 1:33 for the whole cinematic, for the Dragoons it is from 3:13-3:38

When a blast hits the watch tower it explodes quite violently. Later blasts on the ground against people leave fires on the remains after the fireball disperses, the skeletons seem to crumple into warped piles.

EDIT: Enterprise, my idea is that the Dragoon was a pilot-less decoy used to get them to fire their heavy weapons and leave them distracted first.

[Lord Revan]

IIRC, that was when a sentry at a Terran outpost spotted a damaged Dragoon, so his commanding officer ordered it destroyed by some sort of three-wheeled tractor-like vehicle (can't remember if it was a missile or an artillery shell, certainly blew the crap out of the unit whatever it was), at which point a Protoss force teleported in. That makes me wonder if the Dragoon was in fact a decoy sent to reveal the position of the Terran base and the Protoss couldn't find it via sensors for some reason, or whether it was coincidence.

Thinking more about Protoss tech brings me to their cloaking abilities, most of which depend on having an Arbiter (which for balancing purposes cannot itself be cloaked) nearby. The factor determining its usefulness in battle is the range of the field, since it'll become a priority target when battle starts.

should noted by SC2 the Protoss no longer seem to have access to the Arbiters, though cloaking troops in battle is now done by the motherships.

[Imperial528]

Arbiters were crewed by members of the Judicator caste, most of which were lost on Aiur, so any remaining Arbiters are on Aiur likely still in their hangars.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Yeah, haven't played as the Protoss since the mini-campaign in WoL so I don't know as much about them as the other factions. In SC1 the only Protoss units that could cloak independently were Observers and Dark Templar. I did notice at the end of the cutscene at the base that the units were in fact cloaked, not teleported in as you can see an Arbiter pass overhead. Seems I was mistaken about the Terran vehicle, it actually had treads instead of wheels on the side and a weird buzzsaw-like wheel up front. It was weird that though it fired one shell there are two trails of fire.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I would think that, regardless of whether or not the Zerg could inflict a ton of damage to the Federation, the Federation would gave a hell of a time getting rid of the Zerg. Lots of colonies would likely get infested to hell and back before the Federation learned to shoot first and ask questions later. Having an army that likely is in the trillions and has explosive growth as their primary tactic... Even if Kerrigan couldn't win she'd cause the Federation to deplete their resources trying to eradicate the critters that spread like rabid, face-munching tribbles that would love nothing more than to add you to their genetic collective. Just because a warship can slaughter them doesn't mean a lightly defended colony is going to last at all when a hundred thousand Zerg are charging in to say hello. Even if most Zerg strains go down in one hit there's enough that the colony is in huge trouble. The Overmind's tactics are less known, really, so I don't think we can say if it would go for a war of attrition or if it would try to overwhelm the Federation all in one go.

With Kerrigan in the picture, I can see her managing to play sides against each other so whoever's left is easy pickings. That and use her psychic abilities to dick with people as-needed and avoid those who can go up against her in a brain fight. She's smart and one of the most gifted psychics the Star Craft setting has ever seen. She's cold, calculating, and perfectly willing to play psychological warfare on anyone she feels she can't crush. By the end of Brood War she outright states that she could quite likely crush any military force she felt like, though given the fact that she ran off to Char for several years we can't say if she was bluffing or just uninterested in killing everyone who had wronged her that quickly. Tactics-wise, I can see her making the Federation think she's open to diplomacy up until the point where she's got enough Zerg placed in important places that they suffer enormous losses while they try and purge the hundreds of millions to billions of Zerg that have nested on their favorite worlds. Vulcan would make a lovely new Char.

[Imperial528]

Yeah, haven't played as the Protoss since the mini-campaign in WoL so I don't know as much about them as the other factions. In SC1 the only Protoss units that could cloak independently were Observers and Dark Templar. I did notice at the end of the cutscene at the base that the units were in fact cloaked, not teleported in as you can see an Arbiter pass overhead. Seems I was mistaken about the Terran vehicle, it actually had treads instead of wheels on the side and a weird buzzsaw-like wheel up front. It was weird that though it fired one shell there are two trails of fire.

It fired two, actually. If you look closely the magazine has two rails that both load into the gun at the same time.

Oh, and the Arbiter could have just mass recalled them in. Additionally, in other cutscenes we have seen Arbiters cloak along with other units, such as the one with the Hyperion and the Executor's fleet.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I looked at the video, I can only see four rails with one stack of shells. Only explanation that fits then is that they were stacked in the barrel or something, looking at the loading sequence. My bad regarding the recall thing, I forgot Arbiters could do that