The Dominion vs The Empire

[Martok]

OK, first post. Hopefully wont make a complete ass of myself.

I've read quite a number of posts on here and notice the prevailing argument is the Galactic Empire would crush The Federation. I think this is pretty obvious but for a number of reasons other than divergent technologies.

The Federation is primarily a diplomatic and secondarily a scientific organization. The Galaxy (ours) of the Star Trek world is yet to be fully explored, FTL travel is only about 250 years old and the federation has had limited contact (pre DS9/Voyager) with only half the galaxy (alpha/beta quadrants). This is pitted against an Empire that spans an entire (close enough) galaxy and has been built on the ashes of a Millenia old rupublic. Not exactly a fair fight, If I allow Alexander the Great to invade modern day USA i would get a comparative result. (A few dead yanks and then *bang* no more Alexander).

A far more fair fight would be Galactic Empire vs The Dominion. Another empire, this one rules approx 1/4 of the Milky Way and has been around for about 10,000 years. Just as brutal as the empire, they have destroyed worlds that opposed them, Their technology is superior to the Feds in almost all regards, they are ruled by Shapeshifters who can infiltrate the enemy with almost impunity.

I could write a lot more but would rather let the Warsies start before throwing around evidence to back up my assertions, monologues are tiresome.

As an aside, I hope to balance the ledger a bit, too many stupid Trekkies out there (lasers wont hurt trek ships.. wtf) are making those of us with intelligence and reason look positively few and far between.

[Darth Wong]

The biggest Fed weakness is their warp speed, and the Dominion shares this weakness. The Empire's vastly superior speed allows vastly superior force concentration, and it also renders traditional defense networks utterly useless because they can simply bypass them.

[Ford Prefect]

Also, in regards to the Shapeshifters, there are the bioscanners present in Imperial ships and facilities. They would more than likely see through a disguise such as that. Check the special technology section of the website for details.

[Martok]

Hyperspace travel requires exact and very complex calculations based on the almost complete navigation of the Wars galaxy, wouldn't the speed strength me significantly less in an unexplored galaxy? I don't like to nerf an opponent in an argument just for the sake of it so if this is a misguided point then feel free to simply shoot it down.

I'd rather not get bogged down in a hyperspace vs warp argument, speed is an obvious strength but not necessarily a "magic bullet". To again refer to Alexander the great, his forces were INCREDIBLY slow and unmanoeuvrable but won victories across the world.

Dominion ships are larger and more powerful than Fed vessels, they also have specialist fighter ships, cruiser size vessels and battleship size capital ships. A much juicier prospect for the empire than a diplomatic organization.

Also their ground based forces are truly amazing. But hopefully more on that later, we're still in space right now...

[Ford Prefect]

I once had the same idea. How would hyperdrive function well in an unexplored galaxy? Han himself talks of the dangers involved. I think however the Empire has the sensor ability to make accurate jumps, but I'm unsure on that one.

Has it ever been adressed, anyone?

[Stark]

Unfortunately, the speed disparity in this case is so large that an Imperial task group could jump to Earth, destroy the environment and most of the population, and leave again hours or days before any reinforcements could arrive. They could retreat outside the galaxy, years away by Fed standards, then strike their next target in hours.

[18-Till-I-Die]

The smallest Imperial capital ship, the Imperial-class destroyers, can reduce a planet's surface to molten slag in a day or so IIRC, maybe a few hours if three work in unison.

The fact their shields cake take hours of bombardment from these weapons, means they're like, i think petaton range shields, and their weapons pump out teratons of energy per voley. The Dominion have powerful weapons by ST verse standards but most are megaton level at best.

It's not possible. Unless we use some deus ex machina like fancy teleporting torpedoes or something, which is always a wildcard shot.

[applejack]

In addition to the points already made, Dominion power generation capabilities don't seem radically greater than that of the Federation. So, I don't see their weapons doing much harm to Imperial warships should an outright battle between fleets occur. Also, all the tech that allowed the Dominion to win early on against the UFP such as those that negated shields probably won't work against the Empire.

[Ghost Rider]

Speed isn't also the only concern. Let's say that Imperial task force has to send thousands of Probe droids mapping out the galaxy.

Sure, it'll take a while but what is the Dominion going to do? The firepower disparity is disgustingly different. We are talking a difference of at BEST low Megaton capabilities vs low Teraton. The magnitude is that bad.

This is the other factor in which Trek loses horribly. When it takes you a number of minutes to destroy a craft, if it sits there and takes it, fighting said opponent is next to suicide.

[Ford Prefect]

But he has a valid point. Will the Empire simply be able to jump straight to their target. Its dangerous (read: suicidal) to make a jump to lightspeed without coordinates, as Han says to Luke.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Imps have better fighters too, i think.

Forgot the numbers but TIEs have like insane acceleration, like 3000 gs or something.

Plus kt ranged weapons, they'd be very nasty in a good sized swarm.

[Darth Wong]

But he has a valid point. Will the Empire simply be able to jump straight to their target. Its dangerous (read: suicidal) to make a jump to lightspeed without coordinates, as Han says to Luke.

The point is obviously not getting through. They can simply send a probe droid ahead to make sure the way is clear.

[SirNitram]

I once had the same idea. How would hyperdrive function well in an unexplored galaxy? Han himself talks of the dangers involved. I think however the Empire has the sensor ability to make accurate jumps, but I'm unsure on that one.

Has it ever been adressed, anyone?

Broadly, yes. Here's the ten second attempt to give you an idea of how it breaks down.

An ISD's comm system allows it to sift through the entirity of subspace in a sphere around it, to 100LY. In realtime. This is just for picking up subspace comms which are then punted to be decrypted.

Sensors and comms are always tied to each other, so we'll use this as a baseline. This means that an ISD can haul up to 100LY/hour and still see things coming with lots of time to maneuver around them. The slowest speed attributed to an ISD that I recall come from the Thrawn Trilogy, where, in a nasty and uncharted section of space(Rather like, oh, the Milky Way in that respect) a VSD is hauling around 40-50 LY an hour.

To place this in context, a modern Federation ship at maximum warp takes five days to cover 40LY(VOY's 'Scorpion', Chakotay and Seven).

In an hour the Empire's outdated equipment covers what the Dominion's main baseline does in most of a week.


Now consider that all you need for starcharts is a telescope and time. Or more precisely, optical sensors and a big computer. ISD's have both.

[18-Till-I-Die]

But he has a valid point. Will the Empire simply be able to jump straight to their target. Its dangerous (read: suicidal) to make a jump to lightspeed without coordinates, as Han says to Luke.

They really dont need to hurry.

Ideally, i'd think, they'd just go world by world slowly. What could teh Dominion possibly do? So what if it takes a year or two, it's not like they have to rush is it?

[Ford Prefect]

Thought as much, cheers.

[Ford Prefect]

Thought as much, cheers.

EDIT: Just to point out, I missed the Probe Droid thing.

[Martok]

Also, all the tech that allowed the Dominion to win early on against the UFP such as those that negated shields probably won't work against the Empire.

The phased polaron beam used by the Dominion is capable of negating standard deflector shield technoloy, now assuming the empire uses a (vastly superior) standard deflector shield system similar in design to the Trek verse the phased polarons are going to negate it until the Empire can counter them (took the federation 3 years), never an easy task during an invasion. In fact it took the capture by Sisko of a Jem'Hadar ship to find the solution.

In relation to the Empire easily creating Nav readings of the Milky way in a matter of days, why is there still almost unnaviagable areas of the Wars galaxy? It would take MILLIONS of probe droids to successfully navigate the entire Galaxy, and while the Empire would certainly have the resources to do so, how would the probe droids navigate the galaxy to be able to hyperspace? It's all very well to send out hyperspace capable droids to map, but they'd have to travel at sublight or make very short hyperspace jumps, the same issues the ISD has, just on a smaller scale.

The smallest Imperial capital ship, the Imperial-class destroyers, can reduce a planet's surface to molten slag in a day or so...

Imperial task group could jump to Earth, destroy the environment and most of the population, and leave again hours or days before any reinforcements could arrive.

Quickly on these two points, first The Dominion don't give a crap about Earth, but i'm splitting hairs, secondly the Romulan/Cardassian fleet destroyed through Space bombardment the founders homeworld.. they didn't care less. The founders dont need the same environmental or infrastructural requirements as solid species, obviously if the great link WAS turbolasered, there'd still be a problem but well, if any planet was destroyed there's a problem.. however remember the Empire are here to conquer, not simply destroy.

It's WAY too easy to say "Well the imps just destroy your homeworld". Can they? Yes. But why come all this way for mindless destruction? They want the world intact and under imperial control so lets try and keep the WMDs out of it. They're no fun

[Ford Prefect]

However, even in a ship to ship conflict the Empire wins. Did this Phased Polaron Beam work on the idea of frequency? Because if it did, they'll be screwed over.

[Shroom Man 777]

So the polaron beams, which are just a few megatons in yield, are going to totally bypass a shield capable of withstanding petaton-level bombardment? A shield which the polaron beam isn't designed to cut through?

[applejack]

Also, all the tech that allowed the Dominion to win early on against the UFP such as those that negated shields probably won't work against the Empire.

The phased polaron beam used by the Dominion is capable of negating standard deflector shield technoloy, now assuming the empire uses a (vastly superior) standard deflector shield system similar in design to the Trek verse the phased polarons are going to negate it until the Empire can counter them (took the federation 3 years), never an easy task during an invasion. In fact it took the capture by Sisko of a Jem'Hadar ship to find the solution.

To expand on Mr. Prefect's last post, there's nothing to show that what works against Federation shields will hold true with that of the Empire. If you've taken a look at the main site, ST shields are heavily frequency dependent. This is most likely the cause of the Federation's susceptibility to unconventional attacks.

It would take MILLIONS of probe droids to successfully navigate the entire Galaxy, and while the Empire would certainly have the resources to do so, how would the probe droids navigate the galaxy to be able to hyperspace?

Why would they need to map the entire Milky Way just to fight the Dominion?

[Martok]

Did this Phased Polaron Beam work on the idea of frequency?

Not to the best of my knowledge, standard Fed procedures (modulation of frequencies) had no effect on phased polarons. Also as far as I know they dont "cut through" shields, they just react as if nothing was there at all, unfortunately my information is a little limited so I don't want to be like "blah blah you're wrong shut up" i'll look into it further.

there's nothing to show that what works against Federation shields will hold true with that of the Empire...

There's nothing therefore to show that a full photon torpedo spread wont decimate an ISD, some speculation is necessary and the shielding appears to work on a similar level. The Empire doesn't worry about frequency because phased light weapons aren't used in the Wars universe, maybe upon entering the Milky Way they'll have to worry about frequencies.. who knows. Or possibly the empire has negated that particular weakness of deflector tech, regardless the phased polaron beam was not impacted by cycling frequencies, as I stated i'll try and find out how the feds negated the shield bypass technology.

Why would they need to map the entire Milky Way just to fight the Dominion?

They've never been here, so how do they know where the pre-eminant military power is situated? They need to search, and map to make hyperspace travel in this galaxy viable.

Regardless of that, the dominion rule about 1/4 of the Galaxy, even if the Empire dont need to hyperspace map the whole thing.. at least a quarter would need to be mapped for an effective military campaign, with the inherant difficulties of mapping for hyperspace travel. Remember in 20,000+ years there are still unmapped or poorly mapped areas of Wars space.

[Stark]

You started so well. Here we go on the 'Wall of Ignorance' train, all aboard!

The phased polaron beam used by the Dominion is capable of negating standard deflector shield technoloy, now assuming the empire uses a (vastly superior) standard deflector shield system similar in design to the Trek verse the phased polarons are going to negate it until the Empire can counter them (took the federation 3 years), never an easy task during an invasion. In fact it took the capture by Sisko of a Jem'Hadar ship to find the solution.

I honestly can't believe this. You assume SW and ST shields are the same. You assume, further, that SW shields are the same as FEDERATION shields. You also subscribe to bullshit 'silver bullet' ideas, whereby polarons are going to penetrate SW shields and win the war. Ugh. You can't just wave this shit around: if you can't establish similarities, maybe they're not the same.

In relation to the Empire easily creating Nav readings of the Milky way in a matter of days, why is there still almost unnaviagable areas of the Wars galaxy? It would take MILLIONS of probe droids to successfully navigate the entire Galaxy, and while the Empire would certainly have the resources to do so, how would the probe droids navigate the galaxy to be able to hyperspace? It's all very well to send out hyperspace capable droids to map, but they'd have to travel at sublight or make very short hyperspace jumps, the same issues the ISD has, just on a smaller scale.

I've gotta argue this one. The Imps can sit OUTSIDE THE GALAXY and wait months if necessary. The droids only have to map corridors into dominion territory and find the target systems, not map the whole fucking place. Did you consider that the Empire has millions of probe droids, and doesn't care what happens to them? Who cares if literally millions are destroyed by jump accidents: that's what they're for. Meanwhile, the Dominion has no credible ability to strike back, and are just stuck watching probe droids appear and disappear all over their territory.

Quickly on these two points, first The Dominion don't give a crap about Earth, but i'm splitting hairs, secondly the Romulan/Cardassian fleet destroyed through Space bombardment the founders homeworld.. they didn't care less. The founders dont need the same environmental or infrastructural requirements as solid species, obviously if the great link WAS turbolasered, there'd still be a problem but well, if any planet was destroyed there's a problem.. however remember the Empire are here to conquer, not simply destroy.

Call me crazy, I thought they didn't destroy dick or shit. Fake sensor readings, the Founders not being dead, it being an ambush... these things are all suggesting to me that the Founder homeworld was not 'destroyed' at all.

It's WAY too easy to say "Well the imps just destroy your homeworld". Can they? Yes. But why come all this way for mindless destruction? They want the world intact and under imperial control so lets try and keep the WMDs out of it. They're no fun

Uhm... it's the fastest way to win the war. Fuck your stupid ships, fuck your stupid polaron beams, fuck your stupid armies, fuck your stupid deep space platforms. Try and fight the Empire when all your major planets are totally obliterated or surrender. No defence can be mounted. Further, this is necessary because of the fanaticism of Dominion resistance. How long would you expect the Founders to abide by a surrender? Why fight fleets when you can destroy all the enemies infrastructure in days or weeks?

[Asdeed]

They've never been here, so how do they know where the pre-eminant military power is situated? They need to search, and map to make hyperspace travel in this galaxy viable.

Uhmmmm..... you were the one who proposed 'Dominion vs Empire' right? But now you don't want the Empire to be aware of the Dominion? That bird just won't fly.

[Martok]

Here we go on the 'Wall of Ignorance' train, all aboard!

Nowhere have I shown the slightest penchant for abuse or insults, I belive some common courtesy in response wouldn't be too hard. The moment you have to insult someone is the moment you've lost an argument. Not flaming here, just requesting the civility you claim the Trek crowd are incapable of.

I honestly can't believe this. You assume SW and ST shields are the same. You assume, further, that SW shields are the same as FEDERATION shields. You also subscribe to bullshit 'silver bullet' ideas, whereby polarons are going to penetrate SW shields and win the war. Ugh. You can't just wave this shit around: if you can't establish similarities, maybe they're not the same.

I assume no such thing, I simply stated that enough similarity exists to sustain an argument, in a total absence of empirical evidence one must make assumptions. I also never stated "Phased polarons pwnz0r your lame ISDs" as a "silver bullet" "deus ex machina" argument would, I merely stated that phased polaron beams on the evidence I have to hand ignore deflector shield tech that hasn't been modified to specifically deal with them.

Call me crazy, I thought they didn't destroy dick or shit. Fake sensor readings, the Founders not being dead, it being an ambush... these things are all suggesting to me that the Founder homeworld was not 'destroyed' at all.

I stand corrected. maybe i'll have to rewatch. I know the founders had advance warning due to infiltrators and had left the planet and set an ambush, However this was a joint Tal'Shiar/Obsidian Order operation, I doubt their intelligence was totally wrong but i'll concede the point.

Uhm... it's the fastest way to win the war. Fuck your stupid ships, fuck your stupid polaron beams, fuck your stupid armies, fuck your stupid deep space platforms. Try and fight the Empire when all your major planets are totally obliterated or surrender. No defence can be mounted. Further, this is necessary because of the fanaticism of Dominion resistance. How long would you expect the Founders to abide by a surrender? Why fight fleets when you can destroy all the enemies infrastructure in days or weeks?

Now who's firing silver bullets? This sounds far more like what you're accusing me of than my statement was. I conceded the Empire could destroy worlds, canonically unarguable. But where is the gain in this? What does the empire spend Billions of credits for.. a dead galaxy? A war always has a purpose, and for the empire it is conquest. Destruction of resource rich worlds to "win" would be the act of a petulant 2 year old, not a power hungry emperor. The US could nuke any enemy, however their wars have a REASON, be it the spread of their political ideals or ensuring flow of resources (oil). The empire's campaign would have similar goals or rules of engagement.

And like I said, the "We can blow up your worlds" argument is boring and a logical dead end.

[Asdeed]

I assume no such thing, I simply stated that enough similarity exists to sustain an argument, in a total absence of empirical evidence one must make assumptions. I also never stated "Phased polarons pwnz0r your lame ISDs" as a "silver bullet" "deus ex machina" argument would, I merely stated that phased polaron beams on the evidence I have to hand ignore deflector shield tech that hasn't been modified to specifically deal with them.

What similarities? SW cap ship shields are hull conforming. ST shields are big bubbles. SW particle shielding work well against solid objects. ST shields, not so much. (Come on now, how many times have they been smushed by asteroids or 'ramming speed'?)

Those are just a couple of points, but the only actual similarity is the word 'shields'