Starwars vs. Dune

[lumikant]

I did a quick search, and didn't find a topic covering this already, and I posted here because it seemed like the best fitting board.

Anyway..

We have the Dune Galaxy facing off against the Empire. I would postulate that the Dune galaxy would be able to defeat the empire. The Holtzman shields that they use provide almost infinate protection from any non-laser attack, and laser attacks have a 50/50 chance of destroying the target or the attacker in a giant quasinuclear explosion. They have over a million inhabitied worlds, instantaneous space travel, and each noble family has a large cache of nuclear weapons, each single warhead with the capability of destroying the surface of a planet. The Bene-Geserit, Navigators and other assorted "wierdlings" are more than a match for any Jedi and Sith. They also have the capability to create shields and webs that destroy any advanced circuitry that passes through. Such webs have been used to blockade an entire world.

[Dark Hellion]

Done long ago. As of Pauls time, they don't have the ability to take out the Empire. They have weaker weapons, and are out manned, and the feudal warrior system would cripple them at the beggining long enough for the Empire to establish an unbreakable beachhead.
As of Post Scattering Chapterhouse Dune time period, the Duniverse may simply have the population to swamp the Empire. They IIRC enhabit most of the known universe and could theoreticaly have the population to not even notice the empire for a long period of time. They have the firepower to BDZ with a small fleet and can even crack planets open with larger nuclear weapons, and with the 1000 to 1 or more population advantage that can be speculated from a Universal power, they might win. But Herbert was very sparce with his technological details and his details on the actuality of thier warfare.

[avatarxprime]

I think it would be helpful if you gave relative time periods for the Empire and Dune-verse. Like is this Empire at its height vs God Emperor's Dune or Paul's Dune vs Empire which still has to deal with the rebels, etc...

[CDiehl]

What makes you believe a Holtzman shield can stop a sustained attack from turbolasers? Bear in mind that the turbolaser is a plasma weapon, like an artillery version of a blaster. Also, why do you believe the mental powers of the Bene Gesserit, the Guild or the Mentats will do anything to harm a Jedi or a Sith? Jedi and Sith are trained to use their powers in combat, where Dune mental powers are not designed for combat, and what close combat skills they do learn seem to be more self-defense than anything else.

[lumikant]

What makes you believe a Holtzman shield can stop a sustained attack from turbolasers? Bear in mind that the turbolaser is a plasma weapon, like an artillery version of a blaster. Also, why do you believe the mental powers of the Bene Gesserit, the Guild or the Mentats will do anything to harm a Jedi or a Sith? Jedi and Sith are trained to use their powers in combat, where Dune mental powers are not designed for combat, and what close combat skills they do learn seem to be more self-defense than anything else.

In the Battle of Corrin which is 10,000 years before Paul's Dune the Bene Geserit use their powers to make themselves invisible, kill countless people, and they even caused Baron Harkonens disease via touch. The sisterhood was originially a group of psionic sorcereses who fought in the Machine Crusades.

As for the turbolasers, Holtzman shields in Paul's Dune simply don't overheat. 10,000 years prior, the very new holtman shields on the fleet surrounding Corrin held against a 16 hour nuclear and projectile bombardment from the machine fleet.


As for the population mentioned, in House Harkonen and House Atredies, set ~30 years before Dune, the Imperium is said to have over a million worlds.

[lumikant]

I think it would be helpful if you gave relative time periods for the Empire and Dune-verse. Like is this Empire at its height vs God Emperor's Dune or Paul's Dune vs Empire which still has to deal with the rebels, etc...

I was thinking ~Paul's Dune

[Dark Hellion]

The battle of Corrin was not what the little bastard and KJA wrote it as. they have fucked the whole continuity up, and any real Dune fan with half a wit wouldn't reference those piece of shit prequals. Check out the Dune Encyclopedia from your nearest large library, read the real fucking history and tech notes and then try making points.

[lumikant]

The battle of Corrin was not what the little bastard and KJA wrote it as. they have fucked the whole continuity up, and any real Dune fan with half a wit wouldn't reference those piece of shit prequals. Check out the Dune Encyclopedia from your nearest large library, read the real fucking history and tech notes and then try making points.

I'll check it out. My friend who let me borrow those also has the dune encyclopedia. What do you think of House Atredies and House Harkonen?

[lumikant]

Ghetto edit: Does anyone have a list of whats canon in Dune?

[Trytostaydead]

Ghetto edit: Does anyone have a list of whats canon in Dune?

Theoretically the KJA books unfortunately are. They are all properly licensed, etc. Though there are many glaring continuity errors and many liberal licensing on the original Dune storyline with almost none of the complexities that made the Dune series great.

The problem with objectifying the Dune universe, is as Dark Hellion said, Herbert's sparseness with describing the technological, tactical, or almost anything other of the scifi world. Which is why I guess Dune amassed a huge following outside of scifi fans, it circumvented all the technical jargon and descriptions.

What we do know is that humanity is evolving and the holtzman effects makes anything that uses lasers and the likes and fast moving particle almost completely worthless or incredibly dangerous. As such, tactics and warfare is acted accordingly. There is probably no doubt that the Great Houses and troops of the Landsraad and Sardaukar would absolutely wipe the floor with anyone (save a Jedi or Sith) in melee or hand to hand. They also know how to use ranged weapons, but shun them because of their ineffectivness against a shielded target, though they are in use. So I wonder what a blaster or turbolaser would do against a shield.

Atomic weapons are widespread but not used, and are able to crack open planets or simply obliterate the immediate vicinity, and this was capable in Paul's time. We are told precious little about space war, except in Heretics of Dune, where we're told about noglobe ships, and they are immense with cargo holds a kilometer long and with fearsome weapons it takes an army led by their greatest military leader moving at speeds faster than a camera can pick him up.

The book on Chapterhouse with the assault on the Honored Matre fortress is described as basically complete devastation, and the Honored Matres wiped out entire planets, billions upon billions dead and with a strange weapon that kills anything in its path regardless.

But otherwise, with Paul's time, if the Empire discovers the location of Dune, it can concentrate on BDZing it, then the Corrino Empire can only fight as long as it has stores of spice left. Though we don't know how the ships will fight, precious little is told.

Post-God Emperor, the Dune universe is immense probably existing in multiple universes as hinted with weapons and people of immense ferocity and terror that it would be hard to see the Empire even making a footnote in their history.

[Ghost Rider]

Been here, done this...and like every other time.

Let's see what gets done and never explained.

1. Guns....proof that blasters will be stopped by the shield. None.

2. None except precognitive supermen use hand to hand in SW...wonder why? Thus unless you're pregonitive supermen, somehow charging like a band of Zulu at Stormies is going to be a slaughter that would make Vader smile.

3. Ships have gotten NO, read that word N-O capabilites whatsoever except in one back handed response by Shaddam.

4. Even as of Chapterhouse, we have virtually no knowledge except their speeds have gotten better.

So I offer someone to post to show Dune having real numbers or something we can derive abilities from.

If not, or something going "Dune has the SHIELD!!!!", I lock because honestly, Dune was Herbert's baby to profess his story and he didn't give a damn how much anything worked nor cared that what a military did beyond shot thing....if that.

[CDiehl]

In the Battle of Corrin which is 10,000 years before Paul's Dune the Bene Geserit use their powers to make themselves invisible, kill countless people, and they even caused Baron Harkonens disease via touch. The sisterhood was originially a group of psionic sorcereses who fought in the Machine Crusades.

That's nice, but I doubt such abilities continue to exist in the original book's time period. Otherwise, wouldn't the Bene Gesserit have been participating in the battles in the book? If Jessica was such a "psionic sorceress," would she have been captured and dumped in the desert with her son? If Gaius Helen Mohiam were so capable, wouldn't she have killed Alia on the spot, or at least attempted it?

As for the turbolasers, Holtzman shields in Paul's Dune simply don't overheat. 10,000 years prior, the very new holtman shields on the fleet surrounding Corrin held against a 16 hour nuclear and projectile bombardment from the machine fleet.

Again, that's nice, but a fleet of Star Destroyers will not stop after just 16 hours. Imperial fleet personnel are trained to besiege planets for weeks or months on end. I think they can wait out a Holtzman shield's collapse. The Great Houses have at best a few ships apiece and are dependent on the Guild to ship them to other worlds. There's little indication that the Guild arms their ships at all.

As for the population mentioned, in House Harkonen and House Atredies, set ~30 years before Dune, the Imperium is said to have over a million worlds.

The Galactic Empire has about that many worlds also, and they are far better organized than the Imperium. Palpatine has a huge fleet at his personal disposal; when he wants a planet attacked, he calls an admiral, tells him to do it and that admiral does it. Shaddam IV has a small army and fleet, at best, at his personal command; when he wants a world attacked, he has to convince one or more Great Houses to send troops, then pay the Guild to transport them to that planet. Also, the GE has the advantage of computers and droids, which the Imperium absolutely does not.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I hope i dont get this locked, but i would like to ask a question...

From what i understand, a lasgun is literally that, a laser gun. And the Dune hiled things stop them, or more precisely they cause both the guy firing the laser and the guy wearing the shield to be blown to smithereens by a nuclear blast. Agian, as i understand it, i havent read Dune really, a little of the original but that's all. Blasters, turbolasers etc appear to be particle beams, possibly plasma weapons.

So my question is, couldnt we compare the description of lasguns and blasters and see if they're close enough to be effected by the shield? Also, doesnt fast moving physical projectiles get stopped by the Dune shield too, cause 'only slow stuff gets through' as someone told me once.

I dont mean to take sides, i dont know enough about Dune to say who would win. I mean though, would it be too much of a leap to ask why wouldnt particle/plasma beams be effected by a forcfield that stops directed energy beams? I admit i dont know a whole lot about it, and if i'm wildly off about the lasguns or sheilds or anything, it's cause i'm spitballing here.

[Elheru Aran]

A laser beam is simply coherent light. A blaster bolt is, IIRC, plasma fired through a magnetic accelerator or some such which holds the bolt together (I'm probably wrong on that, though). Plasma is not a physical object; I forgot the exact word, but it's a combination of solid and gas. It could very well penetrate a Duneverse shield; if not, I imagine it has enough power to overload the shield generator. Bad news for whoever's wearing/near it...

[Antares]

1. Guns....proof that blasters will be stopped by the shield. None.

Something that i still don't get with this "VS" threads is how to "prove" that a shield from one scifi universe can stop this or that weapon from another one.

[Ghost Rider]

I hope i dont get this locked, but i would like to ask a question...

From what i understand, a lasgun is literally that, a laser gun. And the Dune hiled things stop them, or more precisely they cause both the guy firing the laser and the guy wearing the shield to be blown to smithereens by a nuclear blast. Agian, as i understand it, i havent read Dune really, a little of the original but that's all. Blasters, turbolasers etc appear to be particle beams, possibly plasma weapons.

So my question is, couldnt we compare the description of lasguns and blasters and see if they're close enough to be effected by the shield? Also, doesnt fast moving physical projectiles get stopped by the Dune shield too, cause 'only slow stuff gets through' as someone told me once.

I dont mean to take sides, i dont know enough about Dune to say who would win. I mean though, would it be too much of a leap to ask why wouldnt particle/plasma beams be effected by a forcfield that stops directed energy beams? I admit i dont know a whole lot about it, and if i'm wildly off about the lasguns or sheilds or anything, it's cause i'm spitballing here.

Yes, they would be affected, but to what degree.

But implying because it stops slow stuff as a reason is illogical. One hopes that because the shield is a field that dissapates energy along itself and allows the asorbsation of an amount of energy and that the reaction of the lasgun and the shield is one that the las gun when hitting it is most of the times of a strength that it overloads both the weilder of the shield and the feedback of this event somehow goes back to the weilder of the lasgun.

Inane on many levels, but it is what is described and shown in Dune.

What does this mean to any other universe?

Zilch except they need a weapon that would overload the amount of energy the shield asorbs. And given the stanards of GE tech, one has to provide extraordinary evidence that it would begin to stop a blast from said gun, and especially anything of the level of the GE space craft.

[Ghost Rider]

1. Guns....proof that blasters will be stopped by the shield. None.

Something that i still don't get with this "VS" threads is how to "prove" that a shield from one scifi universe can stop this or that weapon from another one.

*sigh*

A shield disspates so much heat before the generator is destroyed and is unable to provide such protection.

A weapon exerts a certain amount of heat or energy.

There in as simple as it gets.

[Ghost Rider]

A laser beam is simply coherent light. A blaster bolt is, IIRC, plasma fired through a magnetic accelerator or some such which holds the bolt together (I'm probably wrong on that, though). Plasma is not a physical object; I forgot the exact word, but it's a combination of solid and gas. It could very well penetrate a Duneverse shield; if not, I imagine it has enough power to overload the shield generator. Bad news for whoever's wearing/near it...

Not plasma, since none of plasma's characteristics adher to how a SW bolt is formed or used.

[Antares]

1. Guns....proof that blasters will be stopped by the shield. None.

Something that i still don't get with this "VS" threads is how to "prove" that a shield from one scifi universe can stop this or that weapon from another one.

*sigh*

A shield asorbs so much work before the generator is destroyed and is unable to provide such protection.

A weapon exerts a certain amount of work(Joules).

There in as simple as it gets.

A thanx
If you reduce it entirely to this kind of aspect you can "prove" it.
I thought more about, if "shields" and "weapons" of different universe
are compatible in the first place.

[Elheru Aran]

A laser beam is simply coherent light. A blaster bolt is, IIRC, plasma fired through a magnetic accelerator or some such which holds the bolt together (I'm probably wrong on that, though). Plasma is not a physical object; I forgot the exact word, but it's a combination of solid and gas. It could very well penetrate a Duneverse shield; if not, I imagine it has enough power to overload the shield generator. Bad news for whoever's wearing/near it...

Not plasma, since none of plasma's characteristics adher to how a SW bolt is formed or used.

I know. I just couldn't remember the current theory on how blasters work (there really should be some resources for that kind of thing), and didn't have time to look it up, so I went with an older theory that's always stuck in my head... figured it was probably close enough to complete my illustration.

[Ghost Rider]

A laser beam is simply coherent light. A blaster bolt is, IIRC, plasma fired through a magnetic accelerator or some such which holds the bolt together (I'm probably wrong on that, though). Plasma is not a physical object; I forgot the exact word, but it's a combination of solid and gas. It could very well penetrate a Duneverse shield; if not, I imagine it has enough power to overload the shield generator. Bad news for whoever's wearing/near it...

Not plasma, since none of plasma's characteristics adher to how a SW bolt is formed or used.

I know. I just couldn't remember the current theory on how blasters work (there really should be some resources for that kind of thing), and didn't have time to look it up, so I went with an older theory that's always stuck in my head... figured it was probably close enough to complete my illustration.

Also all the complexity is hardly needed.

Just to further clarify why. The shield only works on small solid objects, and that's up in the air. Larger weapons such as high as artillery and down to rockets were shown of great effectiveness against the shield. There is possibility of small munitions penetrating the shield that cared nothing for speed. These all show that there is a power threshold. Only the lasgun and shield reaction is the odd part about this thing.

In fact the best defense against most of them, is the shield is something that is used in Hand to Hand combat more then anything else in the Dune universe, which is why only Dune fanwankers scream the shield stops everything.

Literally it's not even close to any sort of true all purpose device.

[lumikant]

As for the holtzman shields being effected buy blasters/turbolasers, in The Butlerian Jihad the Holtzman effect is explained at length. It can be used for many purposes, the first of which was planetary shielding which destroyed any circuitry that passed through it. Second, it could be used to capture light in a cohesive ball. Third is repulsors, the Holtzman effect can be used to create a null or antigravity field, Fourth is the Shields used in Dune. I dont see the shields as absorbing energy as much as nullifying particals that touch it.

In The Butlerian Jihad and The Battle of Corrin it shows prototype personal shields absorbing both plasma and in the case of the first ever Holtzman shield, a hand grenade.

IIRC the only time the shields have actually failed has been in the event of actual hardware malfunction.

As for the Laser point, it is never fully explained, but allusions are made by Norra Cenva that the equations wouldnt solve if energy entered the field at C. It wasnt based on the amount of heat it produced.

[Ghost Rider]

As for the holtzman shields being effected buy blasters/turbolasers, in The Butlerian Jihad the Holtzman effect is explained at length. It can be used for many purposes, the first of which was planetary shielding which destroyed any circuitry that passed through it. Second, it could be used to capture light in a cohesive ball. Third is repulsors, the Holtzman effect can be used to create a null or antigravity field, Fourth is the Shields used in Dune. I dont see the shields as absorbing energy as much as nullifying particals that touch it.

Which all comes down to...not really to sure how much energy it disspates, but it can produce a few cool events.

In The Butlerian Jihad and The Battle of Corrin it shows prototype personal shields absorbing both plasma and in the case of the first ever Holtzman shield, a hand grenade.

Pitiful compared to the energy exerted by most SW small arms.

IIRC the only time the shields have actually failed has been in the event of actual hardware malfunction.

Which is a pointless divergence.

As for the Laser point, it is never fully explained, but allusions are made by Norra Cenva that the equations wouldnt solve if energy entered the field at C. It wasnt based on the amount of heat it produced.

And technobabble.

[lumikant]

Also all the complexity is hardly needed.

Just to further clarify why. The shield only works on small solid objects, and that's up in the air. Larger weapons such as high as artillery and down to rockets were shown of great effectiveness against the shield. There is possibility of small munitions penetrating the shield that cared nothing for speed. These all show that there is a power threshold. Only the lasgun and shield reaction is the odd part about this thing.

In fact the best defense against most of them, is the shield is something that is used in Hand to Hand combat more then anything else in the Dune universe, which is why only Dune fanwankers scream the shield stops everything.

Literally it's not even close to any sort of true all purpose device.

The shield works on plasma, large objects such as rocks, and even absorbs an the shock from explosions, as shown in The Butlerian Jihad. Personal shields will fail because they have a limited power supply, whereas shields mounted on ships run directly off the power produced by reactors/engines.

The reason it didn't see much use in Dune, as is said in the book, is because theres a general concession made by everyone that'd be bad if they blew up one of the only settlements on Arrakis.

[Ghost Rider]

And I will ask again, because you've shown nothing so far, give examples of some quantity of energy a shield asorbing and how much energy a weapon is producing.

And no "16 hour bombardment!"...which is useless given rate of fire, what type of weapons and a number of other factors come into play that can increase or decrease anyone calculations.

Because so far this is no different then the multitude of other Dune vs ____ because we have nothing to go "There, it has guns within the 100 TJ range"