SW imperial military seems uneven

[starfury]

Both the SW GE/40k IOM seems to lack something resembling Star trek the gensis device/halo Nova bomb, a superweapon that does not need a high end ship to launch it, I wonder what in-universe reason that they both seem to lack it, as even EU star wars really only had the Sun crusher, the does seem rather weird considering their technology otherwise.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, first of all the Genesis Device isn't a superweapon and never went past a prototype. The NOVA bombs only had a few as well, so it doesn't seem that unusual.

As for SW and the Imperium, they can destroy planets with mid range ships. The Imperium have the many Exterminatus weapons and the SW world has Base Delta Zeros, both of which can be deployed by (in setting) mid-range ships.

As fro why this apparent dispartiy, SW and Imperium ships can easily level planets, so there's no need for a "one single superweapon from a middling ship."

[Purple]

What E_F said. Basically you are asking why WW2 battleships didn't have a superweapon that can do the same damage as the combined broadside from a mid range cruiser.

[Kuja]

Any 40k ship that has torpedo tubes can technically carry and launch cyclonic torpedos and life-eater bombs, it's just that such weapons are heavily restricted because the saner heads in the Inquisition and the Space Marines don't want planets getting popped willy-nilly. And as E_F said, just getting together a good-sized naval fleet in 40k can do some horrendous damage, even blow a planet open if the bombardment is feirce enough.

[Batman]

Last I checked the Sun Crusher was expensive like nobody's business so maybe the Empire figured the ability to BDZ planets with a handful of ISDs (which they had by the truckload anyway) if and when that was required (glassed planets/nova'd solar systems tend to be the tiniest bit harder WRT getting resources from afterwards) was absolutely sufficient?
Not much point in conquering enemy systems if you render them useless in the process.

[Borgholio]

Don't forget the Empire had the Galaxy Gun, which was superior to the Death Star in it's destructive power.

[Batman]

How so? DS-can kablooie planet. Galaxy Gun-can kablooie planet, except it can do so from halfway across the galaxy (unless intercepted, have fun trying that with the superlaser beam). The Galaxy Gun is certainly more flexible especially given the massive range advantage and it NOT being DET, but a destroyed planet is a destroyed planet.

[Lord Revan]

even ignoring that WH40K and SW have the ability to destroy planets with mid-level (destroyer/cruiser) ships, we got to remember that planet/star system killing weapons are equilevant to nukes in modern warfare.

You use them only as absolute last resort as the devastation they cause is so huge that said planet/system will be strategically useless to you after you used those weapons.

Aka MAD while valid, isn't the only reason you don't want to use nukes willy nilly

[Borgholio]

How so? DS-can kablooie planet. Galaxy Gun-can kablooie planet, except it can do so from halfway across the galaxy (unless intercepted, have fun trying that with the superlaser beam). The Galaxy Gun is certainly more flexible especially given the massive range advantage and it NOT being DET, but a destroyed planet is a destroyed planet.

The Galaxy Gun ammo was next to impossible to intercept. Unlike the Death Star that actually had to travel to where it was needed, the GG could wipe out several planets at once. Yeah they accomplished the same end result but the GG was able to do it faster and with less warning.

[Darth Nostril]

Ugh I'll be so glad when utter wank like Dark Empire is utterly erased from canon.

[Purple]

Ugh I'll be so glad when utter wank like Dark Empire is utterly erased from canon.

Why is it that people hate everything that is fun and awesome about the EU? I admit that I have newer read any of the EU stuff aside from wookipedia. But dam, the concepts are so fresh, fun and generally entertaining. And yet people seem to hate them.

[Sea Skimmer]

Couldn't Centerpoint Station move stars and planets over interseller distances? Ergo freaking throw planets or stars into each other if it bloody wanted? I think that's got most stuff in sci fi beat as far as shear long range kill power goes even if its not culture level, and as I recall it could also use this ability precisely enough to engage capital ships that might try to attack it. The Galaxy Gun is pretty reasonable in comparison.

I think though we'd have more superweapons in the Star Wars EU though if not for the fact that the EU already has a hardwired superpower, The Force. Thus we've gotten several stories focused on things which affect or manipulate the force in unusual, sometimes profoundly important ways, like Thawn using that random pseudo Sith guy to make his entire fleet slightly more efficient that were kinda superweapon like.

Likewise with 40K you have the warp and chaos making all kinds of incredible things possible without necessarily involving a discreet weapon.

Besides the much pointed out issue that both universes already have normal ships which can inflict massive amounts of damage on planets, and as far as ship to ship weapons go, its rather arbitrary how powerful they are as long as the defenses are correspondingly robust.

[Torben]

Centerpoint Station and the planetary repulsors on the planets in the Corellian system were used to move the planets to the Corellian system. They were built by some long lost race that built the system before recorded history.

And then someone figured out that Centerpoint station was a giant hyperspace tractor beam emitter and used it to make the cores of stars go unstable, and then boom. The planetary repulsors could be used to help aim the beam from Centerpoint or block it.

Oh, and the reactor within centerpoint was large enough that people actually inhabited its inner surface, using the standby reaction as a small sun.

[Batman]

Ugh I'll be so glad when utter wank like Dark Empire is utterly erased from canon.

Why is it that people hate everything that is fun and awesome about the EU? I admit that I have newer read any of the EU stuff aside from wookipedia. But dam, the concepts are so fresh, fun and generally entertaining. And yet people seem to hate them.

Since you admit you essentially don't know beans about the EU, by which criteria, exactly, do you determine whether the stuff people want to see gone from the EU is 'fun and awesome'?

[Purple]

Ugh I'll be so glad when utter wank like Dark Empire is utterly erased from canon.

Why is it that people hate everything that is fun and awesome about the EU? I admit that I have newer read any of the EU stuff aside from wookipedia. But dam, the concepts are so fresh, fun and generally entertaining. And yet people seem to hate them.

Since you admit you essentially don't know beans about the EU, by which criteria, exactly, do you determine whether the stuff people want to see gone from the EU is 'fun and awesome'?

Basically if the wookipedia article seems like it's over the top bad fanfiction. Mind you, I have no illusions about the material. What you people say might well be right and the actual writing might well be crap for all I know. I just find it fun and awesome that the SW cannon has stuff like the Nostril of Palpatine*.


*Yes I know that is just a throwaway quote said in universe by a person with the explicit intent to mock the various imperial superweapons. But that's exactly why I used it here.

[Havok]

Centerpoint Station and the planetary repulsors on the planets in the Corellian system were used to move the planets to the Corellian system. They were built by some long lost race that built the system before recorded history.

And then someone figured out that Centerpoint station was a giant hyperspace tractor beam emitter and used it to make the cores of stars go unstable, and then boom. The planetary repulsors could be used to help aim the beam from Centerpoint or block it.

Oh, and the reactor within centerpoint was large enough that people actually inhabited its inner surface, using the standby reaction as a small sun.

What minimalism?

These concepts seemed so far out of place for Star Wars to me that it made me hate the books.

[NecronLord]

Ugh I'll be so glad when utter wank like Dark Empire is utterly erased from canon.

Just out of curiosity, have you read it? I used to hate DE with a passion to, and its silly wankatine and its stupid superweapons.

Then I read it.

[Torben]

Centerpoint Station and the planetary repulsors on the planets in the Corellian system were used to move the planets to the Corellian system. They were built by some long lost race that built the system before recorded history.

And then someone figured out that Centerpoint station was a giant hyperspace tractor beam emitter and used it to make the cores of stars go unstable, and then boom. The planetary repulsors could be used to help aim the beam from Centerpoint or block it.

Oh, and the reactor within centerpoint was large enough that people actually inhabited its inner surface, using the standby reaction as a small sun.

What minimalism?

These concepts seemed so far out of place for Star Wars to me that it made me hate the books.

I always wondered why in the whole of the Star Wars galaxy, this was one of the only remnants of what should have been the most powerful species ever. And no one even knew they existed (except for Centerpoint, but no one knew its true purpose) despite these planets being inhabited for literally tens of thousands of years.

And why would this uberpowerful species that is never mentioned again just happen to put 5 random planets from other solar systems in the butter zone around Corell?

And what happened to Corell's original planets, if even there were any?

Questions on top of questions.

[NecronLord]

To quote Rachel Armstrong:

“Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from nature.”

Somewhat hyperbolic sources have credited all kinds of things to the celestials ranging from hyperspacial topography to the nature of the Maw cluster and various other things. There's a livelihood that some of their other works were mistaken for natural occurrences too.

[Darth Nostril]

Ugh I'll be so glad when utter wank like Dark Empire is utterly erased from canon.

Just out of curiosity, have you read it? I used to hate DE with a passion to, and its silly wankatine and its stupid superweapons.

Then I read it.

Yes. I actually wasted money on the graphic novels. In fact I wasted money on pretty much all the EU stuff ... until I got Crystal Star.
That cured me.

[Simon_Jester]

I always wondered why in the whole of the Star Wars galaxy, this was one of the only remnants of what should have been the most powerful species ever. And no one even knew they existed (except for Centerpoint, but no one knew its true purpose) despite these planets being inhabited for literally tens of thousands of years.

The lack of information may be partly because the planets were inhabited for tens of thousands of years. That long, long period of habitation could easily lead to archaeological evidence of the precursors getting destroyed (deliberately or accidentally).

Plus, the odds of written records actually surviving that long are slim by sheer bad luck. Stuff gets filed and lost so thoroughly no one can find it, or just ignored for a hundred years and when you come back an electrical storm has fried the computer records. Things like that.

Look at it this way- where do we find more and better preserved ruins of ancient times? Egypt, where the ruins were typically abandoned to the desert and untouched for millenia? Or Mesopotamia, where the ruins were typically surrounded by farmers and built over by subsequent generations, so that by now they're buried in fifty-foot layers of sediment and the ruins of later generations of the same city?

[Havok]

So they can move planets and create a massive space station that lasts and stays functional for what, a million years, but they can't figure out a way to keep records?

You are also trying to compare ignorant farmers to space fairing races.

[StarSword]

So they can move planets and create a massive space station that lasts and stays functional for what, a million years, but they can't figure out a way to keep records?

Remember that the species that built the damn thing aren't humanlike aliens in biology or mentality. They're hive-minded bugs. If they needed to keep external records at all it's possible they're stored in a format most humanoids can't even perceive.

You are also trying to compare ignorant farmers to space fairing races.

Data gets corrupted due to computer errors, cyberpranksters destroy equipment, the odd nuclear war or equivalent creates EMP, and there's always the fact of people failing to care enough.

[FTeik]

Maybe the Celestials or whoever built Centerpoint belong to those really rare people, who clean up after themselves.

Isn't that actually also the reason, why the Drall from the same trilogy of books have no need or use for archeology? Because they leave no remains and keep excellent records?

[Simon_Jester]

So they can move planets and create a massive space station that lasts and stays functional for what, a million years, but they can't figure out a way to keep records?

The people who juggled planets may not have cared about keeping records that would last a million years. Maybe they used a form of data storage that loses the data if the power shuts down.* Because with their advanced technology, they know the power really never shuts down. Then they experience a transforming event. Maybe they die out (and the power goes out, destroying the records). Or maybe they somehow transcend the need for their previous civilization and its relics (in which case they cease to give a shit, and the power goes out, destroying the records).

Or maybe this civilization never cared about keeping durable long-term records. Maybe they have such advanced brains that they have no need to take notes and write instruction manuals. Maybe they make a routine habit of recopying information to make sure it's kept current and reviewed... which means their data storage doesn't need to be durable over extremely long periods of time, because it's constantly getting renewed.

We can't know.

So as a practical matter, YES, a civilization with incredibly advanced technologies might not leave around records that last a million years in readable form. Even if they did, those records might have been destroyed or lost.

*Before you laugh, we're trending that way today; it's called a cloud server.

You are also trying to compare ignorant farmers to space fairing races.

Yes, I am, because it's not just ignorant farmers who do this. Industrial civilizations ALSO tend to tear up ancient sites, especially sites they don't know are there. Or don't care.

Do we have any idea how many Egyptian archaeological sites were destroyed by the creation of the Aswan Dam? We do not, and we probably never will. Was that because the 1950s and '60s Egyptians were ignorant? No, it's because they cared less about ancient hieroglyphics and tombs than they did about water and electricity.

Do we know exactly how many unique historical artifacts were destroyed by World War Two? We do not, and probably never will. Was that because any of the warring powers were ignorant? No, it's because they cared less about preserving those archaeological relics than they cared about winning a massive, existential war.

In the 20th century alone, a time when humans have been more conscious and attentive to the desire to preserve historical records than at any time in their history... we've lost a LOT of information about our history. Some of it, an incalculable fraction, is unique.

If, theoretically, there was some ancient Precursor relic telling us how to juggle moons or portal to planets around a distant star, it's entirely possible that it got blown up in a museum collection in Berlin, or drowned somewhere south of Aswan by Nasserists trying to bring their country into the industrial era.

Now imagine the results of dozens or hundreds of centuries, as eventful and complex as the 20th century on Earth, with even greater technology allowing us to create and destroy on a massive scale. Imagine archives of historical records millenia deep, and museums that have to store the imperishable plastic artifacts of twenty thousand years of civilization.

Is it really surprising that, in such a society, really ancient records and relics could get irretrievably lost? Or at least lost such that they are hard to find, and cannot be located quickly on demand?