Animated Starscream vs. a Time War Dalek

[Drooling Iguana]

Starscream, as he appeared in the most recent Transformers animated series (specifically, in the pilot movie, as he hasn't made any appearances since then) finds himself in a modern city along with a single Time War-era Dalek. They are both fully functional, although the Dalek is not equipped to execute an emergency temporal shift (I'm pretty sure that ability was exclusive to the Cult of Skaro anyway.) They both know that they have to destroy the other for reasons of plot, and are unconcerned with collateral damage. Who wins?

[DPDarkPrimus]

Thread is useless without estimates of Starscream's weapon power from on-screen damage.

[NecronLord]

Depends just how generous we're being with the dalek. It's concievable that they have city-killing firepower invidually, according to various secondary sources (specifically, those balls on the time war model are supposed to be detachable free-roaming scout/explosive drones, and we've seen that even in Destiny of the Daleks, they had exposives of a similar volume that were supposedly kiloton yeild), but simply haven't been in the kind of open-field kill-or-be-killed scenario where that would be useful.

I would note that the Doctor's statement in Dalek that it would be able to kill Salt Lake City, presumably without any realistic chance of the United States Military of 2012 being able to stop it, would seem to support this. As would the repeated statements that 'four daleks could conquer the world.'

I doubt any version of Starscream is up to handling that. That said, even finding precisely which version you're thinking of in the snarled thangle that is Transformers continuity is beyond me.

[brianeyci]

What the fuck is the difference between a normal Dalek and a "Time War Dalek"?

What if Starscream just steps on the Dalek or smashes it? Depending what incarnation of Starscream it could be a fucking lot. If the generator obeys COM it could be destroyed. I'm reminded of Doctor saying Daleks are not invincible if firepower is concentrated, unless he was lying to buy time (not inconceivable; I think all the times the Doctor mentioned Daleks were not invincible he had a vested interest in meat shields and the time he mentioned the Daleks were invincible he had an interest in keeping everybody alive.)

But NecronLord is right; you'd have to be overly generous with Starscream letting him get in melee range of the Dalek and hard on the Dalek, setting up a double standard worthy of Trektards for Starscream to win. If we're judging Starscream and the Dalek with equal standards, Dalek takes it easily.

[Alan Bolte]

What the fuck is the difference between a normal Dalek and a "Time War Dalek"?

Oldschool Daleks were quite vulnerable to RPGs, IIRC. They didn't have those nice energy shields, nor was their flight capability much better than that needed to slowly climb stairs.

[Imperial Overlord]

What the fuck is the difference between a normal Dalek and a "Time War Dalek"?

Doctor Who, being a time travel show, has encountered the Daleks at various levels of their developments. The Time War era ones have the most capable travel machines. Daleks of other era are much less formidable. If he hadn't specified what era the Dalek was from, the first question would be "how can I possibly answer this question without knowing what era the Dalek is from?"

[LadyTevar]

Drooling Iguana
By "Starscream as appearing in the more recent animated series", do you mean the one that came out within the last couple of months? The one with the crappy animation and the shitty dialogue that attempts to pass for a plot?

If so, I hope the Dalek eats him alive beofre he fires a shot. The newest version of TF sucks big green donkey balls.

Shit, the G-1 version would be best ... or the Armada/Energon version. HELL, Possessed-BeastWars-Waspinator Starscream would be better, and more entertaining as well!

Starscream fangirl? What makes you think that?!

[Molyneux]

Drooling Iguana
By "Starscream as appearing in the more recent animated series", do you mean the one that came out within the last couple of months? The one with the crappy animation and the shitty dialogue that attempts to pass for a plot?

If so, I hope the Dalek eats him alive beofre he fires a shot. The newest version of TF sucks big green donkey balls.

Shit, the G-1 version would be best ... or the Armada/Energon version. HELL, Possessed-BeastWars-Waspinator Starscream would be better, and more entertaining as well!

Starscream fangirl? What makes you think that?!

The new version of Starscream has the same VA who provided the voice for the Teen Titans villain "Mumbo the Magician". He does insanity very well.

And despite Starscream-Animated's strength and the apparent power of his blasts, I'd give the eventual win to the Dalek. It's slow, but seems to have more powerful defenses.

[NecronLord]

What the fuck is the difference between a normal Dalek and a "Time War Dalek"?

As mentioned above, it specifies the ones in the show since 2005. There have been daleks in the show that are actually retarded morons with the mobility of a tortoise that can't hit a barn door.

What if Starscream just steps on the Dalek or smashes it?

Given that the casing of such a dalek was still easily recogniseable and mostly intact after hitting the ground with such force that no one was able to approach the crater it excavated on impact due to the fires raging around it for several days, it seems reasonable to suppose they have great durability. You may get a Space Marine Terminator scenario, of say, concrete just being displaced by the Dalek, if sufficient pressure is applied.

Depending what incarnation of Starscream it could be a fucking lot. If the generator obeys COM it could be destroyed.

They have a defence system that vapourises incoming matter, as well as a shield that protects them against energy bolts. This system is overwhelmed by considerably lesser amounts of matter approaching (concentrated gunfire) though, and shouldn't really be able to stop a transformer kicking it. They also have some limited effector-esque capacity to interfere with electronics, though they don't seem to use this as a weapon.

I'm reminded of Doctor saying Daleks are not invincible if firepower is concentrated, unless he was lying to buy time (not inconceivable; I think all the times the Doctor mentioned Daleks were not invincible he had a vested interest in meat shields and the time he mentioned the Daleks were invincible he had an interest in keeping everybody alive.)

By firing at the eyestalk, you can destroy its optics. However, in an open field battle - and as far as I'm aware, Starscream's generally not capable of entering any building on a human/dalek scale, Starscream won't be fighting the dalek, he'll be fighting its knife mis- err, combat drones.

This may seem counter to the way they fight in Doomsday, but they're essentially gunning down helpless civillians and cybermen there, rather than dealing with a serious opponent.

Of course, the unknown here, is what damage Starscream's weapons might be capable of. There's nothing really calculable for energy applied to daleks in the show, as far as I'm aware, unlike the Toclafane, whom we were given a convinient and 'realistic' figure (510 Mj) for.

[brianeyci]

I can think of one shitty way. Figure the electric potential and the current in that scene where the Dalek electrocutes ten soldiers in parallel, with wet human skin as the resistance.

I'm too lazy to do it and don't trust myself to do it anyway but I think it would be a very low number, an absolute lower limit to the power generation of a Dalek. Of course it really says nothing, because the Dalek's weapon will be far less than 100% efficient and uses some exotic means, and it says absolutely nothing about a Dalek's shields which are force fields so aren't proportional to energy like most people think.

Since when do the little orbs fly out and shoot shit? I only remember them flying out and forming a sphere when that Dalek self-destructed.

[NecronLord]

I can think of one shitty way. Figure the electric potential and the current in that scene where the Dalek electrocutes ten soldiers in parallel, with wet human skin as the resistance.

No, that's not normal electricity, and it's easily demonstratable that they have multiple bolt settings, so we can't infer that the same setting is used to kill other daleks. Or indeed, that the 'tommy gun' was functionally the same weapon just because it looked similar.

Since when do the little orbs fly out and shoot shit? I only remember them flying out and forming a sphere when that Dalek self-destructed.

They were planning that for Dalek (Commentry), but then they decided that it would be rediculous to have it do that. However, the capability remains as implied in dialogue (What? You think it'd gun down every citizen of Salt Lake City with its gunstick? Even at the highest rate of fire we've seen, it would take it an age: they'd get in their SUVs and leave) and explicitly stated to be capable of free flight and explosion in various sources, Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary and IIRC Monsters, Aliens & Villains. They do not however, 'shoot shit.'

Presumably these are extremely powerful (given the energy densities the daleks are capable of, and the aforementioned depopulate-a-city line), thus explaining why they're never used in the confined spaces the Daleks are usually in on the show. Either that, or they can dial up the gunstick to city-purging levels.

[LadyTevar]

The new version of Starscream has the same VA who provided the voice for the Teen Titans villain "Mumbo the Magician". He does insanity very well.

And despite Starscream-Animated's strength and the apparent power of his blasts, I'd give the eventual win to the Dalek. It's slow, but seems to have more powerful defenses.

And what does his voice actor have to do with this?

Again, the Daleks are tough, nasty, and would give any Cybertronian trouble. After all, they're giant AI computers. As we see in "Dalek", the TimeWar era Dalek hacked and downloaded 'the internet' within seconds. Given the chance, he may be able to hack StarScream.

[Molyneux]

The new version of Starscream has the same VA who provided the voice for the Teen Titans villain "Mumbo the Magician". He does insanity very well.

And despite Starscream-Animated's strength and the apparent power of his blasts, I'd give the eventual win to the Dalek. It's slow, but seems to have more powerful defenses.

And what does his voice actor have to do with this?

That was more of an aside to point out one of the good things about the new animated series. Not really relevant to the thread topic, which is why I didn't post that alone.

[brianeyci]

No, that's not normal electricity, and it's easily demonstratable that they have multiple bolt settings, so we can't infer that the same setting is used to kill other daleks. Or indeed, that the 'tommy gun' was functionally the same weapon just because it looked similar.

Particle beams and lasers never look the way they do in real life in science fiction. It doesn't particularly matter if it doesn't look like electricity -- the mechanism is electrocution. The tommy gun example is different because it doesn't shoot bullets.

They were planning that for Dalek (Commentry), but then they decided that it would be rediculous to have it do that. However, the capability remains as implied in dialogue (What? You think it'd gun down every citizen of Salt Lake City with its gunstick? Even at the highest rate of fire we've seen, it would take it an age: they'd get in their SUVs and leave) and explicitly stated to be capable of free flight and explosion in various sources, Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary and IIRC Monsters, Aliens & Villains. They do not however, 'shoot shit.'

Presumably these are extremely powerful (given the energy densities the daleks are capable of, and the aforementioned depopulate-a-city line), thus explaining why they're never used in the confined spaces the Daleks are usually in on the show. Either that, or they can dial up the gunstick to city-purging levels.

Suit yourself. Personally I think you're being overly generous. If the little orbs are super capacitors, it doesn't mean they can draw that energy from the orb and fire it from its gun wand. There's another good reason why they wouldn't use the orbs then besides civilians -- it could be self-destructive. If that's why, if the Dalek has to be a few orbits away to avoid destruction, then when the Dalek fights Starscream he won't use the orbs either. At least, not unless the fight lasts long enough for the Dalek to fly into orbit.

[NecronLord]

Particle beams and lasers never look the way they do in real life in science fiction. It doesn't particularly matter if it doesn't look like electricity -- the mechanism is electrocution. The tommy gun example is different because it doesn't shoot bullets.

And the Daleks aren't using either. It's been said to be an electrical beam on occasion, but it has never behaved as a purely electrical beam. unless you know of an electrical effect that makes an entire area look like it's been turned into a film negative. Incidentally, there's an episode of Doctor Who where the cybermen have a xaser, that looks exactly as it should; invisible with people falling down with a meat-cooking sound.

Suit yourself. Personally I think you're being overly generous. If the little orbs are super capacitors, it doesn't mean they can draw that energy from the orb and fire it from its gun wand.

... No. It doesn't. It's a fucking bomb. A B O M B! Where are you getting this utterly deranged strawman from? The 'dial up the gunstick' line there was deliberately absurd, to show you that the dalek must have access to powerful (kiloton at least) explosives if it's a plausible threat to Salt Lake City.

There's another good reason why they wouldn't use the orbs then besides civilians

What? Of course they wouldn't. They're daleks. If they kill civillian bystanders, so much the better.

-- it could be self-destructive.

Yes. It would.

If that's why, if the Dalek has to be a few orbits away to avoid destruction,

1. Orbit does not work that way.
2. It's clearly scaleable to city-killer.

[harbringer]

Daleks in general can be a difficult prospect to match ... there is no evidence that physical combat can kill a TW Dalek, in fact the doctor specifies that the only way for bullets (even far future bullets as in bad wolf) to harm a fully powered dalek is to blind it by destroying the eye. As for upper limits on shielding who knows - maybe the age of iron series might give a clue if we can figure out what a AU cyberman is capable of and if they destroy any daleks. What is apparent from the footage is the bullets dissolve as the approach the dalek in its shield as for energy addressed above. However as the four daleks invading and taking earth would have to face all weapons able to be brought to bear it is reasonable to give them a high shield strength (or at least one capable of stopping a 120 mm smoothbore).

[NecronLord]

This depends. It may be that they are able to use wireless hacking to corrupt the targetting data of tanks and missiles, rather than survive the impact itself.

[harbringer]

Hah hadn't thought of that .... still pretty sure my other points stand

[Xon]

Suggesting the Dalek have effectors with and effective range up in dozens of kilometres isnt improving the odds for the Transformers