I see we have a new challenger who, like the late and unlamented Village Idiot Darkstar, also decides to cherry-pick his way through the evidence to find one thing to nitpick and construct his strawmen from.
Mr. Triforcer's point, as far as I can determine, is that Lord Wong is alledgedly pitting the revived Empire of his fanfic as the force which stomps the canon TNG-era United Federation of Planets flat. While the "charge" is true to the extent that it applies as the premise of the fanfic scenario, it is invalid as an indictment against the premise of the site's entire logic once it departs from the humourous introductory page and gets down to examining comparative data.
Mr. Triforcer picked two statements out of whole chapters of material on which to base his fallacious attack, but apparently chose to ignore the following:
The preceding was from the preface to the Battles chapter of the Essays section. It essentially restates the premise of the entire website for emphasis to introduce specific battle scenarios. I restate the second section of the intro for particular emphasis:Darth Wong wrote:Yes, battles. The setpiece of all space operas. Used to generate tension, create excitement, and showcase special effects wizardry. Obsessed over by fans who like to pit imaginary combatants against one another. And in the case of Star Wars versus Star Trek, a never-ending source of debate.
Sun Tzu was enamoured of war, but not battles. In his opinion, an ideal victory in war would not require a battle. Or, as some pundits have put it, soldiers think of tactics, while leaders think of strategies. Having said that, battles are sometimes necessary, and it's sometimes interesting to ask how Imperial soldiers or fleets might have handled battlefield defeats in Star Trek, or vice versa. For example, the Federation lost the third Battle of Bajor, so how might the Empire have won? The Trade Federation lost the Battle of Naboo, so how might the Federation have won?
Of course, if we're playing this particular game, we have to remember that it's too easy to tilt the playing field. Therefore, we need some ground rules:
1. Equal intel: both sides have as much intel data as their enemies' natural foes would have. For example, a Federation starship would not be surprised by an Imperial hyperspace jump. Conversely, an Imperial ground commander would not be surprised by transporters. This means that Imperial forces will be using transport scramblers and sensor jammers whenever possible (and don't give me that nonsense about how they wouldn't be able to do it; we've seen countless natural phenomena that stop transporters), and Alpha Quadrant forces will try to snare Imperial ships with tractor beams if possible (given the range restrictions of Federation tractor beams), to keep them from jumping into hyperspace.
2. Neither side can use lost technology (ie- no Suncrushers, Genesis devices, phasing cloaks, or ancient Sith superweapons).
3. Neither side can use the other side's technology. They may know about it, but they don't possess it. For example, the Federation wouldn't be able to use a planetary shield to defend Hoth, and the Empire wouldn't be able to use self-replicating mines to block the Bajoran wormhole.
4. Both sides' technology works. We'll have none of this inane stupidity of one side's technology working perfectly while the other side's technology becomes totally useless.
5. The "visiting team" has resources which are appropriate to the battle and their capabilities. For example, the Empire must fight the Siege of AR-558 with just one ground unit, but they can throw in as large a fleet as they can muster for "do or die" battles such as the Battle of Cardassia Prime. Conversely, the Federation can throw in as large a fleet as they can muster when replacing the Empire in the Battle of Yavin.
After receiving some complaints, I realized that I hadn't fully described the condition of the "visiting team":
1. The "visiting team" is in an idealised condition, ie- at the height of its strength, without having to worry about enemies in its own galaxy. In other words, the Empire has all the ships and weapons it built for the civil war, without having to worry about the Rebellion. The Federation has all the ships and weapons it built for the Borg and the Dominion, without having to worry about either of them. Of course, this tends to give an advantage to the visiting team.
2. The "visiting team" doesn't get to use any special characters with special powers. In other words, no shape-shifters, sith lords, or any other unique characters. The home team gets to keep whatever special characters it had in the original battle, thus counter-balancing the advantage granted with the previous rule.
Mr. Triforcer may wish to note the first point listed: —the visiting team is in an idealised condition, i.e. at the height of its strength, without having to worry about enemies in its own galaxy. In terms of the overall comparative scenario of Empire v. Federation, this means, quite simply, that the Empire is at the height of its power and influence in the time between TESB and ROTJ, while the United Federation of Planets is in the condition it enjoyed in the wake of its victory in the Dominion War. On those terms are the comparisons made: military force levels, strategic/tactical capabilities, political power, industrial capacity and economics, technology. Canon v. Canon.After receiving some complaints, I realized that I hadn't fully described the condition of the "visiting team":
1. The "visiting team" is in an idealised condition, ie- at the height of its strength, without having to worry about enemies in its own galaxy. In other words, the Empire has all the ships and weapons it built for the civil war, without having to worry about the Rebellion. The Federation has all the ships and weapons it built for the Borg and the Dominion, without having to worry about either of them. Of course, this tends to give an advantage to the visiting team.
2. The "visiting team" doesn't get to use any special characters with special powers. In other words, no shape-shifters, sith lords, or any other unique characters. The home team gets to keep whatever special characters it had in the original battle, thus counter-balancing the advantage granted with the previous rule.
If it displeases Mr. Triforcer that the data means that a Federation at the height of its power is crushed out of existence by an Empire at the height of its power, too bad.
In terms of straight technological comparisons and warship capabilities, it is demonstrable that the Federation would not even be able to protect itself from the raids of just one stardestroyer randomly targeting planets for simple destruction by orbital bombardment for the sole purpose of inflicting mass planetary depopulation. Federation starships could not surpass or intercept a stardestroyer on hyperdrive, and none of their worlds possesses planetary shields capable of defending any of their worlds from a gigaton-level heavy turbolaser strike. It should not be necessary to point out that it would not even be required that the lone stardestroyer has to devestate and depopulate every Federation planet to destroy the Federation itself; the loss of only a few key Federation planets, including Earth, would be sufficent to destroy the United Federation of Planets as a distinct sociopolitical unit and throw the Alpha Quadrant into utter chaos.
The Federation is, qutie simply, hopelessly outmatched and outclassed in every category. If that doesn't suit Mr. Triforcer, too bad.
Mr. Triforcer explicitly concedes this logic when he must fall back upon the resort of every fanatical Trek cultist and invoke a character with godlike powers to defeat the Empire for the Federation, since it could not handle the task itself. In this case, he comes up with the wrinkle of a William Riker possessing the powers of the Q (cf. ref. "Hide And Q", TNG season one). And here's where the second condition outlined in the specifications for the Battles preface comes into play:
Mr. Triforcer must engineer an arbitrary advantage for the Federation in order for it to have a hope of defeating the Empire, at any force-level. He must insist upon artificial conditions which maximises the advantage for the Federation and the disadvantage for the Empire to offset the inbuilt military and technological advantages the Empire brings to the table. He also chooses to ignore the possibility that the Q Community would strip Riker of his Q powers for interfering in the course of events. And before we hear the inevitable objections, we must remind our excitable guest that the Q have stripped Q of his powers for his interference (cf.ref. "Deja Q", TNG season three) with humanity and other races. The Q have shown no inclination to place their powers and interest at the disposal of any of the space-traversing powers of the galaxy, and have shown that they will not allow any of their number to interfere without sanction. Therefore, we have a precedent for the Q Community stripping a Q-charged William Riker of his powers before he could effectively intervene to save the Federation from destruction or conquer the Empire in its own galaxy.The "visiting team" doesn't get to use any special characters with special powers. In other words, no shape-shifters, sith lords, or any other unique characters. The home team gets to keep whatever special characters it had in the original battle, thus counter-balancing the advantage granted with the previous rule.
In any case, the mere fact that Mr. Triforcer had to invoke a Q-charged Riker to defeat the Empire means that in the very proclamation of his "victory", he conceded his own defeat.
And, like Darkstar, made quite the fool of himself in the bargain.
