What can kill an ISD

macman · Post by **macman** » 2002-12-20 12:27am

These may have been asked (and if so I am sorry)..What if any ship in any universe could kill a Star Destroyer one on one..thanks

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2002-12-20 12:29am

Most of the vessels of the Culture.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2002-12-20 12:34am

Most Fourth Imperium/Fourth Empire/Fifth Imperium vessels.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-20 12:41am

The Drej mothership, although it takes a while to get its main gun going; the first few seconds of the blast appears to be more of a contact tracer.

The LEXX, although it's unwieldy and if the ISD captain knew about the lethality of its main gun, he'd probably be able to destroy it before it could line him up for a shot. The ForeShadow could also do it, with the same caveats.

A Vorlon Planet-Killer should be able to do it, assuming that it does roughly SPK-level damage with a single blast. But as with the LEXX and Foreshadow, it may not survive a confrontation long enough for that, and the ISD captain is unlikely to sit around in front of its main gun.

A Species 8472 planet-killer cluster should be able to do it, although the regular fighters probably can't, given the length of time they must focus their main guns on a Borg cube in order to kill it (a Borg cube wouldn't last a tenth of a second against an HTL blast). Again, the same caveats apply: their offense is stronger than their defense, and an S8472 planet-killer would probably not survive the operation. Even if it surprised and killed an ISD which fortuitously happened to be directly in its path, its fighters would kill it after the fact.

The ID4 motherships would NOT be able to do it. Their primary weapon is just as unwieldy as the LEXX, Foreshadow, or VPK weapons, with not even a miniscule fraction of the power. It's able to do megaton-level damage to a city, which is a pinprick against an ISD.

Of course, there's probably tons of obscure sci-fi books out there with ridiculously powerful weapons, ships, or characters, but I'm trying to stick to television and movies.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-20 12:49am

Quite a few vessels in Starwars out match an ISD one on one. The Executor, Alliegance, Shockwave, ISD II, Eclipse, and a bunch of others could all do it with varying degrees of ease.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-20 01:06am

And World Devastators, Death Stars ... but I think the thread author meant ships from other sci-fi series besides SW.

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2002-12-20 01:06am

Sea Skimmer wrote:Quite a few vessels in Starwars out match an ISD one on one. The Executor, Alliegance, Shockwave, ISD II, Eclipse, and a bunch of others could all do it with varying degrees of ease.

I seem to remember seeing something once that said that ISD-IIs are really inferior to ISD-Is in one to one combat because, though it has a larger number of heavy cannon, the individual shots are weaker than those of an ISD-I's heavies and are thus not as good as penetrating the Mark I's shields as the Mark I is at penetrating those of a Mark II.

macman · Post by **macman** » 2002-12-20 01:23am

Actually I was thinking of ships outside the Star Wars universe..what about the excalibur (sorry about the spelling)..its main gun seemed very powerful

Graeme Dice · Post by **Graeme Dice** » 2002-12-20 01:37am

A wormhole generator from Farscape could probably do it, just stick one end of the wormhole in your local star, and point the other end at the ISD. Of course, this is another glass cannon, unlike SW ships.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2002-12-20 02:04am

Darth Wong wrote

The ID4 motherships would NOT be able to do it.

Did they even have weapons?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2002-12-20 02:20am

Do we know how strong ID4 shields are?

Post by **weemadando** » 2002-12-20 02:30am

This link

And

This one

Contain some comprehensive analysis of ID4 capabilities.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-20 02:47am

Stargate could also do it, if they got the ISD to tractor a ship with a working gate, and then dialed in that gate that's inside the event horizon of a Blackhole.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-20 02:55am

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Stargate could also do it, if they got the ISD to tractor a ship with a working gate, and then dialed in that gate that's inside the event horizon of a Blackhole.

Gates are one way only. The gravity of the blackhole should not be able to pull though the gate and suck in the ship.

Of course this basic premise from the filmand often major plotpoint in the series gets ignored quite often.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-20 03:52am

Especcially since they tried to use that exact same trick on Apothis once....

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2002-12-20 04:04am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
The Yosemite Bear wrote:Stargate could also do it, if they got the ISD to tractor a ship with a working gate, and then dialed in that gate that's inside the event horizon of a Blackhole.
Gates are one way only. The gravity of the blackhole should not be able to pull though the gate and suck in the ship.

Of course this basic premise from the filmand often major plotpoint in the series gets ignored quite often.

Almost every episode which features tha Stargate has electromagnetic effects being able to propagate back through the wormhole. Even the moive had it! Gravimetric effects have been shown to propagte back though the gate twice so far(may be more but Western Australia is still in early season 6). The whole point of the 1st ep with the blackhole is we really dont know that much about physics

So live with it, Gates a pseudo-one way. Solid matter cant travel back though the gate. But use a Startrek style transporter and you can probable move solid matter back though the Gate.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2002-12-20 07:15am

A Xeelee nightfighter will kill it.

5th Imperium planetoid should do it.

A Path of the Fury Dreadnought.

A Pax Archangel.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-20 07:27am

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Especcially since they tried to use that exact same trick on Apothis once....

Actually they dumped it in a forcefield into the local star. Which due to the dodgy reasoning of the week caused it to supernova, destroying Apophis' taskforce.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-20 07:29am

In addition the dalek cruiser from Rememberance of the daleks could easily do it. (in that it can eradicate planets and "crack them like eggs")

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2002-12-20 08:19am

I think that most capital ships from Battlefleet Gothic might be able to kill an ISD, or at least cripple it.

They're definately many times as big as ISDs and designed to take on ships their own size - and the Desolator-class Battleship, which is around 4-6km long, would probably not have any problems crippling an ISD. A broadside from an Avenger-class Grand Cruiser would probably also do it.

And an ISD would definately not have many chances against a Space Marine Battlebarge...

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-12-20 09:02am

Simon H.Johansen wrote:I think that most capital ships from Battlefleet Gothic might be able to kill an ISD, or at least cripple it.

They're definately many times as big as ISDs and designed to take on ships their own size - and the Desolator-class Battleship, which is around 4-6km long, would probably not have any problems crippling an ISD. A broadside from an Avenger-class Grand Cruiser would probably also do it.

And an ISD would definately not have many chances against a Space Marine Battlebarge...

An ISD is indeed able to stand up to most Imperium ships, they're torps are 310 gigatons each: the ISD has medium TL canons each rated at 200 gigatons. The standard Imperial cruiser, the Lunar, seems to be either equal or inferior to an ISD.
The only ships of the Imperium that are doubless truly superior to an ISD are
a) the battleships (of course)
b) Nova Cannon equipped ships

A fight Empire vs Imperium would be very well-balanced and I think it'd be pretty impossible to determine a victor - that's of course in a scenario where the Imperium does not need to constantly fight with traitors, eldar, orcs etc.

Concering the original question.
In short: there are a great many things that can beat an ISD. That's due to SW being only of average power.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2002-12-20 09:07am

macman wrote:Actually I was thinking of ships outside the Star Wars universe..what about the excalibur (sorry about the spelling)..its main gun seemed very powerful

Excalibur could not do it. Even the highest estimates on its main gun aren't enough. And after it gets the shot off it is picked apart in the minute that remains.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-20 09:28am

Cpt_Frank wrote:
Simon H.Johansen wrote:I think that most capital ships from Battlefleet Gothic might be able to kill an ISD, or at least cripple it.

They're definately many times as big as ISDs and designed to take on ships their own size - and the Desolator-class Battleship, which is around 4-6km long, would probably not have any problems crippling an ISD. A broadside from an Avenger-class Grand Cruiser would probably also do it.

And an ISD would definately not have many chances against a Space Marine Battlebarge...
An ISD is indeed able to stand up to most Imperium ships, they're torps are 310 gigatons each: the ISD has medium TL canons each rated at 200 gigatons. The standard Imperial cruiser, the Lunar, seems to be either equal or inferior to an ISD.
The only ships of the Imperium that are doubless truly superior to an ISD are
a) the battleships (of course)
b) Nova Cannon equipped ships

A fight Empire vs Imperium would be very well-balanced and I think it'd be pretty impossible to determine a victor - that's of course in a scenario where the Imperium does not need to constantly fight with traitors, eldar, orcs etc.

Concering the original question.
In short: there are a great many things that can beat an ISD. That's due to SW being only of average power.

310??

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2002-12-20 09:37am

NecronLord wrote:
The Yosemite Bear wrote:Especcially since they tried to use that exact same trick on Apothis once....
Actually they dumped it in a forcefield into the local star. Which due to the dodgy reasoning of the week caused it to supernova, destroying Apophis' taskforce.

WTF
Did you even watch that episode!

They dial the Gate that is currently very close to the black hole, then they activate the forcefield around the gate to slow the time dilation effects that back-propagated though the stargate!

Then they dump the Gate into the star. As the Gate 'falls' to the centre of the star, it sucks in matter causing a massively destabilizing effect to the star. The result is the star loses enough reaction mass to cause a main sequance star to go nova!

Any one want to do some calcs on how much mass the Gate would have to shift to cause a main sequance star to go nova(assuming the Star masses the same of our sun or what ever gives the lowest value for a main sequance star)?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-20 09:49am

ggs wrote:
NecronLord wrote:
The Yosemite Bear wrote:Especcially since they tried to use that exact same trick on Apothis once....
Actually they dumped it in a forcefield into the local star. Which due to the dodgy reasoning of the week caused it to supernova, destroying Apophis' taskforce.
WTF
Did you even watch that episode!

They dial the Gate that is currently very close to the black hole, then they activate the forcefield around the gate to slow the time dilation effects that back-propagated though the stargate!

Then they dump the Gate into the star. As the Gate 'falls' to the centre of the star, it sucks in matter causing a massively destabilizing effect to the star. The result is the star loses enough reaction mass to cause a main sequance star to go nova!

Any one want to do some calcs on how much mass the Gate would have to shift to cause a main sequance star to go nova(assuming the Star masses the same of our sun or what ever gives the lowest value for a main sequance star)?

I have seen it, several times. The fact that they did not take into account is that doing that wouldn't work. It would in fact merely shrink the star. Sucking material off the top will not instigate the core-collapse needed for a supernova, and sucking it from the center as you suggest would do no better in that the star needs an iorn core in order to form a wavefront.