What sci-fi nation would be a fair match vs The Empire?

[kotori87]

Everything I've seen on this website and forum pretty conclusively show that the Federation doesn't stand a chance against the Galactic Empire at the height of its power. As an avid SW and general sci-fi fan, the first thing I did after exploring stardestroyer.net was to try and think of a sci-fi universe that could take on the Empire, and have a decent chance of winning. Alas, my own short supply of knowledge has failed me, so I turn to the wise ones on this forum:

What sci-fi nation could challenge the Galactic Empire (pre-RotJ) in a head-to-head war of annihilation, and have at least a 50% chance of winning? Taking into account not just technology and tactics, but industrial capabilities, as well.

On a side note, I'm also curious what other sci-fi nations would be a fair match for the Federation, in a similar match-up.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm.

Late-series Lensman setting? The scale is comparable in terms of numbers of planets involved. The setting's capital ship energy weapons are powerful enough that solid materials not covered by force fields cannot withstand them even briefly, which suggests megaton-range firepower or better.

I don't really know the numbers, but Civilization is at least a closer match than the United Federation of Planets.

[Batman]

While I'm only dimly aware of the uninverse I suspect Lensmen would royally trounce the Empire.
Interestingly enough, while I know a number of settings that could go through Palpatine's Empire like it wasn't there, or would in turn be trounced BY it, I can't offhand recall any that would actually be an even match. (Note that I'm not saying such don't exist, just that I've never run across any that I remember). The closest match I can think of is WH40K and even there Wars has a massive advantage in space.
And as Civilization is by context NOT referring to the computer game of the same name, what IS it referring to?

[Samuel]

System's Commonwealth was supposed to be the same size magnitude (3 galaxies), but I don't remember their tech or their military ability.

Essentially you need a civilization that can exploit the resources of an entire galaxy to compete with the Empire. How many nations can muster such that much?

[Batman]

Andromedas Systems Commonwealth suffers from no FTL sensors, no shields, and noticeably lower firepower ship-to-ship. They have the upper hand in technobabble system-destroying WMDs (Sun Crusher style blow-up-the-sun items were regular if highly restricted fighter weapons, re Nova bombs), massively higher theoretical stardrive speed and likely STL acceleration but that's about it. Plus their stardrive is dependent on fixed entry and exit points on top of its other issues.

[Coyote]

The Stargate universe could offer a challenge, if the Gou'aould could get their shit together. But since they're fragmented and medieval, they'd get piecemealed to oblivion. The Asgard have lost the stomach for war. I think the SG-1 setting has the tech potential to be a challenge, but socially they're too vulnerable. Otherwise, remember that forming black holes on a whim and travel between Galaxies was a minor matter to folks like the Asgard and Ori.

I think the tech level in Wall-E --if it were devoted to combat instead of luxury-- could be a challenge. I'd certainly put my money on an EVE-unit over an Arkayd Viper Probot any day.

[Starglider]

The Systems Alliance (the human faction) from Mass Effect are probably on a par with the Federation, at least before the Dominion war fleet buildup; roughly comparable technology, similar sized ships and fleet, smaller industrial base but more military competence. The unified Citadel species fleets are probably a reasonable match for the alpha quadrant alliance (Klingons+Feds+Romulan fleets as seen in late DS9).

We used to have a stickied thread of 'civilisations that would easily steamroll the Empire', I'm not sure what happened to it.

[Connor MacLeod]

While I'm only dimly aware of the uninverse I suspect Lensmen would royally trounce the Empire.

I doubt it. Their ships mass substantially less than SW ships, less acceleration, and lower firepower (e20-e21watt range is their benchmark for power generation based on Second STage Lensman and Gray Lensman. Also by the sunbeam.) Its implied their guided munitions are more powerful (planet killing at least.) Inertialessness gives them some advantage as do ultrawaves (some advantage in weapons range, at least) but their effective FTL is slower (in galaxy) and they're fucked without shields. Negaspheres and free planets would help keep things interesting though as well. Ship numbers? tens or hundreds of millions of ships at least as of Gray/second stage lensman, perhaps billions. Fairly rapid shipbuilding implied. Scope as big or bigger than SW post Gray Lensman/SSL. On the ground they have some formidable artillery, their powerful space armor, their weaponry is strong, etc.

They have enough abilities to be a challenge but its hardly a curbstomp.

The closest match I can think of is WH40K and even there Wars has a massive advantage in space.
And as Civilization is by context NOT referring to the computer game of the same name, what IS it referring to?

Based on what? firepower calcs easily put them within an OOM of comparable SW ships, and they are vastly more durable. They have comparable (possibly better) acceleration, but much greater endurance (their reactors are more magical than SW ones). SW's main advantage is industrial speed and better technological standardization, although there are minor technological ones (sensors and comms) and a few major ones (hyperdrive being more reliable) that they do have. That is offset by SW's military being less military oriented than 40K's (40K has more ships, troops, etc. at the outset.) and a more militaristic mindset in general.

Andromedas Systems Commonwealth suffers from no FTL sensors, no shields, and noticeably lower firepower ship-to-ship. They have the upper hand in technobabble system-destroying WMDs (Sun Crusher style blow-up-the-sun items were regular if highly restricted fighter weapons, re Nova bombs), massively higher theoretical stardrive speed and likely STL acceleration but that's about it. Plus their stardrive is dependent on fixed entry and exit points on top of its other issues.

Andromeda loses more in a conventioanl sense because they have something like a million odd worlds (one of the season 1 eps they mention it) and something like 500,000 High Guard ships (I've heard variable numbers on this, as well as a supposedly larger but unknown number of "Home Guard" ships) and they have no ground capability to speak off without orbital support (much like the federation, really)

The real advantage largely lies in technobabble wankery like PSPs, Tesserects, and some sort of phasing tech.

The only other universe OTOH that might compete with the Empire is Renegade Legion's TOG, but that's highly dependent upon calcs (towards the higher end they approach ISD firepower, are tougher, and have a billion or omre warships. They fare better than 40K in the industrial department but not by much and their accel and fTL is much slower, though.)

[Darth Wong]

People actually watched Andromeda? I saw it once and realized that it was that fucking Hercules guy, and that was pretty much it for me. Especially when I saw that there was some kind of literary theme-based character called a Nietzchean or something. What the fuck.

[Connor MacLeod]

People actually watched Andromeda? I saw it once and realized that it was that fucking Hercules guy, and that was pretty much it for me. Especially when I saw that there was some kind of literary theme-based character called a Nietzchean or something. What the fuck.

Two seasons on and off. Then I lost interest from it because it became more Sorbo-centric

I have most of my knoweldge from my more active vs debating days. Before the Wiki.

[Batman]

While I'm only dimly aware of the uninverse I suspect Lensmen would royally trounce the Empire.

SNIPPY for length
They have enough abilities to be a challenge but its hardly a curbstomp.

That'd be the 'dimly aware' part right there. From what I can tell the Lensmen make the Green Lantern Corps look like wusses and I went from there. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. It's not like that'd be a first

The closest match I can think of is WH40K and even there Wars has a massive advantage in space.

Based on what?

My admittedly limited understanding of 40K. Wars has PT level shielding/firepower on the destroyer/light cruiser level (ISDs) while 40K is limited to GT/TT level on the capital ship scale (that I know of. Again, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong).

Andromedas Systems Commonwealth suffers from no FTL sensors, no shields, and noticeably lower firepower ship-to-ship. They have the upper hand in technobabble system-destroying WMDs (Sun Crusher style blow-up-the-sun items were regular if highly restricted fighter weapons, re Nova bombs), massively higher theoretical stardrive speed and likely STL acceleration but that's about it. Plus their stardrive is dependent on fixed entry and exit points on top of its other issues.

Andromeda loses more in a conventioanl sense because they have something like a million odd worlds (one of the season 1 eps they mention it) and something like 500,000 High Guard ships (I've heard variable numbers on this, as well as a supposedly larger but unknown number of "Home Guard" ships) and they have no ground capability to speak off without orbital support (much like the federation, really)

I WAS commenting on ship-to-ship combat mostly.

[Batman]

People actually watched Andromeda? I saw it once and realized that it was that fucking Hercules guy, and that was pretty much it for me. Especially when I saw that there was some kind of literary theme-based character called a Nietzchean or something. What the fuck.

You did the series a disservice (well, initially, anyway). I too expected it to be essentially 'The Legendary Journeys in Space', what with Sorbocles being the male lead. I was pleasantly surprised. The first one and a half seasons of that series were damn good. The next season was tolerable. Then it turned into something that would have made Hercules in Space look BRILLIANT by comparison.

[Ford Prefect]

The Systems Alliance (the human faction) from Mass Effect are probably on a par with the Federation, at least before the Dominion war fleet buildup; roughly comparable technology, similar sized ships and fleet, smaller industrial base but more military competence. The unified Citadel species fleets are probably a reasonable match for the alpha quadrant alliance (Klingons+Feds+Romulan fleets as seen in late DS9).

I doubt it. The most powerful space based weapon they have is a dreadnaught mass accelerator, which is about 38 kilotons, though there are antimatter bombs of yield great enough to enact significant and detrimental climate change around a planet. They may have an advantage in range (dreadnaughts are said to fight at tens of thousands of kilometres), but they almost certainly have much lower accelerations: military warships use antimatter fuelled drives which are said to produce accelerations beyond that of fusion rockets, so maybe a few tens of gees? This is on top of the fact that Stark Trek can trivially deal with waste heat, whereas heat management is pretty much the defining factor of all warship engagment in Mass Effect. Fleet numbers are harder to judge: the Turian Heirarchy has 37 dreadnaughts, and is the largest fleet in Citadel Space, but it's hard to judge how many ships they have total. I think there's a number given for Alliance Navy ships around the time of the Relay 314 incident, though I can't recall it.

Of course it's a completely different matter on the ground, but being better at ground combat than Star Trek is like being better at golf than a salmon.

[Minischoles]

Void Trilogy Commonwealth (Hamilton) could probably be a good match for the Empire considering the weapons/shields etc they have, the only area they would lag behind in is industry.

[Shinova]

Imperium of Man from 40k is iffy, but I'm pretty sure the Orks, Nids, or Necrons could certainly match or give the Empire a run for its money.

[Simon_Jester]

Imperium of Man from 40k is iffy, but I'm pretty sure the Orks, Nids, or Necrons could certainly match or give the Empire a run for its money.

I'm not so sure about the Tyranids; they're scary as hell on the ground, but much of their effectiveness in Warhammer 40k depends on their ability to jam Warp communication and travel in their vicinity, which would have no effect at all on a Star Wars faction. Orks would be tricky, because on the one hand there are so many of htem and they can hammer together starfaring warships out of scrap iron, but on the other hand they're strategically incompetent and tactically predictable.

While I'm only dimly aware of the uninverse I suspect Lensmen would royally trounce the Empire.
Interestingly enough, while I know a number of settings that could go through Palpatine's Empire like it wasn't there, or would in turn be trounced BY it, I can't offhand recall any that would actually be an even match. (Note that I'm not saying such don't exist, just that I've never run across any that I remember). The closest match I can think of is WH40K and even there Wars has a massive advantage in space.
And as Civilization is by context NOT referring to the computer game of the same name, what IS it referring to?

Civilization is the "good guy" faction in the Lensman setting. As in "the Grand Fleet of Civilization." The armed forces are the Galactic Patrol, but the patrol is merely the fighting arm of a larger society.

Interaction between the Galactic Empire and the Lensman people could get weird in military terms. The Lensman setting makes no distinction between FTL and STL drives; they do everything by rendering their ships inertialess and speeding up until their exhaust plume is exerting a force balanced out by the friction of the interstellar medium... which is vastly faster than c. The only way to actually hurt the damn things is to grab hold with a tractor beam and pound away while they can't slip aside; try hitting them with beam weapons under normal conditions and the momentum transfer will knock them flying so fast that you don't get appreciable energy transfer.

Hyperdrive may still have an edge in speed over long distances, but that won't necessarily confer the ability to force a battle on Star Wars fleets, even if it provides an edge for deep raiding.

As for your initial impression, the individual Lensmen don't have anything like the raw power of individual Green Lanterns. Insofar as they have any abilities they're mostly telepathic, and only a handful of Lensmen in the galaxy are powerful enough telepaths to be truly dangerous even one on one in psychic terms. Lensmen are arguably more dangerous by virtue of their rigorous selection and training as a sort of bizarre cross between elite law enforcement, commandos, and intelligence operatives. The real muscle of the galactic societies is their starfaring fleets, which range up to and including armed mobile planets that fly around using inertialess drives. Although having Lensmen gives the good guys a powerful edge over their equivalently armed enemies.

While I'm only dimly aware of the uninverse I suspect Lensmen would royally trounce the Empire.

I doubt it. Their ships mass substantially less than SW ships, less acceleration, and lower firepower (e20-e21watt range is their benchmark for power generation based on Second STage Lensman and Gray Lensman. Also by the sunbeam.) Its implied their guided munitions are more powerful (planet killing at least.) Inertialessness gives them some advantage as do ultrawaves (some advantage in weapons range, at least) but their effective FTL is slower (in galaxy) and they're fucked without shields. Negaspheres and free planets would help keep things interesting though as well. Ship numbers? tens or hundreds of millions of ships at least as of Gray/second stage lensman, perhaps billions. Fairly rapid shipbuilding implied. Scope as big or bigger than SW post Gray Lensman/SSL. On the ground they have some formidable artillery, their powerful space armor, their weaponry is strong, etc.

They have enough abilities to be a challenge but its hardly a curbstomp.

Yeah. I really don't know how the numbers play out, but they're close enough that I'd expect a two-sided battle. I specified late era because their weapons evolve rapidly; by the end of the first round of major wars between Civilization and Boskone, they can do weird tricks like cutting tractor beams, they're flying between galaxies lightly (their drive actually works better in intergalactic space than within the galaxy, in contrast to Star Wars hyperdrive), and they have the capability the ~10^26 watt output of a main sequence star into a weaponized beam. They can't do it on a mobile platform, though, which does give them a disadvantage against large SW forces fighting a mobile campaign.

One point not to be ignored is that the Lensman side have the multiverse's most ridiculous, balls-out insane R&D and reverse engineering capability. If they capture one of your weapons, or even observe it in action, odds are that they will be shooting copies of it at you within a few months. I know this can be regarded as plot armor, but since both sides do it so blatantly, I get the feeling that it has to have some basis in their 'real' capabilities for cross-setting purposes.

[Grif]

Imperium of Man from 40k is iffy, but I'm pretty sure the Orks, Nids, or Necrons could certainly match or give the Empire a run for its money.

Necrons? I doubt they have the industry to go toe to toe with the Empire. From 40k novels, it is pretty clear they are only based on a couple of tomb worlds. (granted, no one actually knows how many tomb worlds are there).

I'm not so sure about the Tyranids; they're scary as hell on the ground, but much of their effectiveness in Warhammer 40k depends on their ability to jam Warp communication and travel in their vicinity, which would have no effect at all on a Star Wars faction.

Don't they have starships and the like? I gather from the Warriors of Ultramar that their space armada (or swarm) are nothing to be trifled with.

[Crazedwraith]

This far through and no one's mentioned The Culture; although I suppose that's not really a fair match up. They have much faster computers and amazingly powerful weapons but comparatively rather slow FTL travel. I can see a Clture/Empire war being rather similar to the Culture/Idirian war. ThE Culture starts off losing a lot of space as the fall back to consolidate their forces and get on a proper war footing and then coming back out of the corner and steam rolling the empire.

[The Grim Squeaker]

This far through and no one's mentioned The Culture; although I suppose that's not really a fair match up. They have much faster computers and amazingly powerful weapons but comparatively rather slow FTL travel. I can see a Clture/Empire war being rather similar to the Culture/Idirian war. ThE Culture starts off losing a lot of space as the fall back to consolidate their forces and get on a proper war footing and then coming back out of the corner and steam rolling the empire.

Slower FTL doesn't really matter when the speed/weapons parity is so hideously large. (And the Culture's population is all Orbital/ship based anyway).

[Lord of the Abyss]

This far through and no one's mentioned The Culture; although I suppose that's not really a fair match up. They have much faster computers and amazingly powerful weapons but comparatively rather slow FTL travel. I can see a Clture/Empire war being rather similar to the Culture/Idirian war. ThE Culture starts off losing a lot of space as the fall back to consolidate their forces and get on a proper war footing and then coming back out of the corner and steam rolling the empire.

I don't think so; the Culture has too many "I Win" buttons. For example; they can hang out in hyperspace and attack normal space, use effectors and displacers to affect or attack things light years away. The Empire has neither the abilty to defend itself against such attacks; nor does it have the ability to attack a Culture ship in hyperspace.

We used to have a stickied thread of 'civilisations that would easily steamroll the Empire', I'm not sure what happened to it.

Found it.

[Oskuro]

Wichever nation meets the price of the Last Metabaron.

Yes, I recently read the Saga of the Metabarons, I'm still scratching my head about it. There's even a shroomy-esque cameo where tribal women bite their own breasts to make them bleed and drink their blood.

I think I'll go curl up in a corner for a while now.

[Serafina]

This far through and no one's mentioned The Culture; although I suppose that's not really a fair match up. They have much faster computers and amazingly powerful weapons but comparatively rather slow FTL travel. I can see a Clture/Empire war being rather similar to the Culture/Idirian war. ThE Culture starts off losing a lot of space as the fall back to consolidate their forces and get on a proper war footing and then coming back out of the corner and steam rolling the empire.

Slower FTL doesn't really matter when the speed/weapons parity is so hideously large. (And the Culture's population is all Orbital/ship based anyway).

Not completely, they do have settled planets. But these could be evacuated quite quickly, if necessary (thec could evacuate an orital with way more surface area with ease).

[Surlethe]

What is the upper limit of Culture weaponry? Has the Culture demonstrated the ability to melt planetary surfaces?

[Lord of the Abyss]

What is the upper limit of Culture weaponry? Has the Culture demonstrated the ability to melt planetary surfaces?

Vaporize the the whole planet, actually. I found an old thread with a quote on this :

1.) "Gridfire taps the energy barrier between universes and brings that energy into our universe. Gridfire can be made to mainfest in any shape, and it simply appears on the target -it is not a beam - making it hard to dodge. 700 years ago, the GSV Eschatologist created four hundred 35,000 km long Gridfire Intrusions in a matter of minutes to destroy the 14,000,000km long Vavatch Orbital. Vavatch was made out of a substance almost as strong as the Suncrusher's hull. Range for Gridfire is measured not in kilometres but in parsecs."

Minimum estimates for gridfire put it at 1e55 Joules. That's roughly 100000000000000000 times more powerful than the DS superlaser. [No, they're not. No one has ever been able to find the source for this 1e55J sillyness, and it comes up as a perennial form of moronitude, having as it does, not a jot of supporting evidence. A wise reader will disregard this paragraph. The best that can be said for gridfire firepower with any surety is that it is sufficient to destroy a planet several times over, around 1e33J ~NecronLord]

2.) "The Effector is another "weapon." It can be used as a sensor, a communicator and a very effective offensive or defensive system. It can take control of a ship or person and force it to self destruct or shut down. Culture effetors are VERY advanced and have ranges of over 2,500 light years and can take over and destroy another Culture Mind in under a microsecond."

Ouch


3.) "The Culture also has displacers - like transporters but far better. They can transport things into the heart of stars, and perform tens of thousands of operations a second. A GSVs heavy duty displacers can pick up another ship from across a solar system. Range increases as the size of the target decreases allowing microscopic objects like CAM or nano bombs (bombs too small to see capable of blowing up planets) to be displaced lighty years away. Displacers are also used to deploy other weapons like plasma charges, fusion bombs and nano holes (microscopic black holes)."

Double ouch.

4.) "For sensors, the Culture uses effectors to pick up emissions or radiation. It can pick up something little more powerful than a penlight at 2,000 ly away. They also use the "skien" to detect the presence of mass. The skien is a level of hyperspace that invariably bends when a significant mass is in the area. For large masses like entire fleets it can sense thousands of ly away. For smaller masses like individual ships this range drops, especially if they are hiding near a larger mass, but it is still substantial."

So it ain't hiding from a Culture ship.

5.) "In defense a GSV does not use shields, it uses "fields." These force fields extend hundreds of km out from the GSVs true hull. They are often used as secondary hulls and entire cities and ecosystems are built on them. A "system" class GSV has up to six billion people living on its outer hulls. In defence these fields form barriers and shells hundreds, even thousands of km deep that must be penetrated to harm the ship itself. Fields can be used to reflect, trap or weaken incoming attacks and GSVs have the power to rebuild their fields in seconds.

GSVs have a system known as "Trapdoor" for dealing with internal explosions. The Trapdoor system transports any unwanted energy straight into hyperspace where it can dissipate harmlessly. Thus it is impossible to use any conventional energy weapons to kill a GSV.

Culture GCUs in the Idiran war (700 years ago) used the tactic of hiding inside stars to escape detection and a 300m long GCU is a FAR weaker ship than a 30 -300KM long GSV. As well, it was stated by the GCU Grey Area that even supernovae were no threat to it. It said that the only natural thing in the galaxy that could harm it was if it flew into a black or white hole. "

Shivan cannons are minor annoyances.

5.) "A GCU is a non-military exploration vessel about 300 meters long on average. They are run by a Mind, a powerful machine intelligence, the distant descendant of sentient computer AIs. Minds are millions of times smarter than humans and think far faster. They can simulate the life and death of an entire universe in a matter of seconds. Battles between Mind piloted starships often take less than a micro second to resolve. The ship does not have a crew, per-se, as humans aren't required for its operation, but people tend to come along for the ride, and to act as human liasons to other civilizations the ship runs across.

A GCU is generally unarmed, but the sheer power of its engines allows it generate enough energy to "waste whole planets" as stated by the Very Fast Picket (ROU demilitarized) Xenophobe. "

Convinced yet?


And for another example.. the Culture Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time fought a battle against a fleet in 11 microseconds at a speed of 143 TRILLION times light speed.

[Starglider]

Found it.

That thread really should be re-stickied, or at least a summary of it, since as this thread demonstrates the question still comes up regularly.