The Empire vs. the Zerg

[Thanas]

The Empire can blow up an entire planet rather easily, and has shown zero qualms with doing so. Hell, they have thousands of ships that can destroy the surface of a planet completely in a matter of hours (See: Base Delta Zero). The Empire is spread across most of a galaxy, with enough of a presence to crush almost any resistance.

The Zerg can't. The Zerg don't. The Zerg cover a mere portion of the Milky Way. The Empire wins in size, raw power, speed, durability, manufacturing capabilities, and a more brutally efficient MO.

Storm troopers have better armor and more powerful weapons than Terran Marines. Terran Marines will defeat zerglings mano a mano. There are far more storm troopers than Marines.


Of course, ground efforts are less of an issue, as the Zerg are very vulnerable to orbital bombardment, which the Empire, as mentioned, is quite good at.


At most, a few transport ships get blown up and a few planets need to be evacuated and glassed. Impirial scanning will pick up any signs of infestation before a person gets on the transport, and that's assuming the Empire really cares enough about the inhabitants of that planet to get them the hell out of there.


So the Empire by a long shot.

But don't you see? He is not arguing anything "smart" like infestation or anything. The single tactic he has posted consists of building billions of scourges and rushing the empire.

Clearly that is the superior tactic.

[Darth Ruinus]

By his calc, wouldnt it take 9,408,602,150,537 scourge to kill one Acclamator?

Shouldn't that tell him how fucked the Zerg are?

[Thanas]

The Zerg will overcome all that through the miracle of exponential growth.

[avatarxprime]

Explain to me what you mean by "reaching out", you idiot.

I would like to point out that this is the wording used by Blizzard in the SC manual. The Overmind "reaches out" with it's senses to detect space-faring beings which it lures to it's planet and then assimilates. It also later does the same to identify the Xel'Naga in orbit. This is most likely what he is referring too. Why he couldn't give you this blatantly obvious source I have no idea.

[Thanas]

Explain to me what you mean by "reaching out", you idiot.

I would like to point out that this is the wording used by Blizzard in the SC manual. The Overmind "reaches out" with it's senses to detect space-faring beings which it lures to it's planet and then assimilates. It also later does the same to identify the Xel'Naga in orbit. This is most likely what he is referring too. Why he couldn't give you this blatantly obvious source I have no idea.

So in other words what we have here is an unspecified and unquantified ability to "lure" space travellers to a planet, probably some sort of sensor/hypnosis package. How that helps the zerg in this scenario I have no idea, since the idea of them overpowering one ISD is ridiculous at best. Furthermore, the practical application is extrememly....questionable, since I doubt the empire would just idly sit by even if the overmind somehow manages to overpower entire crews through some sort of mind control. It is not like the empire has no experience with that sort of thing.


OTOH, the more I think about this zerg rush idea the more implausible it gets. Just think of mostly sublight speed Zerg trying to rush an empire which can relocate its forces across the galaxy in a matter of hours.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Starcraft vs. threads have a long history of being locked here simply because Blizzard fears establishing any sort of canon or hard-limits, thus making any debate involving their creations a generally fruitless search for verifiable numbers.

I didn't even bother reading through this twit's diatribes, but I did see an awful lot of numbers in his... lengthy posts. I would love to know where he pulled these numbers from since they definitely haven't appeared in any material published by Blizzard.

Anyways, before this thread gets inevitably locked, I'd like to say I am a bit of a Starcraft fanwhore (though I seem to be transferring that fanwhoredom more towards WH40K, as Starcraft seems to have gotten most of its inspiration from that, and 40K does it far better). That being said, I am also perfectly comfortable with the fact that the Starcraft races would get utterly curbstomped by the Empire, and probably even have a challenge dealing with races as technologically stunted (relatively speaking) as the Federation. JohnM81, please shut up. You're a fucking moron.

[Thanas]

I didn't even bother reading through this twit's diatribes, but I did see an awful lot of numbers in his... lengthy posts. I would love to know where he pulled these numbers from since they definitely haven't appeared in any material published by Blizzard.

According to him, they are "assumptions" he made in order to "help" the empire.

[Surlethe]

You reveal your ignorance on this subject. Yes life does reproduce on an exponential scale. And in saying that I am assuming you even know what exponential means....

No, it doesn't. Life grows on a logistic scale; it only grows on an exponential scale in the presence of completely unlimited resources. It should be obvious why that is an entirely unwarranted assumption.

[Stark]

Anyways, before this thread gets inevitably locked, I'd like to say I am a bit of a Starcraft fanwhore (though I seem to be transferring that fanwhoredom more towards WH40K, as Starcraft seems to have gotten most of its inspiration from that, and 40K does it far better). That being said, I am also perfectly comfortable with the fact that the Starcraft races would get utterly curbstomped by the Empire, and probably even have a challenge dealing with races as technologically stunted (relatively speaking) as the Federation. JohnM81, please shut up. You're a fucking moron.

Noooo, liking something means you should mindlessly defend it against absolutely anything! If your favourite nerd pillar can't beat all the others in a fight, THAT MAKES YOU SMALL!

[Lord Relvenous]

Anyways, before this thread gets inevitably locked, I'd like to say I am a bit of a Starcraft fanwhore (though I seem to be transferring that fanwhoredom more towards WH40K, as Starcraft seems to have gotten most of its inspiration from that, and 40K does it far better). That being said, I am also perfectly comfortable with the fact that the Starcraft races would get utterly curbstomped by the Empire, and probably even have a challenge dealing with races as technologically stunted (relatively speaking) as the Federation. JohnM81, please shut up. You're a fucking moron.

QFT. Every word. The races of Starcraft operate on such small scales that hell, even the Foundation could take them, or the UNSC out of Halo. So just stop talking please, JohnM81. This thread is pure fan-wank thrying to hide under the cover of balanced and thought-through debate.

[Freedo Dwol]

Glassing planets worked for the Protoss, it will work for the Empire, except the Empire is significantly better at it.

Give me an example of a sentient animal that does reproduce exponentially. Cells and bacteria may reproduce exponentially in ideal conditions. Animals do not.

The Zerg themselves are tiny parasites. The larger body forms are not naturally reproduced, they're "built" as hosts for the parasites based on useful template creatures the Zerg have previously encountered. It's easier to think of them in terms of materiel construction, not reproduction. Still not fast enough, of course, but not as slow as a reproductive cycle for anything of their size.

How exactly is the larva --> animal stage different than say....the reproduction of butterflies, who do not reproduce exponentially? I mean the general principles of the Zerg reproduction are the same. Larvae spin a cocoon, get fed with lots of shit and voila, there they are.

The only difference is that the Zerg get a lot more options than the standard butterfly.

Obviously you've never encountered the butterflies on Bailey 7!

(Zerg...bah! They always use Zerging tactics...)

[Covenant]

Oh goddamn, not this again. There should be an absolute lock on anything at all Zerg-related (or Protoss and hopefully TC) at least until Starcraft 2 can come out and people can watch the cinematics for some hyperbolic inconsistant demonstrations of mediocre power being displayed.

It's simmply a fact that the Starcraft world is poorly documented and not based much in a form of hard science fiction that gives you a number to look at. Star Wars was in it's original inception a poorly documented sci-fi franchise that had at the very least a lot of rigid principles that it adhered to which made it much more straightforward to deduce from.

Nobody here probably enjoyed starcraft more than I did, but the game is just unsuited to examination and the books are worse. And with no real canon policy (especially with Blizzard enjoying the "don't take this too seriously" stuff more than creating a strong 'universe') you can't even tell what's a big deal and what's not. Even a cursory look at the game and the people in it though leads you to believe that one of the big daddies of Starcraft-era warfare is the Nuclear Bomb. That right there should establish a lower limit. Long story short--the Protoss have some funny planet-killers, but the rest of their tech is low, the Zerg are infinitely weaker without the Overmind, and nuclear weapons are the biggest heavy hitters in the game barring a dramatic change in theme that we won't be able to see until SC2.

Frankly, there are probably more Stormtroopers than Zerg. Empire wins.

[FA Xerrik]

You reveal your ignorance on this subject. Yes life does reproduce on an exponential scale. And in saying that I am assuming you even know what exponential means....

No, it doesn't. Life grows on a logistic scale; it only grows on an exponential scale in the presence of completely unlimited resources. It should be obvious why that is an entirely unwarranted assumption.

Over about the past millennium or two, human population growth has been following an exponential curve. Without constraint, organisms will as you say develop along exponential lines. The SW galaxy is big enough that it seems entirely feasible for the Zerg to build up sizable forces undetected. There are plenty of worlds, per the Black Fleet Crisis books among other sources, that are known as an obsolete Republic or Imperial survey code and then forgotten, worlds never visited by anyone but perhaps the occasional smuggler looking for a temporary bolthole. There are also the stretches of "Unknown Regions," though whether the Zerg would come into contact with the Chiss, Vaagari, Ssi-Ruuk or whoever the hell else lives out there might well limit their ability to stay undiscovered. Of course, all this means is that the Zerg will make a really big mess on the windshield instead of a little one.

It seems like the only real chance they'd have at being more than a bug on the boot the the Empire would be infiltration and subversion of Imperial resources. Noble Ire portrayed, IMHO, a pretty fair representation of how this would have to work in The Rift. Of course, it would take a lot of either luck or skill on the part of the Zerg to actually position themselves in enough places to make a difference when the time came to activate the sleeper units or whatever. That also defeats the entire purpose of an Empire v Zerg thread, as it's no longer really the Zerg by themselves against the Empire.

The Zerg could certainly have a field day, however, adding new organisms to the Swarm from across the SW galaxy. Something about the idea of an infested Velker makes me giggle a little.

[Molyneux]

Storm troopers have better armor and more powerful weapons than Terran Marines. Terran Marines will defeat zerglings mano a mano. There are far more storm troopers than Marines.

Wait a second...
Stormtroopers have some armor plate over a body sleeve. Terran marines have full powered armor...just wondering, where did you get numbers from?

[Napoleon the Clown]

I base it off of the instance where an EU character wearing storm trooper armor gets speared forcefully enough to get tossed a decent distance, with the only thing to show for it being a small knick in the armor. Whereas a Marine's armor can be defeated by a hydralisk. (I forget the book this happened in, though...)

As far as weapons are concerned, a Marine's rifle is a coilgun that fires U-238 rounds at several times the speed of sound. Slightly more oomph than a modern assault rifle, whereas a stormtrooper's gun is shown to be very powerful. I'll look for figures on the main site or Wiki later.

[Batman]

Stormtrooper armour can turn a direct torso hit from an (if memory serves) 40MJ energy weapon into something survivable and survive (AND protect the user from) kinetic impacts making a modern day 30mm cannon green with envy.
The SC Marine uses a projectile weapon that has no noticeable recoil which puts a rather low upper limit on its firepower.
IF they ever got to melee range the Zerglings might actually be better off against the Stormies thanks to being able to get at the body glove, but since the Stormies have a) way more firepower, b) support weapons on the infantry level and c) are actually part of a reasonably sensible military which actually backs up its infantry with vehicles for both transportation and fire support, the Zerg get eaten. Royally so.

[Surlethe]

No, it doesn't. Life grows on a logistic scale; it only grows on an exponential scale in the presence of completely unlimited resources. It should be obvious why that is an entirely unwarranted assumption.

Over about the past millennium or two, human population growth has been following an exponential curve. Without constraint, organisms will as you say develop along exponential lines. The SW galaxy is big enough that it seems entirely feasible for the Zerg to build up sizable forces undetected. There are plenty of worlds, per the Black Fleet Crisis books among other sources, that are known as an obsolete Republic or Imperial survey code and then forgotten, worlds never visited by anyone but perhaps the occasional smuggler looking for a temporary bolthole. There are also the stretches of "Unknown Regions," though whether the Zerg would come into contact with the Chiss, Vaagari, Ssi-Ruuk or whoever the hell else lives out there might well limit their ability to stay undiscovered. Of course, all this means is that the Zerg will make a really big mess on the windshield instead of a little one.

If we assume unconstrained growth, we have to give it to the Empire as well because there's no indication the galactic economy has stopped growing; if it has, then the unused resources that the Zerg could infest and use represent marginal resources on the scale of the galactic economy, which means that even if they used them all they'd be crushed. But then, given that unconstrained growth, the rate of growth is proportional to the size of the economy; thus, the Empire, starting with a huge resource advantage, grows even faster than the Zerg.

[Freedo Dwol]

Even if the Zerg somehow infested every single planet where there was no large sentient population, to maximise their initial foothold before being discovered (Mimban, the moons of Endor, etc), they wouldn't stand a chance. They can't even beat Terran Space Marines with bloody machine guns.

Maybe, just MAYBE, if the Overmind was force sensitive...nah, not even then.

[RazorOutlaw]

Whereas a Marine's armor can be defeated by a hydralisk. (I forget the book this happened in, though...)

In this video (around 2:24) a Marine's face gets blasted by what's obviously a Hydralisk's claw. Is that what you're thinking of? And another example of a) the weakness of the Marine assault rifle and b) the weakness of their armor can be seen here (or the strength of the Zergling?).

The first Zergling tears away at a fallen Marine, and after they're both burned alive, two more Zerglings pursue a retreating Marine. The hypersonic spikes/bullets ricochet off of the Zerglings' carapace. The two creatures only endure about 100 rounds between the two of them so I'm not really sure if that's a good indication of anything actually.

[RazorOutlaw]

Oh good, I completely forgot to post the Brood War intro cinematic. That can be found here: +http://youtube.com/watch?v=EOEGudEoSW4

[avatarxprime]

Additionally in the Brood War intro you can see what appears to be the fire power of the Guardians, the supposed "Heavy Attack Flyer" of the Zerg. It's hardly a stellar showing. Look at 00:27-00:31. Then there is also the underslung grenade launcher seen later. I'm not sure if anyone ever managed to get any kind of calc on it's power (and by extension a Zergling's toughness) from that.

[TithonusSyndrome]

By his calc, wouldnt it take 9,408,602,150,537 scourge to kill one Acclamator?

Shouldn't that tell him how fucked the Zerg are?

If the Zerg were able to down an ISD's shields, open a few hull breaches and infest it, they might gain a minor foothold with this technique. Nothing the Empire couldn't swat away casually, of course, but it'd work better than trying to scourge the Imperial Navy to death.

Anyways, having made a few of my own frustrating Starcraft threads and having to learn the hard way about Blizzard's stupid canon policy, I care to open it to the powers that be that Starcraft be placed on the blacklist along with Gor for being for all intents and purposes unquantifiable, or at least semi-blacklist for anything involving calcs, feats, etc. unless Starcraft 2 changes things.

[NecronLord]

Gor's readily quantifiable; indeed, somewhat high tech in places. It's just so icky we don't talk about it.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting Gor was unquantifiable. I'll take your word on that. Rather, seeing as how Starcraft threads always go in the same circles concerning Blizzard's canon policy and the tiny smattering of ten year old cutscenes, I think it might be a good idea to put somewhere "Don't bother posting Starcraft threads that require quantification".

[Lord Revan]

Oh, I wasn't suggesting Gor was unquantifiable. I'll take your word on that. Rather, seeing as how Starcraft threads always go in the same circles concerning Blizzard's canon policy and the tiny smattering of ten year old cutscenes, I think it might be a good idea to put somewhere "Don't bother posting Starcraft threads that require quantification".

while I'm no mob, I tend to agree with this.

As much as I like Starcraft and Warcraft it's just impossible to make a vs. thread involving them as there's simply not enough data on either of them.