The Galactic Empire vs. The Systems Commonwealth

[Eternal_Freedom]

At a point in time one year before ANH and one year before the Battle of Hephastus, Q decides to move the GFFA into the Local Group from Andromeda, in a position equidistant from the Milky Way, Andromeda and Triangulum. This sudden change in position is visible and obvious to all parties, Rebels and Nietzcheans included. The Systems Commonwealth and the Galactic Empire begin tentative first contact procedures. For the sake of argument, any and all slipstream routes work as hyperspace routes and vice versa, each side can travel in the other's territory with only a moderate reduction in speed due to caution.

The Magog are still coming, but the Nietzcheans decide to delay their rebellion until they know the outcome of any potential Commonwealth-Empire conflict. The Rebels likewise have a respite, with the Empire's attention elsewhere they take the time to consolidate and put out feelers to the Commonwealth for assistance and/or sanctuary if necessary.

What, if anything happens and who would have the upper hand in any conflict?

[Thanas]

This has been done before. The High Guard has an advantage in long range fire (but has too little firepower and no FTL sensor so that is for naught against anything but non-warships larger than a corvette) and has a massive advantage in all sorts of system and planet-destroying WMDs who are easily deployed even by small scale fighters which would most likely be too hard for the GE to intercept.

The High Guard has a massive disadvantage in that their FTL requires a lot of scouting before using it, most likely years or decades of slipstream scouting would be necessary before they can go on any offensive. I know you said it works the same etc but this is IMO a bit of cheating. The High Guard has better strategic mobility being capable of crossing galaxies in minutes. One strategy that might work is catching GE fleets in Supernovas, but really, that is a last-ditch tactic.

My prediction is that unless the GE is running an extermination campaign both sides will incurr massive losses (the GE when they try and take a planet with their usual massive planetary invasion fleets and the High Guard just nuke the whole system) and the High Guard when the fleets actually run into each other.

However, if the High Guard actually has knowledge and available slipstream routes to every enemy system there is no way they lose (or MAD is the worst case scenario). They have millions of WMDS which each can destroy a system. Deploy them and the empire's power structure will be gone. Which is why I think giving them such routes is cheating.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good points, although I did say that out of caution in unfamiliar territory the speed for both sides is reduced in enemy territory. Hell, call it slower by a factor of ten than normal.

Basically then, the Commonwealth can lose every single ship to ship engagement due to lacking shields, FTL sensors and enough firepower to dent Star Destroyers but can win the strategic war with ease. That's actually really interesting.

Although the Commonwealth doesn't seem very willing to deploy said strategic weapons, for instance the "This system is inhabited, we will not sue strategic weapons no matter how many ship's we are up against." I can't see the High Guard being happy about having to vape dozens or hundreds of highly-populated star systems to win.

[Thanas]

Good points, although I did say that out of caution in unfamiliar territory the speed for both sides is reduced in enemy territory. Hell, call it slower by a factor of ten than normal.

The problem is slipstream is unpredictable, but even a factor of ten will be too little to dent them. When travelling across a galaxy takes 30 minutes instead of 3, does this help the GE that much? Take note that the GE takes months or even years to redeploy along the same lines.

But the main problem is that GE ships don't seem to have the endurance to cross aside galaxies. Which is bad in this scenario because the Commonmwealth has three galaxies to play with. If this is a anything goes scenario the GE will eventually get nuked to oblivion simply because they cannot touch two thirds of the others capabilities (and possibly even more considering the galaxy they hit at might not even be the one the Vedrans inhabit).

Basically then, the Commonwealth can lose every single ship to ship engagement due to lacking shields, FTL sensors and enough firepower to dent Star Destroyers but can win the strategic war with ease. That's actually really interesting.

Yes. Unless the GE figures a way out to permanently shield every system and every sun forever. In fact, just imagine the following High Guard Alpha strike - Coruscant, Kuat, Fondor, Yaga Minor, Alderaan. If the GE loses all of them, with the entire political infrastructure on them within minutes, do you really think they will manage to continue? That is the Emperor, Lord Vader, the senate, the council of moffs and the three most important shipyards gone.

Which is why in such a vs scenario you cannot give the HG slipstream routes into the GE. I mean, even the HG being stuck in their three galaxies still favors the HG IMO but yeah.

Although the Commonwealth doesn't seem very willing to deploy said strategic weapons, for instance the "This system is inhabited, we will not sue strategic weapons no matter how many ship's we are up against." I can't see the High Guard being happy about having to vape dozens or hundreds of highly-populated star systems to win.

This was Hunt's decision after a long period of peace. Note that throughout the Nietzchean rebellion this went out the window real fast as soon as the HG was losing. See for example Hephaistos - the entire plan there was to bomb the Nietzchean world into submission.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True. And they were planning to destroy Fountainhead as well.

So what would happen if we nixed the slipstream routes in the GFFA? Would we see the High Guard negotiating with the Rebels for star maps in exchange for sanctuary perhaps?

[Thanas]

The problem the HG then get is that the Star Maps are not going to help much with slipstream routes as those are very iffy and depend on a lot of variables etc. Which means that unless the Rebels are caring to do novabomb strike themselves - which they don't seem to be the type to do, considering their reaction Alderaan - they won't be able to help the HG that much considering they don't got the industrial capacity to manufacture Turbolasers, shield generators, FTL sensors and reactors (chances are, HG ship reactors will not be compatible with SW tech and they are needed for slipstream anyway) en masse.

The wildcard then are the Nietzcheans though they don't strike me as the types to work with the GE as well and their power is basically all based on the element of surprise against the CW. So they are too close to call.

The GE meanwhile has the same problems as before - they can't strike at two thirds of the enemies territory, they will take a ridiculous time to even take part of one galaxy (considering how "slow" their ships are in comparison, chances are they will take a lot of losses when taking systems - who are then just blown up).

So if the slipstream routes are taken away the likely result is a stalemate. If not, I don't see the GE winning here.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Very good points. I am however left wondering if there will even be a fight at all. The stated equidistant position for the GFFA is a good three million light years from any of the three galaxies and such journes are considered incredibly difficult by the inhabitants of the GFFA, witness Outbound Flight and how they expected it to take them decades. I am left wondering if the Empire can even reach the Commonwealth territory and I can't see the Commonwealth launching a first strike.

On the other hand, I can see the Death Star and other superlasers being more effective against the Magog Worldship than a Nova bomb.

[Thanas]

Agreed. I don't see the Magog in their little ships even getting through the shields. The only danger here are the small black holes the worldship uses, but the GE could just sit back at long distance and use FTL sensors as well as as the fact that the worldship is unshielded to slag away at it. Probably only a few ISDs needed for that job.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Whilst a handful of ISD's can probably do the job, were I in command I would want to smash it with the Death Star to avoid the possibility that the Spirit of the Abyss could do something about the turbolasers. It can after all absorb the energy of a small nova so I would not want to give it the chance or the warning. Just one shot and boom, a good chunk of your worldship is rubble.

[Simon_Jester]

Good points, although I did say that out of caution in unfamiliar territory the speed for both sides is reduced in enemy territory. Hell, call it slower by a factor of ten than normal.

The problem is slipstream is unpredictable, but even a factor of ten will be too little to dent them. When travelling across a galaxy takes 30 minutes instead of 3, does this help the GE that much? Take note that the GE takes months or even years to redeploy along the same lines.

Months? Years? How do you figure that?

[Thanas]

Eu works which speak of travel time etc. Zahn stuff mostly.

[Lord Relvenous]

Eu works which speak of travel time etc. Zahn stuff mostly.

By redeploy, do you mean pure travel time, or something else? The Prequels established that you can reach from the core to the Outer Rim in a matter of days, if not shorter. Consider that Obi-Wan travelled from Coruscant to Kamino in his Jedi Fighter.

[Simon_Jester]

[Groans]

Oh lord, a "which sources do we believe" debate...

I think the traditionally accepted figure was 'days to cross the galaxy,' not months or years; a lot of the plots of the movies stop making sense if you make ship travel take months.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Even if it is days to cross the galaxy the Commonwealth still holds the whip hand. And I suspect that "week or moths" to redeploy means more than just traveling, it means organising the force, assembling it and sending it en masse rather than piecemeal. Granted the Commonwealth will have the same problem but they seem to be used to such snap deployments, even in the reformed Commonwealth.

One other thing that has occurred, the High Guard haven't fought "a real war" in 1200 years or so, whilst the Empire has the experience of the Clone Wars to draw upon.

[Thanas]

One other thing that has occurred, the High Guard haven't fought "a real war" in 1200 years or so, whilst the Empire has the experience of the Clone Wars to draw upon.

Yeah but this is a bit misleading. What the Vedrans call police work the Empire would most likely call a war, what with full systems invasions etc. by the Magog and raiders. Heck, Andromeda herself worked within two task forces in full scale battles just a few months after being finished iirc.

As for the Alpha strike and the CW not being up for it - remember the S1 finale? The whole secret mission of the Andromeda was to find the magog homeworld and to destroy it. And that was against an enemy they had handily beaten before and who everybody agreed was a marginal threat. The vedrans are no angels. These are the guys who fought wars of exterminations etc. Heck, the "Andromeda Ascendant" is named for the Vedran conquest of the Andromeda galaxy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think you would struggle to find people who seriously object to destroying the Magog, given what they are. Comparing that first strike to attacking a galaxy full of humans and other species with Nova bombs is not valid I think.

Plus I thought they doing a "recon in force" rather tan a first strike?

[Thanas]

I think you would struggle to find people who seriously object to destroying the Magog, given what they are. Comparing that first strike to attacking a galaxy full of humans and other species with Nova bombs is not valid I think.

Plus I thought they doing a "recon in force" rather tan a first strike?

Destroying Coruscant should in principle not be any different than fountainhead. If they are convinced they would take heavy losses in a war why not?

As for the recon in force, it never was that clear but the HG has dedicated recon ships which were not used in place of the Andromeda, whereas a nova-bomb carrying ship was sent out in secret without the dedicated taskforce accompanying it. I think bombing was on the table, but I have to rewatch the episode to find out what the goal was.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Having re-checked they didn't even know the Worldship existed beforethey reached M67, they were following the numerous and well-travelled slip routes, only to find nothing but black holes and dust and the sole moving thing in the galaxy being the worldship which ambushed them.

They were willing to take out Fountainhead after a couple of years of total war, not as a first strike. Now if we posited that the Empire had somehow brought a task force to, say, Andromeda and was busy pounding worlds flat and smashing High Guard relief forces to rubble, then I see them doing it, but not as a first strike.

[Connor MacLeod]

But the main problem is that GE ships don't seem to have the endurance to cross aside galaxies. Which is bad in this scenario because the Commonmwealth has three galaxies to play with. If this is a anything goes scenario the GE will eventually get nuked to oblivion simply because they cannot touch two thirds of the others capabilities (and possibly even more considering the galaxy they hit at might not even be the one the Vedrans inhabit).

They probably COULD but it wouldn't be cheap or effortless, and I suspect it would probably cripple them because everyone basically has to hide under a planetary shield for unknown periods of time (think Coruscant in The Last Command.) To my knowledge the original novelization implied Alderaan had defenses as good as any system within the Empire (or maybe it was Core) but the Dark Empire sourcebook (WEG) said Alderaan had no shields. So thats open to debate depending on 'canon' and which sources are more reliable and interpretation and all that. But there's a good chance that at least much of the major worlds (including the core ones, sector headquarters for MOffs, etc.) and probably at least some of the orbital infrastrucutre is shielded (how well, we dont know. It could just be for some orbital facilties you have 'nav' shields to deflect radidation and micrometerites for example.)

On the other hand.. do nova bombs REALLY trigger supernova? I mean set aside the whole semantics. And yes I know thats what they've been stated to do, but to my memory (and the wiki, for whatever that is worth, seems to confirm it) Nova bombs work by basically reversing the star's gravity. Which is not.. going to cause a supernova, even if supernova weren't specific phenomena attributed to specific conditions. Heck supernova weapons get tossed around in in Star Wars fairly often (Sun Crusher and Centerpoint being one example, IIRC) and I kinda question that they literally create supernovas in just any old star. Supernova tend to get misused the same way black holes do in sci fi, I think. It may be better to think of it as a really violent or energetic, artificially triggered, solar flare/Coronal Mass Ejection effect.

Now that doesn't say they don't destroy a star, or they don't release tons of energy, since reversing the star's gravity means you'd be propelling said stellar mass (or at least part of it) out at (least) at escape velocity (some 600 km/s IIRC for our star) and in the case of the Sun that can easily be orders of magnitude more powerful than the Death Star's superlaser (heck, even the same energy as the superlaser ought to be enough to fry any star system, and leave nearby systems relatively safe in the bargain.) On the other hand I don't think nova bomb effects are permanant (At least not on black holes and similar phenomena I recall) so its possible they may not permanantly destroy the star, either.

[Connor MacLeod]

By redeploy, do you mean pure travel time, or something else? The Prequels established that you can reach from the core to the Outer Rim in a matter of days, if not shorter. Consider that Obi-Wan travelled from Coruscant to Kamino in his Jedi Fighter.

Yes, but the question is: How representative of the 'usual' should we consider the Jedi? Not very, I'd think, since they occupy a pretty significant and influential place in the Republic, and that can influence their 'capabilities' compared to your average civilian shipper.

Same wiht Han's ship. Its supposedly known for its infamous speed, but its also a highly unreliable spacecraft because of his modifications. How 'normal' should we consider a outlaw smuggler ship to be?

[Groans]

Oh lord, a "which sources do we believe" debate...

I think the traditionally accepted figure was 'days to cross the galaxy,' not months or years; a lot of the plots of the movies stop making sense if you make ship travel take months.

Traditionally accepted here, you mean. Unfortunatley one of the bad things about the 'good old debates' was they were highly polarized and people tended to cherrypick sources to varying degrees (sometimes it was justified accoridng to your approach and the canon policy at the time, but others weren't.) and it was just a huge fucking mess. A good deal of things in STar Wars are a whole lot less offensive if you pay attention to tradeoffs and consequences without the 'one side is better than the other' lenses on.

Honestly the movies (and a number of novels) DO show tremendously high speeds in short timeframes (tens or thousands of LY in a matter of hours) but there are competing examples, and there are even reasons (again yes, stemming from WEG.) Its not necccesarily contradictory either, because Hyperdrives are not identical, nor are starships, and there are a ton of factors involved which shape overall speed. Heck even Curtis noted more than a few (density of interstellar medium, fuel supply, etc.)


Various Zahn novels have ranged from tens of thousands of c to millions of c (Outbound Flight even had one blind hyperspace jump that was, IIRC a couple hundred LY in and around the Unknown Regions in a matter of hours.) WEG seems roughly similar (transit times could range from mere hours on one long distance route to weeks on another.) WEG even generalized that crossing the galaxy (IIRC) would take weeks or months for the 'average' starship (specific reference: 2nd edition core rules revised for WEG. Old source, but still valid AFAIK.)

I would point out that if one posits that, like engines and weapons, hyperdrives can channel nearly all the output of a reactor, and max output can be sustained for a matter of a few hours (at least by Curtis' old estimates) then one big drawback to the 'tens of thousands of light years in a few hours' is the danger of running out of fuel. If you have to fight at the end of that battle, and its an opponent that requires significant portions of your power output, you could be limiting your combat endurance dramatically with a too-long jump.

Thus the primary limitation to the 'invasion' ability of the Empire is not so much speed, but information and infrastructure. within the SW galaxy, where the terrain is more or less well known and fuel (Whatever you use) and communication is plentiful, this wouldn't be a problem. But the need to establish that infrastructure in another galaxy (and acquire the knowledge) may effectively 'slow' down advances considerably.

By contrast, the High Guard is used to operating independently (as the Andromeda herself demonstrates) and away from base for prolonged periods, so aside from gaining information they shouldn't have significant hinderance in fighting.

This actually leads to an interesting conclusion: Andromeda's best options may not be fighting the Empire head on but by hitting them in the logistical and economic side of things. They may be outmatched pound for pound by SW Warships of equivalent size (not tonnage, because SW ships are massively heaveir.) but I doubt the same can be said of civilian shipping, infrastructure, etc. This could actually be effective, given the way the SW galaxy is set up and how heavily economics and politics is at the galactic stage. Palpy may even welcome this sort of action to a degree given his propensity for using threats to justify staying in power.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that Zahn's figures make the movies' galaxy-hopping plots nearly impossible, particularly the plots of Episodes II, III, and VI, where different people are operating in different star systems at the same time in comparably compressed timeframes.

[NecronLord]

Did you not read the post? Connor just talked about how they don't necessarily contradict given the number of variables involved. The point of variables is that they vary.

[Connor MacLeod]

The problem is that Zahn's figures make the movies' galaxy-hopping plots nearly impossible, particularly the plots of Episodes II, III, and VI, where different people are operating in different star systems at the same time in comparably compressed timeframes.

Not really. Look here, from the main site. Thats the WEG inspired hypredrive chart for specific routes and its highly variable, from a couple of hours to nearly a month for just the listed routes. That can be further modified (faster or slower) depending on the exact hyperdrive rating. Its been set in stone for ages that hyperdrive speed is variable depending on a ton of factors (people just argue over what the factors are the same way they argue over the nature of hyperdrive). It really doesn't change anything - we KNOW they are potentially very fast (tens of thousands of LY in hours) its just not the absolute, 'standard' speed across the board but rather very context dependent. And there's enough variables involved (or made up) to fudge the values even without the fact that in many cases in the movie we often lack sufficient information.

There are actually only a very few examples that point bluntly to 'uber' speeds and none of them (even with the EU in some cases) are totally without fudging. The best would be ROTS Coruscant to Mustafar for Anakin in a matter of hours (established in the ROTS novelization.) But that's really it in 'canon' that is explicit. I mean its not like you can seriously argue months pass in STar wars with the majority of them (context again) but even 'hours vs days' can make a significant difference time wise.

And even when we know the speeds, we don't exactly know the 'why' of how they get that speed, what tradeoffs there may or may not be, the requirements, etc. so extrapolating is really really difficult without making assumptions (and that leads to that dreaded 'variable' stuff you were alluding to earlier, but you can't help it with this shit - more often than not we're making inferences than absolute statements.)

Again people always scream about these numbers but they never really put them in a context except in terms of 'vs debate scoring' as if joules were points. Big yields are great and all, but without fuel the starship is utterly useless, and it can only maintain those big yields for so long (for example), and they can't power everything at max output either, and so on and so forth.

[Lord Relvenous]

By redeploy, do you mean pure travel time, or something else? The Prequels established that you can reach from the core to the Outer Rim in a matter of days, if not shorter. Consider that Obi-Wan travelled from Coruscant to Kamino in his Jedi Fighter.

Yes, but the question is: How representative of the 'usual' should we consider the Jedi? Not very, I'd think, since they occupy a pretty significant and influential place in the Republic, and that can influence their 'capabilities' compared to your average civilian shipper.

Same wiht Han's ship. Its supposedly known for its infamous speed, but its also a highly unreliable spacecraft because of his modifications. How 'normal' should we consider a outlaw smuggler ship to be?

I don't think it's representative of usual, but then again Kamino wasn't even in the same galaxy.

I'm just saying that I'm pretty skeptical of months long travelling times, especially for military hardware. Maybe a broken down junk ship would take that long, but if we have multiple instances of ships crossing long distances in short times, I'd say it's not too irregular.

[Batman]

I think part of the problem people have with the EU figures (or at least some of the EU figures) is the massive disparity between the high and low end. Accepting one or three or 7 million c when the high end is 30-50 million is one thing, but the low end figures go down to 87,000 or thereabouts (far as I remember anyway).
That's a nearly 3 orders of magnitude differential, and different hyperdrive performance, different routes, fuel economy vs speed and so on go only so far, or at the very least go only so far WRT the acceptance threshold of the reader.