The Alpha Quadrant vs. the Duskhan League

[ArcturusMengsk]

I haven't seen this one done yet, and it's relatively more even than some other debates.

A wormhole linking the Koornacht Cluster to the Neutral Zone is discovered by the Yevetha immediately prior to the onset of hostilities during the Black Fleet Crisis. Sensing an opportunity to expand into a new galaxy and prepare for a larger war against the New Republic, the Yevetha decide to initiate a war of aggression against the Milky Way instead, temporarily putting their plans against the Republic on hold.

In the Milky Way, the Federation are just preparing for the Dominion invasion when a number of reports filter in of border worlds on each side of the Zone being decimated by this strange new threat. The Romulans begrudgingly confirm these reports and, fearing the mysterious aggressors to be elements of the Dominion, agree to assist the Federation in investigating them.

Can the Alpha Quadrant withstand an assault by a very minor Star Wars power?

Relevant links:

The Yevetha

The Koornacht Cluster

The Duskhan League

The Black Fleet

[Master_Baerne]

The Yevetha have a fleet of Imperial warships, including an SSD. 'Nuff said.

[ArcturusMengsk]

The Yevetha have a fleet of Imperial warships, including an SSD. 'Nuff said.

They also have fewer than a tenth of the worlds of the Federation, and their primary vessel, the thrustship, has a maximum range of fifty kilometers. I have no doubt they'd dominate in space with the Imperial vessels, but it's far from proven that they can take and hold territory (they use slave circuitry to decrease their crew requirements), or that Yevethan-designed ships will be nearly as deadly as their limited Imperial-built fleet.

[DogsOfWar]

The article said the Yevetha are xenophobic and obsessed with death, so they'd probably just wipe out everyone on the planets they attack. And even those few Imperial vessels are enough to easily wipe out Starfleet, especially since they are unlikely to be able to attack the Yevetha force with more than a few dozen ships at once.

[lord Martiya]

The confront will conclude with a terrible slaughter of Feds, Klingons, Romulans and a lot of other Trek's power, including the mighty Dominion and perhaps a Borg cube.
The only Trek weapons that could slightly match the turbolasers are the Romulan plasma torpedo (a lot of energized plasma in a conteniment field, similar to the Cardassian ones, but apparently capable of greater power) and the Federal banned weapon, the tricobalt device. For the use of the plasma torpedo the Romulans have to close distance, and if Yevethas can locate cloacked ships it will very difficult at best. The tricobalt device is a torpedo, and Yevethas can destroy it whit ten seconds of time (see Spectre of the Past). And we didn't even know if it's sufficiently powerful to damage a Star Destroyer or a thrustship. And for their status as forbidden weapons, the use of tricobalt devices in time to stop Yevethas (from the first battle, I guess) is very doubtful.

[Master_Baerne]

While it's true that the Yevetha could not hold the territory of even the Federation through strength of arms, terror might work. They could kill a million people for each revolt, and the Feds, as idealists, probably wouldn't try much funny business.Iincontestable space superiority is so nice to have...

[Ender]

The Yevetha have a fleet of Imperial warships, including an SSD. 'Nuff said.

They also have fewer than a tenth of the worlds of the Federation, and their primary vessel, the thrustship, has a maximum range of fifty kilometers.

What the fuck is the source for that? The BFC is notable for having a reasonable portrayal of space combat - including long ranges.

[ArcturusMengsk]

What the fuck is the source for that? The BFC is notable for having a reasonable portrayal of space combat - including long ranges.

Cracken's Threat Dossier. I'm quite aware of the questionable statistics therein; but they're the only ones we have for the BFC. It makes sense, given the Yevetha have been spaceborne for under fifty years.

[Ender]

What the fuck is the source for that? The BFC is notable for having a reasonable portrayal of space combat - including long ranges.

Cracken's Threat Dossier. I'm quite aware of the questionable statistics therein; but they're the only ones we have for the BFC.

Or we could, you know, read the series itself, where ships duke it out at several thousand kilometers. Or realize that since they are using Galactic standard technology, their baselines are going to be the same as the galactic standard.

It makes sense, given the Yevetha have been spaceborne for under fifty years.

Now you are either making things up, have not read the books, or some combination thereof. The Yevetha had colonized nearby worlds using lighthuggers prior to ever encountering galactic society at large. That is FAR more then 50 years, and automatically confers weapons far superior to what you are claiming makes sense based off the tech base. Further, we have been spacefarring for less then 50 years and we have tech far superior to that. So how exactly does a range of 50 km make sense?

[Darth Tanner]

This scenario would be much more intersting if you place it after the New Republic neutralises the Black Fleet and leaves the Yevethans to their own devices, blockaded in their own system. With access to the Black Fleet the Yevethans simply annhilate everything in the ST galaxy in a similar manner to the Empire.

Limiting them to their sphere ships doesn't help that much however.

Their sphere ships are still hyperspace capable. To produce enough energy for that is to have enough energy to lay waste to the Fed/Roms/Klingons and likely even the borg.

According to wookiepedia they just bolted imperial turbolasers onto the outside, so ranges for them should be comparable to imperial warships.

Their native built 'gravity' bomb launchers and missile launchers however do appear to have very limited range (ridiculously their missiles are claimed to have superior range in an atmosphere than in space), although I am not aware of where these figures are derived from.

very minor Star Wars power?

They may be minor but they were able to directly challenge the fleets of both the New Republic and the Vong. Admittedly they lost both times but still they are powerful enough to lay waste to the entire alpha quadrant at once with but a few of their ships.

Their only real problem is logistics in that I doubt they have the merchant fleet to keep a fleet supplied across an entire foreign galaxy especially when the xenophobia would likely call for them to exterminate every planet they come across.

[ArcturusMengsk]

[Or we could, you know, read the series itself, where ships duke it out at several thousand kilometers. Or realize that since they are using Galactic standard technology, their baselines are going to be the same as the galactic standard.

Now you are either making things up, have not read the books, or some combination thereof. The Yevetha had colonized nearby worlds using lighthuggers prior to ever encountering galactic society at large. That is FAR more then 50 years, and automatically confers weapons far superior to what you are claiming makes sense based off the tech base. Further, we have been spacefarring for less then 50 years and we have tech far superior to that. So how exactly does a range of 50 km make sense?

By 'spaceborne', I meant 'travelling at FTL speeds'. Given that they'd had to reverse engineer turbolaser technology with only the assistance of enslaved Imperial techies, it makes sense that their homebrewed equipment would be inferior to that found on their captured Star Destroyers. Note that we never directly witness the thrustships in combat and little mention is made of their prowess.

[ArcturusMengsk]

This scenario would be much more intersting if you place it after the New Republic neutralises the Black Fleet and leaves the Yevethans to their own devices, blockaded in their own system. With access to the Black Fleet the Yevethans simply annhilate everything in the ST galaxy in a similar manner to the Empire.

Weren't they demilitarized? It's been awhile.

[Darth Tanner]

Note that we never directly witness the thrustships in combat and little mention is made of their prowess.

When the Black fleet is liberated the thrust ships are all that is left and they fight to the last man. They don't do very well against the New Republic, being heavily outnumbered but they do inflict casualties, taking out some destroyers and a carrier if I remember correctly. Before that they fought along side the captive imperial ships.

Weren't they demilitarized? It's been awhile.

According to wookiepedia the New Republic eradicates their fleet to the last ship, bombs their ship yards to dust and then just blockades the system for a while, now wanting to resort to essentially genocide to permanently resolve the threat.

Apparently they immediately rebuild a considerable number of sphere ships once free from blockade and are large enough at least fight the Vong who come to eradicate them. As I haven't read that far in the Vong series I can't say what the details of the engagement are but they go down fighting again so must be able to build a fleet without any of the imperial hardware left to them initially.

[Ender]

By 'spaceborne', I meant 'travelling at FTL speeds'.

Your weapon range in space is dependent on tour sensor range, weapon velocity, and relative acceleration. All of which is independent of FTL tech.

Given that they'd had to reverse engineer turbolaser technology with only the assistance of enslaved Imperial techies, it makes sense that their homebrewed equipment would be inferior to that found on their captured Star Destroyers.

Bullshit.
1) They reverse engineered things independently, they used the Imperials only to train them on assembled systems.
2) It was explicetly stated that their reverse engineered technology was better then galactic standard. We assume parity only because we don't know how much better it is. An entire chapter and several passages were devoted simply to stressing that point.

Note that we never directly witness the thrustships in combat and little mention is made of their prowess.

Again bullshit.
That the thrustships were touch, capable opponents was repeatedly stressed in the series. In fact an entire chapter was devoted to a task force barely defeating 2 of them, and staying rather then retreating (the more sensible course) just so that they could get hard number to transmit back even if they died. This was again a major part of the 3rd book.

These are not small mistakes you are making here. Have you never read the books?

[lord Martiya]

Note that we never directly witness the thrustships in combat and little mention is made of their prowess.

When the Black fleet is liberated the thrust ships are all that is left and they fight to the last man. They don't do very well against the New Republic, being heavily outnumbered but they do inflict casualties, taking out some destroyers and a carrier if I remember correctly. Before that they fought along side the captive imperial ships.

Confirmed. I didn't know the classes of Thunderhead, Aboukir, Fulminant, Werra, Garland and Banshee, but the Star Destroyer (class unknown, speculated Imperator or Nebula) Yakez was destroyed, the Endurance-class carrier Ballarat was badly damaged and forced to retire, and the Majestic-class Mandjur was crippled and saved only with the help of a kamikaze X-Wing pilot, and also an half-dozen of other ships (classes unknown) were destroyed or forced to retire.
Also in Tyrant's Test, at chapter seven, two thrustships fought on par with the Majestic-class Indomitable and the Warrior-class gunship Vanguard. In the fight one thrustship and the Vanguard were destroyed, and perhaps also the Indomitable and the other thrustship (fight concludes with the Indomitable retiring after destruction of a Yevethan shipyard and the commander of the thrustship ordering a new attack with gravity bombs).

[lord Martiya]

Note that we never directly witness the thrustships in combat and little mention is made of their prowess.

When the Black fleet is liberated the thrust ships are all that is left and they fight to the last man. They don't do very well against the New Republic, being heavily outnumbered but they do inflict casualties, taking out some destroyers and a carrier if I remember correctly. Before that they fought along side the captive imperial ships.

Confirmed. I didn't know the classes of the destroyed Thunderhead, Aboukir, Fulminant, Werra, Garland and Banshee, but the Star Destroyer (class unknown, speculated Imperator or Nebula) Yakez was destroyed, the Endurance-class carrier Ballarat was badly damaged and forced to retire, and the Majestic-class Mandjur was crippled and saved only with the help of a kamikaze X-Wing pilot, and also an half-dozen of other ships (classes unknown) were destroyed or forced to retire.
Also in Tyrant's Test, at chapter seven, two thrustships fought on par with the Majestic-class Indomitable and the Warrior-class gunship Vanguard. In the fight one thrustship and the Vanguard were destroyed, and perhaps also the Indomitable and the other thrustship (fight concludes with the Indomitable retiring after destruction of a Yevethan shipyard and the commander of the thrustship ordering a new attack with gravity bombs).

[dragon]

The confront will conclude with a terrible slaughter of Feds, Klingons, Romulans and a lot of other Trek's power, including the mighty Dominion and perhaps a Borg cube.
The only Trek weapons that could slightly match the turbolasers are the Romulan plasma torpedo (a lot of energized plasma in a conteniment field, similar to the Cardassian ones, but apparently capable of greater power) and the Federal banned weapon, the tricobalt device. For the use of the plasma torpedo the Romulans have to close distance, and if Yevethas can locate cloacked ships it will very difficult at best. The tricobalt device is a torpedo, and Yevethas can destroy it whit ten seconds of time (see Spectre of the Past). And we didn't even know if it's sufficiently powerful to damage a Star Destroyer or a thrustship. And for their status as forbidden weapons, the use of tricobalt devices in time to stop Yevethas (from the first battle, I guess) is very doubtful.

The tricobalt weapons are not banned as Voyager used two of them to destroyer the caretaker array.

[lord Martiya]

They were subspace weapons. And subspace weapons were banned by Khitomer Accords. For their low subspace effect they may be permitted in some cases, likely orbital bombing (Voyager embarked its two tricobalt devices for a pursuing in Badlands, with possible encounters with Maquis bases, and on ground the subspace damage isn't important), and Janeway improvised using them for destroy the Caretaker's Array.