So many words, so little intelligence ...

[Ritterin Sophia]

Nice start, but Starfleet does have a Heavy Machine Gun-esque weapon, although why they're too moronic to use it in a proper fashion, only Trekkies know.

Don't tell me you're talking about the phaser on the dune buggy in Nemesis. HMG? You gotta be kidding me.

Okay maybe not HMG but you get the point, which is they're too stupid to mass produce and utilize a more effective weapon, simply because they view militarization as 'Barbaric'.

[Darth Servo]

Nice start, but Starfleet does have a Heavy Machine Gun-esque weapon, although why they're too moronic to use it in a proper fashion, only Trekkies know.

Don't tell me you're talking about the phaser on the dune buggy in Nemesis. HMG? You gotta be kidding me.

Okay maybe not HMG but you get the point, which is they're too stupid to mass produce and utilize a more effective weapon, simply because they view militarization as 'Barbaric'.

There is zero evidence that said weapon was "Machine Gun-esque" at all. It never demonstrated any kind of rapid fire capability.

[Darth Wong]

The gun on the dune buggy in Nemesis was more like a small grenade launcher. It packed a pretty good punch, but it was clearly not a rapid-fire weapon.

[chitoryu12]

I have to say that I haven't seen any of the Star Wars films in years

Yeah.

[Darth Servo]

The gun on the dune buggy in Nemesis was more like a small grenade launcher. It packed a pretty good punch, but it was clearly not a rapid-fire weapon.

I think you're being too generous. Afterall, its not like the thing ever flipped any of the target vehicles over, did it? The A-Team packs more fire power than that little pea-shooter.

Anyway, I sent a brief "give up yet" email to the guy on Wed. Haven't heard back from him so I assume the answer is "yes".

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The gun did cause two of the vehicles to flip over, one by causing the driver to lose control and crash, the other by a very close blast that flipped it over, though the gun didn't hit the vehicles at all, just the ground nearby.

You can bet that any response by that guy will not admit his defeat.

[LeftWingExtremist]

Well still it didn't seem to have an extremely high rate of fire, and its not like infantry are going to retardedly stick together in clumps so they can all be hit by the blast. So again its not much better than a grenade launcher (probably worse because most modern vehicular mounted grenade launchers are rapid fire now). At best it would be good against entrenched forces (a job which can be performed by a much smaller M-203).

[Norl]

Defending ST in a battle vs. SW is an art, and this isn't it.

2. The Federation would have a rather distinct advantage in ground combat.

Even if true, it's irrelevant in a war of two starfaring states. If you have domination of, at least locally, the naval aspect, and you encounter a well-defended planet, you just go around it. It's cut off, and irrelevant from the bigger picture.

The Federation however has phasers that can fire in rather large arcs, and take out fairly large groups of enemies.

But it's conveniently forgotten about when it would get in the way of moving the plot forward. Oh, they'll happily pull it out to harmlessly take out a mob of guys with spears wearing furs, to show how kind they are, but against other people with phasers, forget it. Nobody remembers it, even though nobody on either side is wearing anything other than spacecloth.

3. Short-range Transportation. The Empire must use physical transports (which are fairly slow and subject to enemy fire) to transport their forces. The Federation however can simply use transporters to near-instantaneously redistribute their forces at will, which could be highly useful in ground battles.

Yet like the wide-angle phaser, it's not really used in combat, because it would make the problem-of-the-week irrelevant. Just start beaming several cubic inches of flesh from people out there several feet to the right. Yes, it could work, but I can't even recall any military uses of the teleporter beyond implanting tribbles.

Which, by the way, as a bit of humor, if planted in the Death Star's food storage areas would be a nice little trick. Now you'd have to rely on the efficiency of a dictator-based military in performing thorough janitorial cleaning duties. I wouldn't hold my breath.

4. Medical Technology. Federation medical technology is indisputidly better than the medicine of the Empire.

This I cannot see. I don't see Trek exactly re-growing limbs, either. Even future Geordi only had robot eyeballs implanted after they got rid of his visor. Or Melange ones. Or whatever. I'd give him the beatdown vs. Steve Austin's eye, that's about it.

However, as seen in Revenge of the Sith, the burns sustained were nearly fatal, and it required a massive crew of surgeons to rebuild him with cybernetic parts. Also, in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke must be soaked in Bacta and given a robotic arm (both quite time-consuming) after his injuries.

More problematic, even from a SW lover's point of view, was the Emperor getting clear across the galaxy in the few minutes before Vader would have died, instead of a few hours or days. I guess both shows pull out super-duper-"they've gone all the way to plaid!" speed when the plot needs it. "God at the center of the galaxy", anyone?

5. The Federation has biological warfare. In the Voyager episode "Scorpion Part II" the Federation medical crew were able to (with some Borg Cooperation) create a series of Nano-probes able to effectively kill Species 8472 in a rather short period of time (well under a month). You could argue that this requires Borg assistance, however considering that this event occured prior to the Empire-Federation conflict in question, we can conclude that the Federation still has that knowledge of developing nano-probes (as they were used extensively on Voyager in many instances).

Ironically this, along with "wide angle phasers" and "teleporting out people's hearts" is a tech that's not used when it should be. In either series. And viruses require distribution, which is hard to do if you can't even get within teleporter range.

Another example of Biological warfare is Section 31 developing a virus that was able to bring massive destruction to the Dominion people. It seems highly probable that a desperate Federation would be willing to use biological warfare to defeat the invading Imperial forces.

Yes, the dangerous, classified technologies are pretty bad. But if I were the Empire, I'd be much more scared of the secret tech hidden by the equivalent arm of the government in the Ringworld series. But they're also one-offs used for plot devices, not standard stuff. Sure, the Feds could do OK by building a bunch of stealth bombs, giving them phase cloaks, then detonating genesis devices inside each star system.

Last time I checked, they couldn't even beat a Borg cube without using one trick or another. (Data superthink + Picard knowledge of cube operation, or just Picard knowledge in another case, or supertech from the future used in two separate cases)

Yes, the Feds should have mini genesis devices in phase cloak missles, or even tribble delivery systems in phase cloak missles, but they don't.

The Empire would sen out its initial fleets, which would wreak havok upon the Federation forces (who of course have vastly weaker weaponry and are much slower). Captured Federation ships would contain data about the location of Earth and key Federation bases. The Empire, with their fast ships, would most likely decide to destroy the Federation as quickly as possible without allowing them a chance to retreat.

I doubt it would be even that much. They'd be so dominant, they might take a lazy Borg approach and just mosey in when they feel like it. Outside of the aforementioned secret tech (which wouldn't be in a ship's database, at least not without severe encryption), there's not much the Empire might want to absorb.

I believe, however, that the Federation would recognize the strength of the Empire early on, and would mobilize and reposition several key military officers, research stations, and ships to hidden locations.

Now this does seem reasonable. Ironically, Stalin picked up a number of important factories and completely moved them to the other side of the mountains.

Personally, I'd reassemble Lore and turn him on, explain the situation and let him do what he wants. Flee, or try to suck it down via manipulation. The Feds options are very limited.

Under this scenario, it seems likely that the Federation would decide to deploy Phasic Cloak on all of their ships and stations as quickly as possible.

Assuming they had the time to do this. I can even imagine an author writing this part, with Romulans making warlike feints to stop the Federation. At least at first.

But even so, barring a very large antimatter explosion, or genesis device, or some other thing, dephasing to heave butterfly wings against a star destroyer won't accomplish much.

The Federation would send envoys to Klingon and Romulus to warn them of the impending threat and to mobilize a task force. Its this task force that plans a guerrilla war to recapture their Galaxy.

Guerilla wars only work well against decent opponents. Opponents who will round up large numbers of civilians for execution won't care.

Meanwhile, the Empire would set up bases on Earth and several other key planets and radiate from those spheres of power, with little opposition in their path. However, along the way, Federation forces would win a few battles against small scouts using their precision weapons and would be able to beam aboard their ships and capture Imperial crewmen, taking them back to Section 31 bases.

I'm sure Spock or any mildly competent Vulcan could capture multitudes of crewman once they're spread out all over the ground as an occupying force. Heck, if one Vulcan got lucky, he could take out a Jedi or Sith with a neck pinch.

But even if Spock en-Forced himself, and became the baddest ass Jedi ever, in the space of a few weeks, he's still not gonna do much vs. a space navy.

The Federation would then be able to, in their small outposts, build up small fleets to push their advantage against the Empire.

Still too much, with too far to go.

Using small fleets that would decloak and transport boarding parties (using transporters) onto Imperial vessels, the Federation would be able to strike their first blows against Imperial naval superiority. Although superior Imperial firepower would be able to quickly destroy the Federation ships after they uncloaked, the boarding party would presumably be able to wreak considerable havok (considering how precise of control the Federation has over the destination of the boarding party).

I do like the idea of sending a near-suicide force to TP onto an Imperial vessel and then try to capture it. But you'll never be able to capture a significant number as even an incompetent military would realize they were losing a large number of ships to a mysterious, suddenly-appearing ship, and then just learn to blast it instantly.

The war would continue for some time, with the Empire sending fleets to destroy important Alpha Quadrant planets/bases and the Federation destroying Imperial ships with unconventional warfare.

It's still an issue of magnitude. Yes, the Feds could tp a simple hydrogen bomb inside a SD and scour its corridorers clean, or blow it up, depending, but they don't, because they don't use their technology that way.

However, with some time, Section 31 would be able to construct a series of nanobots which effectively kill Imperial crewsman, and would be able to build numerous viruses targeted at organisms with specific DNA (as they did against the Dominion).

They wouldn't even need to tailor it. Although more dangerous, a human-destroying virus would be a nice thing to plant on someone on a SD. A roll of the dice that it won't escape onto a (former) Fed world, but war is hell.

Using small boarding parties to distribute the nanobots, the Federation would begin to decimate the Imperial fleet.

Again we're back to the magnitude problem.

With more and more races in the Milky Way (Species 8472

Who can blow up a planet with a much smaller device than the Empire, they'd be a much better straight up fight, if not outright dominating. But so what? They may or may not be a decent species, as far as the Federation is concerned, and they're relatively uninterested in non-fluidic space anyway. A few encounters, the Empire leaves them alone. So? Feds are still in p00p neck deep.

Organians

Yeah, and Q, too, while you're at it. Again, the Empire leaves them alone. Maybe the Organians will pull a rabbit out of their hat and stop the war, or maybe not. But if this is the only hope the Federation has, that's thin gruel to suck on, and has nothing to do with primary Trek races vs. the Empire.)

aware of the threat posed to them by the Empire (and thusly beginning their own resistances

There are only a few species in Trek that might stand up to the Empire but not be overwhelming. Like the "tranya" lightbulb ship guy from TOS. One of their big borg cube-sized monsters, +100 years to bring it up to "modern" standards would wade through Federation ships like a knife thru butter, too. Heck the old one probably would wade thru TNG fleets too. Or maybe the ghost-god ship's people from that "Wesly must die!" episode.

Eventually as attempts to quarantine the viruses and nano-bots of Section 31 fail, the Empire is forced to reconsider the feasibility and costs of conquering the Federation.

What happens when they threaten to start blowing up entire worlds until the Federation stops these type of missions? That was the whole point of the Death Star -- to stop the resistance gnattering stuff which was a big PR win for the Rebels, causing planets to join them.

Heck, even if they don't have one, they still can incinerate the surface of worlds in a few hours with SDs.

And they wouldn't threaten to blow up worlds -- they'd start doing it, then say "you stop first or we will continue."

In the end the Federation boarding parties take over several large Star Destroyers and use their powerful gun emplacements against the Imperial navy. Combined with the small Federation fighters, as well as the manpower losses the Empire has suffered due to previous biological warfare, the Empire is forced to retreat.

The Fed's best bet would be to try to do this near the start of the conflict, then begin reverse-engineering the technology.

And, unfortunately, I wouldn't put out too much hope on this in the near term. There are several episodes where the Feds stumble across advanced tech, only to send "a team of scientists to analyze it. It'll take decades.."

Of course, "decades" is the plot device escape mechanism for "this introduces too much world-altering tech and we don't want to transform the face of our valued Paramount property."

Maybe if they really went well into hiding, and Spock and Data and Lore and Barkeley all teamed up to analyze it, obviously they would pop out some plot device, but in reality, not. How fast would even Isaac Newton be able to reverse-engineer a nuclear bomb or jet engine or cruise missle? And that's an understated example -- the reality would be worse.

After this decisive blow, the Empire is forced to the table, and a peace is negotiated.

So yeah, the Federation would win...

Even assuming all you say, forcing a truce is hardly a win. A win would be the Feds pwning Empire space with Kirk punching the Emperor down on the last day, then wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.*


* Actual deleted scene: Emperor falls over a cliff and hangs on. Kirk extends his hand. Emperor ignites his saber and tries to kill Kirk, Kirk dodges and the Emperor slices off the end of the platform he's hanging on and falls to his death.**

** And then levitates back up and kills Kirk anyway. But Kirk isn't dead -- he's in that rift space from Generations! He can't die alone, blah blah blah where's the beer?

[Darth Servo]

its not like infantry are going to retardedly stick together in clumps so they can all be hit by the blast.

Well, they would if they are Federation troops.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Using small fleets that would decloak and transport boarding parties (using transporters) onto Imperial vessels, the Federation would be able to strike their first blows against Imperial naval superiority. Although superior Imperial firepower would be able to quickly destroy the Federation ships after they uncloaked, the boarding party would presumably be able to wreak considerable havok (considering how precise of control the Federation has over the destination of the boarding party).

I do like the idea of sending a near-suicide force to TP onto an Imperial vessel and then try to capture it. But you'll never be able to capture a significant number as even an incompetent military would realize they were losing a large number of ships to a mysterious, suddenly-appearing ship, and then just learn to blast it instantly.

Transporters have never been shown to work through fully function shields, never mind the fact that the Acclamator an obsolete warship and a glorified freighter has shields sixty-billion times stronger than the Enterprise-D, and never work through incredibly dense material, and with Neutronium being a part of Durasteel, it's dense as hell.

The war would continue for some time, with the Empire sending fleets to destroy important Alpha Quadrant planets/bases and the Federation destroying Imperial ships with unconventional warfare.

It's still an issue of magnitude. Yes, the Feds could tp a simple hydrogen bomb inside a SD and scour its corridorers clean, or blow it up, depending, but they don't, because they don't use their technology that way.

See above.

However, with some time, Section 31 would be able to construct a series of nanobots which effectively kill Imperial crewsman, and would be able to build numerous viruses targeted at organisms with specific DNA (as they did against the Dominion).

They wouldn't even need to tailor it. Although more dangerous, a human-destroying virus would be a nice thing to plant on someone on a SD. A roll of the dice that it won't escape onto a (former) Fed world, but war is hell.

Mind telling me how you’re getting them on board… oh wait…

Using small boarding parties to distribute the nanobots, the Federation would begin to decimate the Imperial fleet.

Again we're back to the magnitude problem.

Again?

With more and more races in the Milky Way (Species 8472

Who can blow up a planet with a much smaller device than the Empire, they'd be a much better straight up fight, if not outright dominating. But so what? They may or may not be a decent species, as far as the Federation is concerned, and they're relatively uninterested in non-fluidic space anyway. A few encounters, the Empire leaves them alone. So? Feds are still in p00p neck deep.

I’ll remind you that the destruction was delayed from the initial blast which would mean a chain reaction, and not a DET which destroys things with pure brute force and pretty quickly (Ex: Alderaan)

Eventually as attempts to quarantine the viruses and nano-bots of Section 31 fail, the Empire is forced to reconsider the feasibility and costs of conquering the Federation.

What happens when they threaten to start blowing up entire worlds until the Federation stops these type of missions? That was the whole point of the Death Star -- to stop the resistance gnattering stuff which was a big PR win for the Rebels, causing planets to join them.

Heck, even if they don't have one, they still can incinerate the surface of worlds in a few hours with SDs.

And they wouldn't threaten to blow up worlds -- they'd start doing it, then say "you stop first or we will continue."

Never mind that the Feds won’t get to use it except maybe on ground forces in sealed Stormtrooper gear.

In the end the Federation boarding parties take over several large Star Destroyers and use their powerful gun emplacements against the Imperial navy. Combined with the small Federation fighters, as well as the manpower losses the Empire has suffered due to previous biological warfare, the Empire is forced to retreat.

The Fed's best bet would be to try to do this near the start of the conflict, then begin reverse-engineering the technology.

And, unfortunately, I wouldn't put out too much hope on this in the near term. There are several episodes where the Feds stumble across advanced tech, only to send "a team of scientists to analyze it. It'll take decades.."

Of course, "decades" is the plot device escape mechanism for "this introduces too much world-altering tech and we don't want to transform the face of our valued Paramount property."

Maybe if they really went well into hiding, and Spock and Data and Lore and Barkeley all teamed up to analyze it, obviously they would pop out some plot device, but in reality, not. How fast would even Isaac Newton be able to reverse-engineer a nuclear bomb or jet engine or cruise missle? And that's an understated example -- the reality would be worse.

I’m surprised you didn’t tell him about how the Federation is going to run out of personnel long before the Empire does. Forgetting of course you still can’t beam on to an ISD.

[Darth Wong]

I can't believe the popularity of these retarded "take a ship by boarding it in the heat of combat" arguments. That's Nelsonian naval warfare tactics, for fuck's sake. Do they really think the ISD will just sit there, lower its shields, turn off its ECM, and allow itself to be boarded? It's a fucking BATTLE, and the ISD will be destroying the Fed ship.

[Thanas]

Nevermind the fact that the 9.700 Stormtroopers on board severy outnumber the crews of a whole star trek fleet, and would have a field day mowing down the redshirts.

[brianeyci]

I can't believe the popularity of these retarded "take a ship by boarding it in the heat of combat" arguments. That's Nelsonian naval warfare tactics, for fuck's sake. Do they really think the ISD will just sit there, lower its shields, turn off its ECM, and allow itself to be boarded? It's a fucking BATTLE, and the ISD will be destroying the Fed ship.

Why not. It happens all the time in Star Trek with transporters, so it must be true. Also you haven't heard that ISD's don't have shields, see shooting the shield globes, and transporters work through subspace so ECM is useless. One Tuvok on the bridge could stun everybody.

Like I said, everybody here needs to watch more Star Trek, and learn Klingon.

[Aratech]

*points to guy above*

Is he being sarcastic?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Pity the Federation allow enemies to board their ships and take them over far too easily. It's not as though they can't, they have forcefields in the corridors but they never use them when it really matters, nor do they beam boarding parties into space when it happens. Hell, they don't even lock down the ship when they realise they are goinhg to be overwhelmed

[Ritterin Sophia]

*points to guy above*

Is he being sarcastic?

He wouldn't have over six-thousand posts if he wasn't being sarcastic, that would require a wall of stupidity about as thick as the all knowing Help-Desk Manager (Everyone knows who I'm talking about right?).

[Aratech]

Sorry, should have noticed that. I guess my sarcast-o-meter is broken after the debate last night... some of the stuff got to be a little crazy.

[brianeyci]

No you're absolutely right, I am a Trektard. Just ask Uraniun235, Bounty, or even Robert Walper. I have corresponded with each of these people at length and even they couldn't stand me! I believe in the power of time travel, transphasic torpedo and transporters. And of course, I spent years perfecting my Klingon.

I actually have Rob's personal e-mail around here somewhere, need to talk to him one day.

Try and pluck the nuggets of truth from that one.

So this isn't totally a spam post, the one thing in my mind that settled Star Trek versus Star Wars without a doubt was Poe's scale drawing of the Death Star II to the Enterprise-E. I had to squint to make out Picard's ride. That's probably the best way to communicate the disparity to the uninitiated.

[Aratech]

About how big would the ENT-D be if it were squished into a sphere?

[Ritterin Sophia]

About how big would the ENT-D be if it were squished into a sphere?

Depends on how much force was exerted.

[Aratech]

*smacks head*

Sorry, forgot about that. I'm trying to explain to a friend the sheer amount of firepower disparity between the ENT-D and the DS2 by showing him exactly how many GCSs could fit inside of it.

[Batman]

Why bother? We have a reasonably close firepower for the DS1 (1E38 J) and we have an upper limit on the E-D's (maybe-single figure MT for the torpedoes).
Given that scaling down from the DS1 gives firepower numbers WAY in excess of a Valendamned Venator this should be no contest.

[Vympel]

The retarded boarding thing reminds me of a claim BigHairyMountainMan made on strek-v-swars before that board went down (dammit, I should've saved the thread).

It went like this.

- The Millennium Falcon was able to use it's docking claw to attach itself to the rear of the ISD tower while it's shields were up. Therefore, hordes of Federation troops (ie. goldshirts) in space suits would be able to beam to just outside that spot, pass through said shields (because of course, if the Falcon's docking claw can supposedly do it, so can a douchebag in a spacesuit- right?) and cut through the ISD hull, boarding the command tower and then taking over the ship.

No, really. I'm not making this up. I swear.

[Aratech]

How was the Falcon able to do that? I mean, the shields were up, and while they're hull huggers, sohuldn't that have stopped it, or is there some key point I'm missing?

[Aratech]

Furthermore, thanks Vympel, you've given me a much needed laugh. You've given me a reverse image of 'Outrageous Ocana' or whatever the heck that one was called, with the Imp captain noticing this, laughing about how those cutting torches will never get through the hull, and then laughing as the Feddies run out of air.