Imperium of Man vs Galactic Empire.

[Shroom Man 777]

Shroom, I really suggest you read more of the 40K canon before continuing to comment because many of your perceptions are extremely off base.

As we see in novels such as the Eisenhorn trilogy, some of the Ultramarine books, and others (I haven't touched my 40K shit in about 2 years so I can't remember titles very well) the average citizen of the Imperium really does not experience much in the way of brutal oppression. They generally lead mundane low-middle class lives. If they stay out of the lower levels of the Hive and don't get drafted they can very easily live their entire life without experiencing anything exciting what-so-ever.

And as seen in books like Scourge the Heretic, there are worlds where the average citizen of the Imperium is a miserable pit-slave working in subhuman shitholes while the upper-class live in gilded glass cities in the sky. Admittedly, I'm sure there are a lot of shitworlds in the Galactic Empire. But, come on, 40k's shtick is totally in its whole GRIMDRAK STRAKness. All the fucking stories begin with:

"GRIMDRAK STRAK STRAK STRAK bla bla bla 41st century... to be a mang in such times is to be amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. bla bla bla"

And the characterization of the two as similarly brutal is also misleading. The GE has many systems of brutality built into simply to cow the populace or for Palpatine's shits and giggles. The brutality of the Imperium is often originally purposeful and has transmuted over the millenia. There is also a definite limit on how brutality can be implemented in the Imperium because of the presence of Chaos. One cannot simply slaughter willy-nilly as that is an open invitation to corruption. This does not absolve the Imperium. They do some things that are morally unforgivable in their fight against their enemies. But it is most often deliberate strategic evil as opposed to the wanton evil we see represented in some of the EU.

Well, I haven't read a lot of the EU. But, come on, a whole lot of their (40k) worlds are feudal crapholes with inbred governors. Even Ciaphas Cain attests to this!

I don't know about whether or not any GE personnel would defect but given the situations of the two I wouldn't say that it is impossible. Think about it; both require you to pay lip service to the emperor (and 40k has the advantage that the emperor really is a god who single-handedly killed a demigod and a few jillion orks), don't get on the bad side of the inquisition, and pay your taxes.

Pffah! That's not much different from the Galactic Empire, except learning a mechanical/technological vocation doesn't require you to get fuck ugly cyborg implants stuck in your face, and doesn't require you to believe in a ridiculous religion. The whole sheer amount of superstition and religious nuttery is pervasive in the IoM, where even military leaders act like a bunch of superstitious tards when people mention names that shouldn't be mentioned, like Voldemort. You'd half expect them to rap on wood or something.

Seriously. 40k society would look like complete shit to a GE guy.

As an addendum to my previous post something I brought up here is interesting. The Imperium has a lot of people who are batshit crazy. In a resource exploitation conflict this will have an effect on the GEs morale. For a simple example of the evil shit the Imperium does to itself to win lets look at Ordos Malleus crews. IIRC They are routinely mindwiped to prevent chaos corruption and have suicide triggers built in. They have no names and are just cogs to do their jobs and die. Oh, they are volunteers as well. Fighting an enemy that reaches into the depths of insanity to win is not an easy task. Especially when you have to hold the ground. This probably means droids are the most effective method but as Connar has pointed out repeatedly in other threads there seems to be an odd taboo in GE culture against simply utilize droids as replacement for soldiers. Whether this would remain true for the GE vs. the Imperium is again another interesting avenue of discussion for such debates.

Oh and I find the fact that Painrack and me have been on the same side in the last couple of 40k vs. debates (given our history on the subject) to be a bit disturbing. How are we supposed to virulently troll each other if we keep agreeing?

[PainRack]

And which examples form the IoM are you using?

Sanctuary 101. You know, the sisters taking a year in her time, 3 years in realtime to make the jump from Terra to Sanctuary 101.

And if anybody brings out the old arrive before they depart story again, I'm bringing out 2nd Edition the IoM IG transports will have the current men die and their children fight the Tyranids before they reach the Eastern Fringe bit.

And how many recon droids do they have available? How do the droids communicate with the Imperial ships? If we go by TESB its merely "thousands" but that doesn't tell us much (other than that they couldn't spam so many droids that they could constantly or easily find the rebels - eg multiple droids per planet.)

Admiral Ozzel pointed out they have thousands of reports and believed the Rebel base to be merely another mining/smuggler station. In the context, the reports refers to such bases in the months they been coming the Galaxy. Its not so much the sheer difficulty of combing the galaxy, its actually determing which base is the Rebel outpost. The Americans face the same difficulty right now in pakistan and afghanistan.

Such an issue doesn't concern the Empire. Their concern is the military potential of such worlds and the strategic value. Which can be estimated by calculating industry, trade visits and number of military forces. All clearly discernable from space.

First: The only way its going to happen the way you think, without getting niggled in details, is if you basically go for complete automation to minimize the logistical issues. How likely do you think that actually is?

The campaign for Geonosis took how long to plan and kick off? The battle for Praestilyn?

Compare this to the IoM campaign to invade another world. It takes months. The Space Marines and their ability to respond to a world within days to weeks is considered their fast response task force. The 2nd Armaggadeon War took months before IG reinforcements arrived. Granted, the battle has been reworked and retconned so many times no date for response is actually plausible, but hell....... . The Clones responded to Geonosis within HOURS.

Even in the context of the Galactic Civil War, Imperial time to Rebel attacks were within days. The Battle of Endor, despite the traditional sector issues that inhibited response(presumably, the oversector the Death Star comprised of was either a black project means of hiding the funds or was down), the Empire reacted within 2-3 days, reoccupying endor(Truce at Bakura sourcebook).

[Dark Hellion]

I disagree. While the life of the average citizen certainly isn't as grimdark as the atmosphere itself, we do see that there's a massive social stratification between the various classes and massive inequality.

On worlds where such inequality doesn't exist, those are usually undeveloped worlds or worlds facing the shitty environments.

So, citizens generally have a few choices. Rich bastards, poor citizens. Equal without access to good technology, goods and etc. Or dying in grimdark.

There are exceptions, but to argue that the "average" citizen has a low middle class life.... I don't think so. Mundane yeah, a good life.

Conceded. Middle class was the wrong word to use as it has different socioeconomic connotations depending upon were one lives in the world. I think we can agree that on average (2.6 children style) Imperial citizens do enjoy an existence that is above simple subsistence although it is by no means grand.

Oh please. The Imperium has its fair share of incompetent evil. Gaunt Ghosts anyone?　The generals dropped a artillery barrage on him for nothing more than sheer dickery. Not to mention sabotaging his success at capturing a world so the Ghosts can settle down.

Evil via incompetence is possible in almost any civilization. It is probably a sign of deeper problems but wasn't quite what I was referring to. I was alluding to things such as the presence of xenophobia in both cultures, which in the GE seems to only cause problems such as the opposition by the mon calamari or the wookies where as the Imperium has the excuse that most aliens want to enslave or eat humanity. IIRC There are other systems of oppression and brutality within the GE that exist primarily to increase the Palpatine's personal power but seem to work against governance.

This is not to say that one is necessarily more or less brutal than the other but they are different and some might find one type of brutality more palatable than the other. There is some serious evil in the GE but it is hidden under the surface. The Imperium is evil as well but they are open about it and have some rationalization. I was primarily trying to say that there isn't any reason to automatically discount the idea that GE personal may be willing to defect although I find it unlikely.

The Imperium and Orks manage to do that routinely enough despite such madness. It clearly isn't an insurmountable problem. Furthermore, resource exploitation for mining can be done via droids, with minimal sentient supervision.

The point I was making is that you generally have to capture planets before you can attempt to exploit their resources and Imperial resistance does have the tendency to be pretty crazy. Targeting yourself with magmabombs as seen in Nightbringer is beyond what a lot of militaries are used to dealing with. It has a psychological impact on soldiers to fight enemies who's defenses are built upon vindictive and suicidal fanaticism.

You mention that the Imperium and Orks can manage it but that is really a red herring. The Imperium are fanatical and have a sociological resistance to such defenses built up after fighting against similar or worse things for thousands of years. And Orks are Orks. They are genetically predisposed to like bloody, brutal combat. GE stormtroopers don't necessarily have this. We see them react with shock and confusion in RotJ when being ambushed by Ewoks; they do recover but they are not fighting a technologically comparable foe like the IoM is. Trying to clear forces like the Catachans from a resource rich jungle deathworld would be a nightmare compared to Ewoks and could seriously drain the morale of GE troops.

This is all predicated on the idea of the GE trying to actually occupy and exploit IoM worlds. This isn't really necessary and is more just for the point of vs. conjecture.

I think there is a lot more nuance in this debate than many people want to admit even though the general conclusion is pretty much assured in a GE victory.

[Shroom Man 777]

Of course there's much more nuance in conducting a war across entire galaxies with god knows how many ships, involving so many targets and so many methods of offense and defense in innumerable theater's of war, with all sorts of astronomical terrain, and other factors outside the mere IoM and the GE but also the myriad factions in SW and 40k, not to mention the individual actions taken by the actual-factual human elements persecuting these wars.

[PainRack]

Evil via incompetence is possible in almost any civilization. It is probably a sign of deeper problems but wasn't quite what I was referring to. I was alluding to things such as the presence of xenophobia in both cultures, which in the GE seems to only cause problems such as the opposition by the mon calamari or the wookies where as the Imperium has the excuse that most aliens want to enslave or eat humanity. IIRC There are other systems of oppression and brutality within the GE that exist primarily to increase the Palpatine's personal power but seem to work against governance.

Now you're making the same mistake you accused Shroom of. The early editions had the Imperium wiping out entire xeno species just to colonise their worlds, including undeveloped cultures. Most of the available information is on the dangerous species, species that the Imperium either wiped out, contained or etc, but that doesn't mean peaceful xenos were spared.

They just aren't important enough to rate a rulebook. More importantly, not all xeno species are technological.

The point I was making is that you generally have to capture planets before you can attempt to exploit their resources and Imperial resistance does have the tendency to be pretty crazy. Targeting yourself with magmabombs as seen in Nightbringer is beyond what a lot of militaries are used to dealing with. It has a psychological impact on soldiers to fight enemies who's defenses are built upon vindictive and suicidal fanaticism.

That's slightly different and without more specific context, impossible to debate upon.

You mention that the Imperium and Orks can manage it but that is really a red herring. The Imperium are fanatical and have a sociological resistance to such defenses built up after fighting against similar or worse things for thousands of years. And Orks are Orks. They are genetically predisposed to like bloody, brutal combat. GE stormtroopers don't necessarily have this. We see them react with shock and confusion in RotJ when being ambushed by Ewoks; they do recover but they are not fighting a technologically comparable foe like the IoM is. Trying to clear forces like the Catachans from a resource rich jungle deathworld would be a nightmare compared to Ewoks and could seriously drain the morale of GE troops.

No different from how modern world militaries train and condition themselves to fight. The Sri Lankan army has been surviving that for decades, against the first suicide bombers.

[hongi]

As noted above, 40k can't really hope to win unless it can steal hyperdrives for all its warships, transports and such. Although the two factions are fairly equal in terms of firepower and all that stuff, SW is just too fast.

If or when the IOM recovers hyperdrives, can we be really sure that Ad Mech will allow this discovery to spread? From what I hear, they're an insular group that likes to hold onto the neat toys for their own self-aggrandisement.

And there's the potential of making a giant mess by implementing a fast, reliable system of travel not dependant on the Warp, even if they started with the most important vessels. Of course the Necrons might not look too kindly on this new technological innovation and do something before it comes to that point...

[Rama]

After days of puzzlement, the AdMech finally disassemble and recover what they assume to be the FTL propulsion mechanism of the opposing Navy.

AdMech 1: "What...Are we looking at exactly?"

AdMech 2: "Where does the fuel go?"

AdMech 3: "Should we even assume that it uses fuel?"

AdMech 1: "Hook it up to the plasma generator."

AdMech 2: "This won't end well..."

[Connor MacLeod]

The hazards are warp based in nature, not physical. Warp storms actually physically affecting space itself is rare.

And you base this on, what?

As for thousands, we're talking about navigation here, right? Not episonage? Assume a week for hyperspace transit, it would take no more than 2-3 years to map the entire galaxy. Additional time inserted for purposes of refuelling.

How exactly are you reaching at "only two or three years" exactly? And how many assumptions (and what factors into those assumptions) are you making?

They did do that in the past when they explored the Republic. It worked, didn't it?

And they did it in a mere 2-3 years?

What? 2-3 years? The IoM Crusade force alone may take that amount of time to assemble.

What kind of force and based on what sources?

The IoM is different, in the sense that they lack the centralised C3 systems the Empire has.

The IoM is different in while they lack centralization, they're far harder to make fall apart unless you take Terra out. Whereas in SW the Republic/Empire could be threatened (economically, politically, whatever) by a relatively smaller number of important systems.

During WARP TRANSIT. Actual physical manifestations of warp storms are RARE.

AGain, based on what?

Sanctuary 101. You know, the sisters taking a year in her time, 3 years in realtime to make the jump from Terra to Sanctuary 101.

And if anybody brings out the old arrive before they depart story again, I'm bringing out 2nd Edition the IoM IG transports will have the current men die and their children fight the Tyranids before they reach the Eastern Fringe bit.

Yes yes, you've mentioned this last time and I addressed it. Has something changed or new data mysteriously arisen that somehow makes this a more reliable standard to go by?

Admiral Ozzel pointed out they have thousands of reports and believed the Rebel base to be merely another mining/smuggler station. In the context, the reports refers to such bases in the months they been coming the Galaxy. Its not so much the sheer difficulty of combing the galaxy, its actually determing which base is the Rebel outpost. The Americans face the same difficulty right now in pakistan and afghanistan.

What source says its months? As I recall they were doing it for years. I'm not even going to comment on the fact they could have done a vastly better job of recon in that case (a better designed recon vessel, for one thing.) I'm also going to point out we have a number of cases (like the black fleet crisis) where manned recon or scouting ships are used in place of droid ones (or alongside them) so I'm not entirely optimistic about the "probe droid spam" option. Hell, even in ANH they sent out scout ships rather than probe droids to do recon on Dantooine.

Such an issue doesn't concern the Empire. Their concern is the military potential of such worlds and the strategic value. Which can be estimated by calculating industry, trade visits and number of military forces. All clearly discernable from space.

Assuming the probe isn't detected, yes. Hyperspace transits (like warp transits) aren't stealthy and many of the developed Imperial worlds (like hive and forge worlds) that would be vital targets have lots of in-system assets to detect incoming forces even out to the edges of the system (cf Armageddon). And assuming the Empire figures out how to distinguish between the Imperium's worlds and those of other races/cultures (human or nonhuman). Won't do them much good if they find an Eldar Exodite world (or worse, bomb it from orbit) will it?

The campaign for Geonosis took how long to plan and kick off? The battle for Praestilyn?

Geonosis? You mean that well-executed military campaign that demonstrated less than stellar tactics on the ground and managed to get large numbers of clones slaughtered or injured? And Praestilyn, as you recall, was the clones being sent as a relief force to support Slayke and his group - and they flat out noted more than once in the book that time was short and they had to rush to get there. (Even then the planning took at least days, much of that planning IIRC being done in transit.) Funny enough there, the trip to Praestilyn evidently took quite a bit of time too (at least much longer than the "few hours" we typically note such distances can take for some vessels.)

Compare this to the IoM campaign to invade another world. It takes months. The Space Marines and their ability to respond to a world within days to weeks is considered their fast response task force. The 2nd Armaggadeon War took months before IG reinforcements arrived. Granted, the battle has been reworked and retconned so many times no date for response is actually plausible, but hell....... . The Clones responded to Geonosis within HOURS.

Yeah, but as I already pointed out, the Jedi are hardly competent military commanders at this point in time now are they? As the GEonosis example demonstrates (not the only case of this happening in the Clone Wars, I might add, not even late in the war.)

As for taking "months" (or even years to plan) alot of that depends on things like the scope of the operation (how big are they pulling forces in from, the condition of the warp or the conditions they face, the nature of the enemy, etc. Even a small crusade like the Damocles Gulf one encompasses millions of troops operating in relatively hostile territory (lots of problems with the warp in that region) The Sabbat worlds Crusade started out with a billion troops. When have we seen anything remotely of that scale? The closest I could think of off the top of my head possibly was Renatasia but thats not really a good example for the Empire either despite the fact they won it (technically).

A more appropriate example, scale wise, is probably either Dravere's drop in First and Only or the reinforcement group sent to aid Verghast. The former took days of planning (although its not neccesarily *good* planning, since this is Dravere and all) and the latter took IIRC nine days or so.

Even in the context of the Galactic Civil War, Imperial time to Rebel attacks were within days. The Battle of Endor, despite the traditional sector issues that inhibited response(presumably, the oversector the Death Star comprised of was either a black project means of hiding the funds or was down), the Empire reacted within 2-3 days, reoccupying endor(Truce at Bakura sourcebook).

And Endor is supposed to be comparable how? What sorts of scales of response are we talking about? Millions or billions of troops?

[Connor MacLeod]

So the highest possible speed is within mere minutes, fast enough to arrive in time to deliver vital medical assistance to a badly injured person (Anakin in Mustafar, from Coruscant). The other seeming outliers are also in mere hours, on vessels used by VIP people. Even if these aren't "standard" hyperdrive speeds, just how far outside the normal range are these? I mean, starships navigating extreme distances from one point in the galaxy to the other are taken as standard normal SW speed values, aren't they? This is what has been used, all the time, in SW vs ST debates that the likes of Mike and everyone else has participated for years.

I can't speak for others, but Mike's SW analysis stuff has always been extremely generalized, back of the envelope sort of stuff. It's meant ot convey the scope and broad power of the SW galaxy in a general sense, rather than in precise values. Precision is difficult in SF analysis so usually Mike's just throwing up examples of what SW can possibly do. ST is generally so overmatched that degree of effort doesn't matter how they "win" (if they needed specially designed ships to reach specific speeds or firepower values, that doesn't matter, its within their capability, and they don't need huge numbers to beat Trek. Or even if Mike's specific values were orders of magnitude off in terms of firepower, speed, etc.) Mike can often do a fair bit of "dumbing down" in his analysis to keep it simple - its easy for people (myself included) to forget that there may be more behind it than just what he says (look at his shielding pages - they only incorporated the momentum aspect with expalnations later on, long before that you heard trekkies always trotting it out purely in terms of KE. For someone like me back then - ie stupid - it was a huge pain in the ass to deal with, yet Mike pretty much put it in its place without effort simply because he knew more.)

As for how far outside the normal range? Hard to say. Again itdepends on lots of factors (such as the type and quality of hyperdrive built, and the kind and manner of navigation.) I can speculate, I can go for EU sources, but I suppose that really depends on what sorts of sources or inferences you'll accept from me.

Be that as it may. The clones in Kamino were quickly able to mobilize, gear up, arm themselves, ready themselves, and board Acclamator Star Destroyers that deployed from Kamino to Geneosis within a very short span of time as well. So there's that. I don't know how far Kamino is, relative to Geneosis. Is Geneosis in the galaxy? Or is it in the same dwarf galaxy as Kamino?

Do we know what sorts of preparations were actually required for deployment? For all we know it was simply a matter of ordering troops onto ships or something like that.. but that was still onyl a few hundred thousand troops, not millions.

The ones were Ciaphas Cain is able to spend several weeks drilling shitty Guard regiments back into professional standards after a troublesome re-organization. The ones where he's able to spend some time shagging mechanic girls while playing cards with his buddies.

That could describe any of his novels, and there's quite a few variations in them (most of the time I dont remember distances being involved, but I know that the transports used have differed. In Traitor's hand they had one of those Galaxy class transports, whereas in Caves of Ice it was a comandeered civilian freighter.) and I don't remember conditions in the warp (though I vaguely remember the start of Death and Glory indicating things weren't the best.)

Hell, most of my calcs invariably assume they're moving in just a striaght line, and that's not always a given.

As a counter point, I would also point out that in the Cain novels the Valhallans typically receive new recruits from their home world, which implies fairly rapid and reliable travel from some distance off (especially considering the Valhallans seem to cluster around the section of the galaxy where the Tau play in, like in For the Emperor and Traitor's Gambit.) That's tens of thousands of light years EASILY. And this is not including the general fact that the Cain novels apparently take place in the Ultima Segmentum in most of the cases (at least when he's with the Valhallans as I recall. He might be elsewhere in Cain's Last Stand) out in the back-ass end of the Imperium - little more than colonial territory really (To which we can add the whole "Astronomicon being unreliable that far out, happily protecting the Tau from effective Imperial response.")

Umm... the droids communicate via whatever FTL-comms system is common place in Star Wars? As for the number, beats me. Certainly prior to any attack, the Galactic Empire WILL have to prepare a whole lot of recon droids. Reconnaissance, planning, preparation, all take lots of time before any actual offensive. You still have to wait for your men to get recruited and trained, and your tanks/planes/ships/droids to get manufactured in the factory lines.

Subspace, Hyper radio/hyperwave, and Holonet (hyperwave/hyper radio using an established network of satellites in the SW galaxy. Its the fastest method but also the most expensive and hardest to maintain) It's also possible that the Empire will have to shift onto a war footing. They have a literal fuckton of industry, but we dont know the extent to which it is currently militarized, except maybe for the shipyards (but even there there's some estimation involved.)

In any assault into the 40K galaxy they'll likely rely on Subspace and Hyperwave/hyper-radio until they either set up holonet networks or establishs ome mobile holonet/hyperwave ships that duplicat that function, like some of the Separatist groups had during hte Clone Wars.

They did spam so many droids that they constantly and easily found the rebels. Even if there was only one droid in the Hoth planet, do you think that it was just by chance that that thing landed within kilometers of the Rebel base - so near that it was able to come into contact with the guys it was sent to look for?

Yes, it was. It was also luck that Vader used the Force to divine that was where the Rebels were. Remember Ozzel thought it was just smugglers? They also took years as I recall before they even got that far to finding the rebel, and I'm not even sure they neccesarily scoured the galaxy.

There will be niggling in the details. But it is still doable. They managed to deal with the logistics of operating a big-ass conflict all over the galaxy in the Clone Wars. It will be difficult, but who said that it'd be easy? I'm just saying that the capability is there, and in that respect the Galactic Empire has a HUEG advantage over the IoM.

Well of course the capability is there. I know I have a big idea of how the capability is. Hence my uncertainty in all this.

They did face those problems in their galaxy with crazies doing crazy shit.

not quite what I was thinking. Let me put it this way. Your average Millenium-Falcon sized vessel probably has a reactor that can at max output puts out the equal of high megaton to low gigatons per second. Considering you can run a few hours at that output easily... even a quasi-civilian ship like that has the potential to fuck up a planet. A corvette would be orders of magnitude more powerful - a potential planet killer. And if they have the ability to reach anywhere in the galaxy in less than a few hours (nevermind a few minutes).. get where I'm going? Think of some doomsday group of Space Fundies deciding to trigger the Galactic Rapture early.

Very well then. In "reality" the Galactic Empire might not be able to use its fullest potential capability. Like how instead of a steamroll, the actual fighting may end up being just a few bloody skirmishes whereupon after having their troops' faces eaten by a fuck ugly warp monster, the Galactic Empire decides to cool down and sign some kind of armstice or whatever with the Imperium. For all we know the GE's attack may just be directed at a paltry few xyz-worlds, and afterwards they just leave the IoM well be - which is far from the galaxy-spanning strategic bombardment that I'm envisioning. Yeah, sure.

There's lots of ways it could go. I don't neccesarily see this encounter automatically going striaght to "WAR OF ANNIHILATION" mode at the drop of the hat unless both sides somehow start out omnisciently knowing each other. If anything there'd be a huge tug of war over any wormholes (choke points) before large scale battles occur.

For the record, I'm not trying to say that some random warpstorm suddenly means that we'll start getting POSSESSED IMERPIAL NAVY OF DOOM FOR SLAANESH or anything like that. Chaos will have a hard time getting their claws into SW the same way they would iwth the Tau (no psykers), but it's a fact of life that the 40K galaxy is a very fucked up place, including its topography. If we assume Chaos is still a fucking factor it will complicate things. If Chaos is no longer a problem then the warp will be noticably calmer, which means FTL speeds go up. It's just a matter of perspective, that's all. The whole "warp storm" danger is just a potential one, but its not one that the GE can blithely ignore. Especially if they start wiping out large numbers of planets (deathscreams of billions or trillions in short timeframes is going to fuck up the warp something fierce.)

But still, we know that in terms of OOB and in capabilities and in potential, the Galactic Empire has the advantage.

I dont know what you mean by order of battle, but yes, the Empire has a distinct advantage in industrial potential, though I'm not sure its neccesarily overwhelmingly in favor of the Empire. The recent novel Thousand Sons showed that the Pre-Heresy Mars pretty much singlehandedly built and Terra pretty much financed and supplied the crusade up til the Heresy. And that includes building hundreds of thousands of ships in a matter of decades or perhaps even years (some of which are stated to be 60+km long, I should add.)

Okay, okay. I get you. I'll have to go over those posts of yours regarding warship capabilities. Is the firepower of both sides really on par, totally equal?

Fuck versus debates.

Totally equal? We dont know enough on either side. You have to understand that even for SW the post ICS SW universe relies on a certain measure of inference for capabilities (something I wish people would grasp rather than mindlessly screaming "200 gigatonz" as if they came up with it themselves.) The ROTS ICS figures aren't numerically stated, for example, they're inferred. Even the 200 GT figure has some ambiguity to it (is it for one barrel or all four barrels on the quadgun? Curtis always inferred it was for all four) And we don't have explicit stats for ISDs even now. The stats we do have - in the e25 watt range roughly, are based on acceleration and mass estimates.

But I'd say roughly equal. I base this on a few direct statements for "stellar level" power existing for 40K weapons and reactors and such (For the nova cannon from some novels, warp drive from the BFG novels, forpedoes from the LAst chancer novels, plasma cannons from the Rogue Trader novels, etc.) I base it on Exterminatus calcs (like BDZ, a single Imperial cruiser, which includes 2 km light cruisers, can fuck over a planet in a matter of hours. Although unlike many BDZ calcs we actually have stated timeframes for this. BDZ for a long time has relied on inference I should add). I base it on estimates of power generation derived from ship mass and acceleration. I base it alot on the nova cannon calcs (which are conceviably petaton range) and both those latter two may not represent power totally diverted to those systems (they may be split amongst broadsides, dorsal weapons like lances, or prow weaons like a nova cannon. We know with nova cannons that they have to counter recoil so engines at least have comparable power, and its common to keep power evenly divided in combat as per BFG.)

I suppose in actuality it might come out that an Imperium ship of equal size might have 2/3 or 1/2 or even 1/3 the firepower of a Imperial ship, but it's not a drastic difference. They cna still likely overcome dissipation ratings on SW shields, and they certainly possess far greater combat endurance (offensively and defensively) than SW does.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is there a theoretical upper limit on Warp travel if the Warp were free of Chaos influence? Possibly allowing Warhammer 40K to have FTLs approaching SW speed? The Warp is a funny place after all.

[Serafina]

Is there a theoretical upper limit on Warp travel if the Warp were free of Chaos influence? Possibly allowing Warhammer 40K to have FTLs approaching SW speed? The Warp is a funny place after all.

Not that i know off, the warp has been in chaos pretty much forever as far as mankind is concerned.
I think the closest thing you can get is one of the highways in the eldar webway, which presumable allows cross-galaxy travel within a few days (given typical Eldar response times being pretty much independent on the worldcraft etc. and data from the late gothic war).
Given that it is basically artificially calmed warp, it's safe to assume that it is a guideline for an upper limit.
You still have to factor in the speed of the ship in question, so purpose-build ships could cut that even lower.

As an example for these purpose-build ships, we have examples of Grey Knights arriving within mere days, and they are using state-of the art ships which are equipped with extra-strong gellar fields and other protections which allows them to ignore rough conditions in the warp (at the price of being only usable by purposely build servitors, the grey knights themself and very experienced navigators).

So it looks that 40K would get at least within spitting distance of SW if it had a calm warp.
And given that Space Marines spit acid...

[PainRack]

And you base this on, what?

The very fact that most planets, ships, asteroids and etc aren't physically affected by the Warp. Or are you trying to claim stuff like Aurelia being moved into a cold orbit is now the norm in Wh40k?
Or that Wh40k puts Gellar Fields on asteroids?

How exactly are you reaching at "only two or three years" exactly? And how many assumptions (and what factors into those assumptions) are you making?

Acckk. Screwed up the numbers. I was using Light years instead of number of systems.

And they did it in a mere 2-3 years?

A scattered exploratory effort combined with colonisation efforts is not equivalent to a military campaign aimed at invasion.

What kind of force and based on what sources?

The Task force to cleanse Keffa, the crusade to begin the invasion of the Sabbat Worlds.the Manchurian crusade...

The IoM is different in while they lack centralization, they're far harder to make fall apart unless you take Terra out. Whereas in SW the Republic/Empire could be threatened (economically, politically, whatever) by a relatively smaller number of important systems.

Different topic, but even here, the IoM is just as vulnerable to losing critical worlds. The loss of Armaggadeon would threaten the entire Imperial defensive effort in its and neighbouring sectors(2nd Edition ruleset), the loss of VerunHive in Necropolis would threaten the munitions supply for the Sabbat Crusade. Even the loss of certain Astronomican relays is sufficient to shut down communications for various planets in Volistad.(Final Liberation)

AGain, based on what?

And why don't you guys show that physical manifestation of warp storms, physical, as opposed to rare? Overcome canon statements that physical manifestations of the warp is rare, random and those which manifest are quarantined in systems that the Inquisition has bordered off.

Yes yes, you've mentioned this last time and I addressed it. Has something changed or new data mysteriously arisen that somehow makes this a more reliable standard to go by?

And? Shroom brought up the relevant point that fresh IG regiments are trained by the Comissars during transit to the battlefield. That indicates warp transit of weeks.

One can argue that for shorter transits, warp speed increases dramatically. And its partially induced by early edition statements about the Astronomican and how it enables long range, speedy travel by the Imperium. But there is precious little data to show that hyperspace travel isn't faster. Again, compare the transit to Geonosis, the transit to Tatooine, etc etc for hyperspace speeds. The RPG had speeds of weeks. Obiwan and Kenobi transited back to Coruscant.

What source says its months?
As I recall they were doing it for years. I'm not even going to comment on the fact they could have done a vastly better job of recon in that case (a better designed recon vessel, for one thing.) I'm also going to point out we have a number of cases (like the black fleet crisis) where manned recon or scouting ships are used in place of droid ones (or alongside them) so I'm not entirely optimistic about the "probe droid spam" option. Hell, even in ANH they sent out scout ships rather than probe droids to do recon on Dantooine.

1. We're talking about navigation, not episonage, right?
2. No source did. Its an intuitive deduction here, unless you're going to argue that the thousands of reports are a collection of the years long expeditions. This when Death Squadron had combed throughout the galaxy searching for the Rebel Alliance.

Assuming the probe isn't detected, yes. Hyperspace transits (like warp transits) aren't stealthy and many of the developed Imperial worlds (like hive and forge worlds) that would be vital targets have lots of in-system assets to detect incoming forces even out to the edges of the system (cf Armageddon).

Armaggadeon orbital defence monitors were explictly stated to be obsolete and didn't detect the Orks Space Hulks.
Also, as stated, the difficulty of locating the Rebel base amongst such reports didn't rest in the difficulty of actually locating such bases and outposts. It was determing which outpost was the Rebel base. Thus, arguing that Hoth demonstrates the difficulty of the Empire being able to map the Imperium for conquest is wrong. Hoth showed the difficulty of finding a base amongst thousands of unmarked settlement/outposts.
Not the difficulty of finding said unmarked settlement.

Geonosis? You mean that well-executed military campaign that demonstrated less than stellar tactics on the ground and managed to get large numbers of clones slaughtered or injured? And Praestilyn, as you recall, was the clones being sent as a relief force to support Slayke and his group - and they flat out noted more than once in the book that time was short and they had to rush to get there. (Even then the planning took at least days, much of that planning IIRC being done in transit.) Funny enough there, the trip to Praestilyn evidently took quite a bit of time too (at least much longer than the "few hours" we typically note such distances can take for some vessels.)

And? What was the reinforcement time again? Geonosis was hours. And indeed, Praestilyn was brought up specifically to illustrate how fast the Republic could respond under what its states to be non opitmal conditions. Its still faster than the years transit for Sanctuary 101, or how the Imperium states that anti Tyrannid task forces would arrive in system after 100 days, when the Nids had fed and moved on.
As for being done in transit, not really. The discussion regarding POL and stuff was done in transit. Note here that despite the naval blockade, the Republic

Yeah, but as I already pointed out, the Jedi are hardly competent military commanders at this point in time now are they? As the GEonosis example demonstrates (not the only case of this happening in the Clone Wars, I might add, not even late in the war.)

Is this supposed to be a rebuttal of Imperial response time vs Imperium response time, or a new topic altogether?

As for taking "months" (or even years to plan) alot of that depends on things like the scope of the operation (how big are they pulling forces in from, the condition of the warp or the conditions they face, the nature of the enemy, etc. Even a small crusade like the Damocles Gulf one encompasses millions of troops operating in relatively hostile territory (lots of problems with the warp in that region) The Sabbat worlds Crusade started out with a billion troops. When have we seen anything remotely of that scale? The closest I could think of off the top of my head possibly was Renatasia but thats not really a good example for the Empire either despite the fact they won it (technically).

It takes the navy 100 days to respond against a Tyrannid assault. It took a month or so before elements of 3 Space marines Chapters reached Armaggadeon. Despite the prolonged campaign over Terra during the Hours Heresy, entire marine units failed to reach Terra , such as the Ultramarines.
Units on much smaller scale, comparable to the Imperial typical unit sizes, yet, slower.

A more appropriate example, scale wise, is probably either Dravere's drop in First and Only or the reinforcement group sent to aid Verghast. The former took days of planning (although its not neccesarily *good* planning, since this is Dravere and all) and the latter took IIRC nine days or so.

It took weeks before Gaunt was reinforced on VerunHive by Space Marines and other IG units from the Sabbat Crusade. This even as Gaunt was the first wave of reinforcements..... and was handy purely because units transiting to the invasion was en route and nearby.

3 regiments.

And Endor is supposed to be comparable how? What sorts of scales of response are we talking about? Millions or billions of troops?

Let's talk fleets. The sector fleet, comprising of thousand of warships responded to Endor. It takes the Imperium navy 100 days to respond to a Tyrannid threat.

Yes, it was. It was also luck that Vader used the Force to divine that was where the Rebels were. Remember Ozzel thought it was just smugglers? They also took years as I recall before they even got that far to finding the rebel, and I'm not even sure they neccesarily scoured the galaxy.

The Marvel comics and other EU has Vader also being called back to Coruscant or detached on other duties. It has Vader personally interrogating bounty hunters so as to determine the identity of Luke Skywalker. They transited to Ord Mantell and then jumped back to Coruscant.

[Serafina]

The very fact that most planets, ships, asteroids and etc aren't physically affected by the Warp. Or are you trying to claim stuff like Aurelia being moved into a cold orbit is now the norm in Wh40k?
Or that Wh40k puts Gellar Fields on asteroids?

We see how the warp can affect the physical plane on numerous occasions - e.g. in the chaos temple in the first Space Wolves novel.
While the warp normally needs encouragment in the form of human emotions (or chaos rituals) to affect the physical plane, we are also told that there are places where this happens naturally in the first Horus Heresy novel.
Complete warp breaches have occured completely on their own without, for example on Tallarn, without creating a warp storm.

All this (and more) indicates that the warp and the normal universe interact all the time in some way.

A scattered exploratory effort combined with colonisation efforts is not equivalent to a military campaign aimed at invasion.

While there is some truth to that argument, it does not explain why the exploratory part took so long. After all, if you want to found a colony, you want to find the best location. If it was that easy, it should have been done within a short timeframe.

the Task force to cleanse Keffa, the crusade to begin the invasion of the Sabbat Worlds.the Manchurian crusade...

The Damokles Crusade was formed within a single year and contained a couple of millon troops.

Different topic, but even here, the IoM is just as vulnerable to losing critical worlds. The loss of Armaggadeon would threaten the entire Imperial defensive effort in its and neighbouring sectors(2nd Edition ruleset), the loss of VerunHive in Necropolis would threaten the munitions supply for the Sabbat Crusade. Even the loss of certain Astronomican relays is sufficient to shut down communications for various planets in Volistad.(Final Liberation)

OF COURSE the loss of Armageddon would "threaten" the surrounding sectors. That is by no means equal to destroying or loosing them, since the size of that threat is not mentioned at all.
At the point where VervunHive was relevant, it was simply the closest large-output industrialized world.
And that a single sector can have a vulnerable point is not surprising either.

All this does NOT indicate that the IoM is vulnerable to global decapitation strategies.

And why don't you guys show that physical manifestation of warp storms, physical, as opposed to rare? Overcome canon statements that physical manifestations of the warp is rare, random and those which manifest are quarantined in systems that the Inquisition has bordered off.

Done that. Connor has done that a couple of times in his analyses. Stop talking about stuff you know squat about.

And? Shroom brought up the relevant point that fresh IG regiments are trained by the Comissars during transit to the battlefield. That indicates warp transit of weeks.

Since that is often delibertely accounted for beforehand, why do you think that the warp transit is necessarily at the highest possible speed? Why is it impossible that they purposefully take a slower route to give them time for training?

Furthermore, the speed of a single transport indicates squat. Travelling the warp is very much like travelling trough a wilderness - take a slow guide and it will take much longer. Why should they waste good navigators on a non-critical single tansport instead on a large fleet?

Armaggadeon orbital defence monitors were explictly stated to be obsolete and didn't detect the Orks Space Hulks.

That was due to underfunding and ignorance by the corrupt governor during the second war of armageddon. They worked just fine during the first and thrid war.

And? What was the reinforcement time again? Geonosis was hours. And indeed, Praestilyn was brought up specifically to illustrate how fast the Republic could respond under what its states to be non opitmal conditions. Its still faster than the years transit for Sanctuary 101, or how the Imperium states that anti Tyrannid task forces would arrive in system after 100 days, when the Nids had fed and moved on.
As for being done in transit, not really. The discussion regarding POL and stuff was done in transit. Note here that despite the naval blockade, the Republic

No, it wasn't. You fail to account for the time it took for the Jedi to disable orbital defenses and infiltrate the place.

And you are again using single-transport, non-critical transports as evidence for slow speed. That's false, as i demonstrated above.
The Rogue Trader RPG states three months as transit time to travel a segmentum at a direct route (only avoiding the worst hazards) - and that can be cut to a quarter by a good navigator and even further by favoring warp currents.

It takes the navy 100 days to respond against a Tyrannid assault. It took a month or so before elements of 3 Space marines Chapters reached Armaggadeon. Despite the prolonged campaign over Terra during the Hours Heresy, entire marine units failed to reach Terra , such as the Ultramarines.
Units on much smaller scale, comparable to the Imperial typical unit sizes, yet, slower.

All these examples are due to the fact that the forces were currently otherwise occupied (the tyranid response forces had to be newly recruited, the space marines were occupied in other wars (they nearly always are) and the ultramarines battled forces in their segmentum). It indicates nothing about warp travel speeds.

It took weeks before Gaunt was reinforced on VerunHive by Space Marines and other IG units from the Sabbat Crusade. This even as Gaunt was the first wave of reinforcements..... and was handy purely because units transiting to the invasion was en route and nearby.

Yes, it took a couple of weeks to redirect the whole crusade AND travel there. That includes finishing existing battles, redrawing the frontline to cover the counqered territories, gathering the fleet in one place and THEN travelling there.

And Gaunt and the other regiments were that first wave of reinforcements - again, redirecting forces from an existing campaign takes time - no other reinforcements came by until the end (excluding reinforcements from a nearby hive).

Let's talk fleets. The sector fleet, comprising of thousand of warships responded to Endor. It takes the Imperium navy 100 days to respond to a Tyrannid threat.

Existing, unoccupied forces as opposed to non-existing or occupied forces. I can't believe that you fail to understand that - but then again, you obviously do.

[PainRack]

We see how the warp can affect the physical plane on numerous occasions - e.g. in the chaos temple in the first Space Wolves novel.
While the warp normally needs encouragment in the form of human emotions (or chaos rituals) to affect the physical plane, we are also told that there are places where this happens naturally in the first Horus Heresy novel.
Complete warp breaches have occured completely on their own without, for example on Tallarn, without creating a warp storm.

All this (and more) indicates that the warp and the normal universe interact all the time in some way.

And how on god green earth does any of this override direct, canonical statements that such events are rare, and the systems where they occur naturally in are quarantined by the Inquisition?
Note, while the second statement is lifted from Comissionar Cain, the first is not. Its from the 2nd and 3rd edition codex, as well as the Dark Heresy sourcebook which introduced the mechanical warpgate.

I say again

Such gateways exist but they are rare. The most vulnerable gateways of all are the minds of psykers.

Codex Imperialis.

While there is some truth to that argument, it does not explain why the exploratory part took so long. After all, if you want to found a colony, you want to find the best location. If it was that easy, it should have been done within a short timeframe.

In what sense? Actually acquiring the ability to navigate to said systems, or finding the hyperspace routes that sustain rapid, large traffic?

The Damokles Crusade was formed within a single year and contained a couple of millon troops.

And this is supposed to be comparable to the Empire ability to deploy troops rapidly?
We're faced with a problem of matching mindset though. The GFFA has space travel being cheap and easily available. Its relatively fast, with a melange of speeds and capabilities, depending of course on needs, capabilities and cost. In this concept, such as how mobile and nuclear warfare has evolved on earth, the militaries of the GFFA has evolved such that maximum firepower, relatively rapid assets with small numbers are the norm in that galaxy. Their smaller expenditure on arms is thus dissipated on forces able to meet their scattered commitments.
The Imperium has vast resources committed to the military. Their FTL is relatively less reliable, requiring a larger sense of self sufficiency and independence. Their military strategy reflects this. They rely on a large force of standing militia and heavy, large forces capable of meeting any military demand on their own without relying on other resources.

As such, it becomes very difficult to actually compare which side is superior at projecting combat power. They project combat power differently.
The SW fans here are arguing that the GE ability to project forces rapidly and relatively far ranging is sufficient to overcome the fact that the empire doesn't concentrate sufficient forces to actually match the Imperium equivalent task forces. Or the majority of the sector fleet warships aren't capable of taking it on the chin against Imperium forces.
They're also harping on SW ability to actually devastate strongly held Imperium worlds that would provide too little benefit for outright conquest to be a war-winner.

In this, they're backed by one fact. Opponents stuck on the defensive invariably lose against an opponent with a larger industrial capability in a total war.

OF COURSE the loss of Armageddon would "threaten" the surrounding sectors. That is by no means equal to destroying or loosing them, since the size of that threat is not mentioned at all.

Errr.... It is. Not sure about the boardgame set itself, but the 2nd Edition ruleset also had the Armaggadeon campaign. Its explictly states that the loss of Armaggadeon would destroy the sector and neighbouring sectors ability to defend itself.

At the point where VervunHive was relevant, it was simply the closest large-output industrialized world.
And that a single sector can have a vulnerable point is not surprising either.

The Empire has critical central worlds like Kuat and Correllia. However, there exists a shipyard capable of repair work and at least some minor manufacturing capability in every sector as described in Black Fleet Crisis.

All this does NOT indicate that the IoM is vulnerable to global decapitation strategies.

I know. I don't disagree with that. I'm disagreeing with Connor statement that the Empire relies heavily on critical worlds. That's like pot, kettle, black.

Done that. Connor has done that a couple of times in his analyses. Stop talking about stuff you know squat about.

Dude. No one is contending that warp storms don't exist in the WH40k universe. I'm asking you all to show that they're supposedly so common, occur so randomly and etc that Imperial forces need to take note of them. Especially since the Empire doesn't use warpspace for FTL. The Imperium is heavily concerned regarding the status of the warp, because disturbed warp currents, warpstorms and etc disrupt their FTL and communications. It doesn't. The Empire is concerned only when warpspace can either physically affect lanets/ships/facillities. That or manifest warp creatures/possession/etc on its holdings.

Since that is often delibertely accounted for beforehand, why do you think that the warp transit is necessarily at the highest possible speed? Why is it impossible that they purposefully take a slower route to give them time for training?

And since the topic was with regards to Imperium response times, how on earth is them taking a slower trip= superior response time?

Furthermore, the speed of a single transport indicates squat. Travelling the warp is very much like travelling trough a wilderness - take a slow guide and it will take much longer. Why should they waste good navigators on a non-critical single tansport instead on a large fleet?

Unlike Shroom, I'm not referring to Cain. I'm referring to the fact that its explictly stated in the older codexes that IG regiments are trained during transit before they reach the battlefield.

That was due to underfunding and ignorance by the corrupt governor during the second war of armageddon. They worked just fine during the first and thrid war.

The First war was a Chaos assault. They did detect the Third assault, but no

No, it wasn't. You fail to account for the time it took for the Jedi to disable orbital defenses and infiltrate the place.

? The Republic Army transit and hitting the planet has nothing to do with the Jedi. ICS itself establishes that it was the LAAT and other Republic strikes which crippled the planet C3 facillities, orbital and aerial defences.

And you are again using single-transport, non-critical transports as evidence for slow speed. That's false, as i demonstrated above.
The Rogue Trader RPG states three months as transit time to travel a segmentum at a direct route (only avoiding the worst hazards) - and that can be cut to a quarter by a good navigator and even further by favoring warp currents.

A segmentum. I'm comparing galactic travel. The Geonosis campaign travelled at rough glance, a quarter of the spiral arm. The responses to the Outer Rim seiges, the deployment and etc were across half the galaxy.

All these examples are due to the fact that the forces were currently otherwise occupied (the tyranid response forces had to be newly recruited, the space marines were occupied in other wars (they nearly always are) and the ultramarines battled forces in their segmentum). It indicates nothing about warp travel speeds.

Neither is Connor response. Our arguments are based entirely on the ability of the Empire/Imperium ability to move troops to the respective theatres. If this was speed alone, we be using Maul as the example.

Yes, it took a couple of weeks to redirect the whole crusade AND travel there. That includes finishing existing battles, redrawing the frontline to cover the counqered territories, gathering the fleet in one place and THEN travelling there.

Did you read the book? The Warmaster diverted forces enroute to invading a planet. The opening portion described how IG forces for example were stranded on a planet by a warpstorm, then defended the area against Chaos raids. The most important however was the detour, which drew upon Imperial forces that were gathering to INVADE a planet.

Existing, unoccupied forces as opposed to non-existing or occupied forces. I can't believe that you fail to understand that - but then again, you obviously do.

And how on god green earth does this has anything to do with response time? The very fact that the Imperium is constantly embattled on all fronts is a stragetic benefit for the Empire, until it conquers a sufficiently large enough territory that it faces similar problems. The Empire is unique however that it can cripple the Imperium, sufficient to death during the stalemate that can emerge.

Well, actually, it isn't unique. The Necrons has superior abilities at assfucking the Imperium, they just aren't bothered enough to do so. Yet.

[Serafina]

And how on god green earth does any of this override direct, canonical statements that such events are rare, and the systems where they occur naturally in are quarantined by the Inquisition?

"Rare" is an incredibly broad category - and so is stating the the Inquisition automatically quarantines all systems whith such phenomena, since they obviously only do so in cases where it poses a serious threat, which is not always the case.
Some cave in the mountains that has a weak barrier to the warp is hardly a reason to shut down a whole system after all.

Dark Heresy sourcebook which introduced the mechanical warpgate.

Which one?
I have all Dark Heresy sourcebooks and absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

And this is supposed to be comparable to the Empire ability to deploy troops rapidly?And this is supposed to be comparable to the Empire ability to deploy troops rapidly?

You don't get it, do you?
All cases you listed which indicated rapid deployment of forces by the GE (or SW in general) are cases where the troops were already ready, unoccupied and transports readily available and time was of the essence - and you compared that to cases in the IoM where forces had to finish battles or even campaigns, where new forces had to be recruited and time was not as critical as in the SW-cases.
That's not a good comparision - and if you don't get it, well...then you are just plain dumb.

The ability of the IoM to project their forces is of course lower, due to two reasones:
-Slower FTL. This is obvious, i think even you don't need an explanation for that.
-Constant state of war. Yes, that's actually detremential - if half your armies are bound in wars and you constantly have to garrision nearly all your planets and keep forces in reserve to counter alien invasions, your capacity for rapid attacks are of course much lower.

And since the topic was with regards to Imperium response times, how on earth is them taking a slower trip= superior response time?

Did is say that? No, i said that you are making invalid comparisions. You are comparing someone who takes a hike to enjoy the enviorment to someone making a bussiness trip - you deliberatley use evidence that portrays the IoM as way slower than it is actually capable of.

Unlike Shroom, I'm not referring to Cain. I'm referring to the fact that its explictly stated in the older codexes that IG regiments are trained during transit before they reach the battlefield.

And as i already pointed out, this says nothing about response times. God, i can't belive that you don't get this. Training on the flight means that they use all the time they have on the warp trip. Travelling slower has advantages on it's own (fewer accidents), making use of them that way makes perfect sense. It is pretty obvious that they are doing that deliberately, most likely slowing the transports in most cases.

And how on god green earth does this has anything to do with response time? The very fact that the Imperium is constantly embattled on all fronts is a stragetic benefit for the Empire, until it conquers a sufficiently large enough territory that it faces similar problems. The Empire is unique however that it can cripple the Imperium, sufficient to death during the stalemate that can emerge.

You still don't get it, do you?
The IoM is mostly geared towards defensive action. That's why it takes longer to free up troops for offensive actions.
Yes, this would also affect them during a war with the GE (unless we are assuming a clean plate), but the GE would have the same problem pretty soon.

To reiterate my whole point:
Your examples do not show response times in an ongoing war unless you are accounting for the delays i mentioned. If you want to look at an ongoing war, NOT at first-reaction time, look at the Gothic war or the various Crusades. Those are far more representative than your out-of context too-stupid to analyze examples and indicate far lower response times.

The First war was a Chaos assault. They did detect the Third assault, but no

And guess what, they still worked during the first war.

A segmentum. I'm comparing galactic travel. The Geonosis campaign travelled at rough glance, a quarter of the spiral arm. The responses to the Outer Rim seiges, the deployment and etc were across half the galaxy.

Guess how large a segmentum is? Roughly a fourth of the galaxy (in diameter, not in area).

They're also harping on SW ability to actually devastate strongly held Imperium worlds that would provide too little benefit for outright conquest to be a war-winner.

Still not sufficiently demonstrated. They are certainly capable of doing so (Death Star, hypotetical superarmies) but the IoM is NOT helpless against it, and the logistics of maintaining one giant fleet are still pretty shaky, at least against an roughly equal opponent.

In this, they're backed by one fact. Opponents stuck on the defensive invariably lose against an opponent with a larger industrial capability in a total war.

What makes you think it will be an actual total war?
"Total war" as in - "we have to win no matter what" is not inevtiable in this scenario.

Errr.... It is. Not sure about the boardgame set itself, but the 2nd Edition ruleset also had the Armaggadeon campaign. Its explictly states that the loss of Armaggadeon would destroy the sector and neighbouring sectors ability to defend itself.

Quotes or it didn't happen. In fact it is really unlikely, since an Exterminatus was seriously considered after the First War of Armageddon (only averted due to Logan Grimnar deciding otherwise)

I know. I don't disagree with that. I'm disagreeing with Connor statement that the Empire relies heavily on critical worlds. That's like pot, kettle, black.

A repair yard of ammunition plant is NOT equal to an major shipyard.
It IS a fact that the GE has only a few major shipyards. Those are vital, loosing them would cripple the whole empire.
This extends to other things as well.
The only thing comparable to that in the IoM are Terra and Mars - even taking out one of the segmentum fleet bases or famed manufacturing worlds does not cripple the whole IoM (it happened before in the latter case after all).

So yes, it's pretty clear that the GE is far more vulnerable to loosing specific worlds than the IoM.

Dude. No one is contending that warp storms don't exist in the WH40k universe. I'm asking you all to show that they're supposedly so common, occur so randomly and etc that Imperial forces need to take note of them. Especially since the Empire doesn't use warpspace for FTL. The Imperium is heavily concerned regarding the status of the warp, because disturbed warp currents, warpstorms and etc disrupt their FTL and communications. It doesn't. The Empire is concerned only when warpspace can either physically affect lanets/ships/facillities. That or manifest warp creatures/possession/etc on its holdings.

I presented evidence that the warp is influencing normal space pretty much everywhere, to varrying degrees. That's why physical, non-living artifacts can draw power from the warp and why plasma reactors work at all.
That's why they are speaking of a veil between warp and real space and why several methods exist to weaken or strenghten it. But only the necrons are able to block out the warp completely and even they can have trouble some times.
Therefore, the warp WILL influence the GE-forces while they are in the 40K-galaxy.

[PainRack]

"Rare" is an incredibly broad category - and so is stating the the Inquisition automatically quarantines all systems whith such phenomena, since they obviously only do so in cases where it poses a serious threat, which is not always the case.
Some cave in the mountains that has a weak barrier to the warp is hardly a reason to shut down a whole system after all.

Say what? I'm asking you to show the physical manifestation of the warp. You know, your statement that the warp is so prevalent in the Wh40k universe that it will physically manifest and damage Imperial warships, making their navigation and power projection in doubt.

Which one?
I have all Dark Heresy sourcebooks and absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Its the adventure where you have to venture forth to discover a mechanical device which connects to the warp.

You don't get it, do you?
All cases you listed which indicated rapid deployment of forces by the GE (or SW in general) are cases where the troops were already ready, unoccupied and transports readily available and time was of the essence - and you compared that to cases in the IoM where forces had to finish battles or even campaigns, where new forces had to be recruited and time was not as critical as in the SW-cases.
That's not a good comparision - and if you don't get it, well...then you are just plain dumb.

Balls.
Geonosis was an unprepared, hell, uncollected army that's raw. It got to geonosis, began the battle and etc within hours.
I then showcased the Battle of Praestilyn PRECISELY to show how heavily commited, overtaxed, and in this case, unsupported by will of the Chancellor was still able to commit rapidly to the battle.

Hell, that's the reason why I specifically brought up those two examples first. Because they're the closest parallels the SWU has to the conditions the Imperium undergoes. In terms of scale, we then have to highlight the Battle of Cato Neimodia and etc, although none of them reach the billion army strength involved such as in Third Armaggadeon War.

Did is say that? No, i said that you are making invalid comparisions. You are comparing someone who takes a hike to enjoy the enviorment to someone making a bussiness trip - you deliberatley use evidence that portrays the IoM as way slower than it is actually capable of.

WTF? The whole point of the debate was to show that Imperial response time is superior to Imperium response time.
It DOESN"T fucking matter whether the Imperium response time is slower because of slower FTL, overcommitted troops or the General is fucking the triple breast whore of Errotica 6. What matters is the Imperium response time IS slower.

Connor brought up the important point of scale. The SWU doesn't have the same scale of wars and campaigns the Imperium has, that similarly means that their response time would be faster in lieu of this. HOWEVER, we can point to alternatives such as the 2nd Armaggadeon war, VerunHive and etc to show that in general, Imperial response is still faster than the Imperium.
We would then need to compare which situation is more..... akin to the other. For example, the 3rd Armaggadeon war had a response time of weeks if not shorter(the exact timeframe when the Imperium began running in supplies is unstated, we only know the Ork advance took weeks to hit the planet from space.)
A "prepared" conflict with reinforcements pouring in already. Yet, we can show during the Zahn Campaign Republic and Imperial forces responding with combined naval/ground strike forces within hours in response to the Raptor raids. Indeed, they HAVE to react that fast because if they don't, the raptors will hyper out. Similar situations where both sides are prepared and are feeding in forces as rapid as possible, the GFFA still wins out in speed, just not in scale.


Given the rapid production rates of Geonosis, given the rapid time in which Yoda was able to collect multiple battalions and march them off to war in AOTC, we can extrapolate that they have the capability to scale up responses and such commitments would still be relatively faster than the Imperium response. Just by dint of hyperdrive speeds if nothing else.

And as i already pointed out, this says nothing about response times. God, i can't belive that you don't get this. Training on the flight means that they use all the time they have on the warp trip. Travelling slower has advantages on it's own (fewer accidents), making use of them that way makes perfect sense. It is pretty obvious that they are doing that deliberately, most likely slowing the transports in most cases.

And? A good number of tithes have them being recruited to be sent off to the warzone immediately. And to begin the conquest of a new world just as it lands. Delay the trip because you need to train said troops properly, that means said tithe is slower coming into the theatre and slower to hit the battlefield. Is it really THAT difficult to understand?

You still don't get it, do you?
The IoM is mostly geared towards defensive action. That's why it takes longer to free up troops for offensive actions.
Yes, this would also affect them during a war with the GE (unless we are assuming a clean plate), but the GE would have the same problem pretty soon.

Ahem. 100 days to respond to the Nid threat vs the GE ability to respond within days. Endor, Truce at Bakura sourcebook.

Your examples do not show response times in an ongoing war unless you are accounting for the delays i mentioned. If you want to look at an ongoing war, NOT at first-reaction time, look at the Gothic war or the various Crusades. Those are far more representative than your out-of context too-stupid to analyze examples and indicate far lower response times.

Right. The Armaggadeon Wars, the Sabbat Crusade are all out of context, far lower response times. Meanwhile, the Imperial response at Geonosis and etc are obviously not valid...

And guess what, they still worked during the first war.

Ok.... I'm intrigued. I'm not challenging your statement so much as I'm asking, where's the source?

Guess how large a segmentum is? Roughly a fourth of the galaxy (in diameter, not in area).

And that's bigger than half the galaxy? Are you on crack?

Still not sufficiently demonstrated. They are certainly capable of doing so (Death Star, hypotetical superarmies) but the IoM is NOT helpless against it, and the logistics of maintaining one giant fleet are still pretty shaky, at least against an roughly equal opponent.

In a total war between the two powers, the GE is much better equipped to attack in such a manner than the Imperium ability to defend itself.

What makes you think it will be an actual total war?
"Total war" as in - "we have to win no matter what" is not inevtiable in this scenario.

Nice dodge. Total War as in we commit a major amount of our nation resources, populace and efforts.
Let's put it this way.
If the war is limited and over a few systems, while the IoM can potentially commit significantly more powerful, larger forces to such a theatre, the very fact that its a small theatre of ops means they probably won't due to the myriad other number of threats. Case in point? Tau Empire. Empire wins because the Imperium doesn't commit enough forces.

Quotes or it didn't happen. In fact it is really unlikely, since an Exterminatus was seriously considered after the First War of Armageddon (only averted due to Logan Grimnar deciding otherwise)

First Armaggadeon isn't second. As for quotes..... sure, once I find that stupid list.

A repair yard of ammunition plant is NOT equal to an major shipyard.
It IS a fact that the GE has only a few major shipyards. Those are vital, loosing them would cripple the whole empire.
This extends to other things as well.
The only thing comparable to that in the IoM are Terra and Mars - even taking out one of the segmentum fleet bases or famed manufacturing worlds does not cripple the whole IoM (it happened before in the latter case after all).

Except that the Black Fleet Crisis shows that each shipyard is capable of minor starship construction work, enough that the potential warships they can produce would be destabilising to the New Republic. And we see them actually doing the finishing up work on an Executor class star destroyer.

Bastion, with no "major" galaxy spinning shipyards, with Yaga Minor and etc being relatively small players in the galaxy could construct Star Dreadnoughts.
Even the Bothans could construct sufficient warships for the New Republic Navy to consist of a major starship class, the Bothan Assault Cruiser.

We can also point to the Clone Wars and show how despite not having access to the major shipyard industries, the Trade Federation was able to build a large enough navy that it could circuvemnt the Republic navy during Operation Durgelance, and later on, field super-dreadnoughts, construct the Great Weapon for actions against the Republic navy.

I presented evidence that the warp is influencing normal space pretty much everywhere, to varrying degrees. That's why physical, non-living artifacts can draw power from the warp and why plasma reactors work at all.

Enough that it will actually disrupt Imperial operations? I'm not too sure whether you're referring to earlier portions of the thread, but my specific contention with you was that warp space would manifest itself that it would damage Imperial starship travel PHYSICALLY. Not Connor energy interacts with matter, so will interact with hyperspace travel. You have yet to show that such an event is anywhere near the norm.

[Serafina]

Say what? I'm asking you to show the physical manifestation of the warp. You know, your statement that the warp is so prevalent in the Wh40k universe that it will physically manifest and damage Imperial warships, making their navigation and power projection in doubt.

It most likely is - we know that normal inter-stellar travel was very hard for both humans and tau due to interstellar space being filled with slightly anomalous space, enough to distort normal navigation.
This is also backed up by the fact that the warp influences realspace pretty much everywhere to some extent and is not as seperated from it as you suggested.
It won't cripple the GE, but unless they find a way to compensate it (which most likely require most intensive mapping) it will slow them down somewhat.

Balls.
Geonosis was an unprepared, hell, uncollected army that's raw. It got to geonosis, began the battle and etc within hours.

No it wasn't. It was an army that was already trained, equipped and ready to move. All they had to do was load them into the ships and off the went. They were neither unprepared to fight (for that specific battle propably, but not "oh no, a war, we never expected that) nor uncollected. And having no combat experience does not influence your ability to load the troops into their ships.

WTF? The whole point of the debate was to show that Imperial response time is superior to Imperium response time.

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU STILL DON'T GET IT.
You showed us examples where the IoM is preparing for a new campaign, wether defensive or offensive. Once they get rolling, their reactions are not nearly as slow as you make them out to be.
Let me give you an example: It took months to prepare the german invasion of russia. Does that mean that the troops needed months to react to changes?

Damn, it so bloody obvious that i can't believe that you won't get that into your thick skull.

We would then need to compare which situation is more..... akin to the other. For example, the 3rd Armaggadeon war had a response time of weeks if not shorter(the exact timeframe when the Imperium began running in supplies is unstated, we only know the Ork advance took weeks to hit the planet from space.)

No, not really a viable example. Take an ongoing crusade and not something were forces have to be assembled first.

And? A good number of tithes have them being recruited to be sent off to the warzone immediately. And to begin the conquest of a new world just as it lands. Delay the trip because you need to train said troops properly, that means said tithe is slower coming into the theatre and slower to hit the battlefield. Is it really THAT difficult to understand?

Most of them still need training, since the Guard operates differently from most PDFs.

Right. The Armaggadeon Wars, the Sabbat Crusade are all out of context, far lower response times. Meanwhile, the Imperial response at Geonosis and etc are obviously not valid...

The Sabbat Crusade IS a viable comparision.

Ok.... I'm intrigued. I'm not challenging your statement so much as I'm asking, where's the source?

Some german white dwarf which basically states "the defenders morale sank as they watched the chaos reinforcements approach for days on their scanners, unable to do anything against it". Which indicates that they could pick them up with long-range scans. It's conjecture, but i think it's viable.

And that's bigger than half the galaxy? Are you on crack?

Are you unable to multiply? Because extrapolating from crossing a segmentum to crossing the galaxy is really not that hard

Nice dodge. Total War as in we commit a major amount of our nation resources, populace and efforts.
Let's put it this way.
If the war is limited and over a few systems, while the IoM can potentially commit significantly more powerful, larger forces to such a theatre, the very fact that its a small theatre of ops means they probably won't due to the myriad other number of threats. Case in point? Tau Empire. Empire wins because the Imperium doesn't commit enough forces.

Yes, that's why i explained what i meant.
But still, unless it's some sort of "them or us"-mentallity, the IoM can still win by making the war too costly for the GE.
Which has been my point since, oh, pretty much the whole thread.

First Armaggadeon isn't second. As for quotes..... sure, once I find that stupid list.

It doesn't bloody matter what kind of war it was - it shows that Armageddon was NOT invaluable. Grimnar ordered against the Exterminatus due to moral reasons, not because loosing Armageddon would be too great a loss.

Except that the Black Fleet Crisis shows that each shipyard is capable of minor starship construction work, enough that the potential warships they can produce would be destabilising to the New Republic. And we see them actually doing the finishing up work on an Executor class star destroyer.

Conceeded to the extent that the crippling factor would be lower than i expected. Still devastating but not decapitating.

Enough that it will actually disrupt Imperial operations? I'm not too sure whether you're referring to earlier portions of the thread, but my specific contention with you was that warp space would manifest itself that it would damage Imperial starship travel PHYSICALLY. Not Connor energy interacts with matter, so will interact with hyperspace travel. You have yet to show that such an event is anywhere near the norm.

Ok, i want you to show where i stated that the warp will physically damage GE-ships - because i pretty much only said that it will slow hypertravel and induce random navigation errors.

[Kuroji]

Forgive my confusion... but are the SW ships using the Warp, or no? If not, why the heck would any activity in warp space have any effect unless it's manifesting in the real world?

[Serafina]

Forgive my confusion... but are the SW ships using the Warp, or no? If not, why the heck would any activity in warp space have any effect unless it's manifesting in the real world?

It goes somewhat like this:
The warp is shown to interact with real space pretty much everywhere, tough the degree of variation varries greatly.
Hypertravel is affected by conditions in normal space (gravity wells, supernovae etc.).
Therefore, the different real space conditions could affect hypertravel.

They are pretty certain to do so when a warp storm occurs, i think pretty much everyone agrees with that.
However, the current discussion is about wether and how the less severe effects of the warp/realspace interaction affect hypertravel.

My current position is that any anomalous warp influence (on realspace) should also affect hypertravel by either slowing it or throwing off the navigation. These conditions occur regulary in interstellar space and would therefore be a hindrance to the GE war campaign, at least a minor one.
It is also possible that the whole 40K-galaxy realspace is different and would slow down hypertravel in general, but that's an extraordinary claim which i do not belive to be true until someone presents further evidence or arguments.

[Kuroji]

Ah. Thank you for the clarification.

...my brain is too fried to make sense of that, though I know it does make sense, it's just not processing. I think I'm going to go to bed instead of trying to figure anything out further than this.

[PainRack]

It most likely is - we know that normal inter-stellar travel was very hard for both humans and tau due to interstellar space being filled with slightly anomalous space, enough to distort normal navigation.
This is also backed up by the fact that the warp influences realspace pretty much everywhere to some extent and is not as seperated from it as you suggested.

Normal interstellar travel.... using warpdrives or derivatives of it.

Unless you're contending that the Age of Technology FTL isn't warp based.

No it wasn't. It was an army that was already trained, equipped and ready to move. All they had to do was load them into the ships and off the went. They were neither unprepared to fight (for that specific battle propably, but not "oh no, a war, we never expected that) nor uncollected. And having no combat experience does not influence your ability to load the troops into their ships.

Errr... No. The Kaminoian army at that point in time was ready to be collected by the Republic, that in no manner means they're operationally ready or capable of being rapidly deployed. That actually means that the Republic army combat stores were either designed to be rapidly loaded or already allocated to existing transports. Since we know they're not attached to the Republic yet, the former is more likely than the later.

Moving troops into theatre is not as simple as loading soldiers.

You showed us examples where the IoM is preparing for a new campaign, wether defensive or offensive. Once they get rolling, their reactions are not nearly as slow as you make them out to be.
Let me give you an example: It took months to prepare the german invasion of russia. Does that mean that the troops needed months to react to changes?

No I did NOT. AGAIN, 2nd Armaggadeon War, Verunhive are NOT examples of preparing for a new campaign. The YEARS bit referred to their preparation for a new camapign, their response time such as the 2nd Armaggadeon is NOT.

God damn it, I deliberately provided examples to all ranges.

No, not really a viable example. Take an ongoing crusade and not something were forces have to be assembled first.

Say what? You're referring to a war where the Imperium already prepared forces on Armaggadeon before the Ork Waagh. The upper limit on reinforcements delay was weeks, lower limits could be anywhere from day to hours, and you're dismissing this as rapid Imperium response time?

Ok. You're the one who wishs to dismiss information that's beneficial to your side. Not me.

The Sabbat Crusade IS a viable comparision.

Yet, you dismiss it?

Are you unable to multiply? Because extrapolating from crossing a segmentum to crossing the galaxy is really not that hard

Are you seriously dumb? The point was I was comparing Imperial transit time from anywhere half a spiral arm to halfway across the galaxy. They're superior to Imperium transit times.

Yes, that's why i explained what i meant.
But still, unless it's some sort of "them or us"-mentallity, the IoM can still win by making the war too costly for the GE.
Which has been my point since, oh, pretty much the whole thread.

Given the massive strains on the IoM, its more likely that the GE can win that equation. Especially if it pulls out strategic bombing.

It doesn't bloody matter what kind of war it was - it shows that Armageddon was NOT invaluable.

In the dim past. Not during the 2nd armaggadeon war.

This is like arguing that Scapa Flow wasn't a major fleet base during WW1, because it wasn't one during the Napoleanic Wars.

Ok, i want you to show where i stated that the warp will physically damage GE-ships - because i pretty much only said that it will slow hypertravel and induce random navigation errors.

If the whole fleet get's into a warp storm, the survivors would pretty much be guaranteed to be corrupted, but warp storms are so violent that they tend to destroy most ships trapped in them (nevermind ships without gellar fields), so that won't get them the entire fleet either.

[PainRack]

It goes somewhat like this:
The warp is shown to interact with real space pretty much everywhere, tough the degree of variation varries greatly.
Hypertravel is affected by conditions in normal space (gravity wells, supernovae etc.).
Therefore, the different real space conditions could affect hypertravel.

They are pretty certain to do so when a warp storm occurs, i think pretty much everyone agrees with that.
However, the current discussion is about wether and how the less severe effects of the warp/realspace interaction affect hypertravel.

My current position is that any anomalous warp influence (on realspace) should also affect hypertravel by either slowing it or throwing off the navigation. These conditions occur regulary in interstellar space and would therefore be a hindrance to the GE war campaign, at least a minor one.
It is also possible that the whole 40K-galaxy realspace is different and would slow down hypertravel in general, but that's an extraordinary claim which i do not belive to be true until someone presents further evidence or arguments.

The counter argument of course is that hyperspace is specifically affected by gravitic conditions. While we don't know the upper limits of gravitic force that will prevent ships from jumping into hyperspace, we do know that the lower limits such as comet/asteroids can be explained as being "unknown" examples that the navcomputer must work around.( ANH novelisation states that the navcomputer is compensating for the gravity of Tatooine) A good working model is that gravitic forces are also applied on ships in hyperspace(Karrde ships facing shear stress when it escaped from the Katana fleet), the exact manner, whether its a mass shadow, hyperspace mines or etc doesn't really matter. Compensate for known forces, the ship shields against it accordingly and its on the way.

Therefore, its likely that unless warpspace does physically affect mass or gravity SUFFICIENT enough to inflict damage to SW ships, they will have no effect on hyperspace travel whatsoever. Or more likely, they might disrupt routine jumps by forcing ships out of hyperspace, once recompensated for or etc, they're on the way. Enough to disrupt precise operations.

[Eviscerator]

[quote="PainRack"][quote="Serafina"]
Errr... No. The Kaminoian army at that point in time was ready to be collected by the Republic, that in no manner means they're operationally ready or capable of being rapidly deployed.
Moving troops into theatre is not as simple as loading soldiers.

{/quote]


Considering that the Kaminoan Army at that point of time was shown eating, training, and the other mundane soldierly tasks, and also considering all of them are clones of Jango Fett, i should think they are ready to be deployed. Remember, the gist of the message to Obi-Wan was "ready".

Make a distinction here, will you? It is very easy to move troops in theatre and drop them on the battlefield ready to fight. AIRBORNE.

The US Military is completely capable of shipping troops to the battlefield ready to fight once they touch the ground,in theory. Sure, you might think im talking about the XVIII Airborne Corps or other SF units, but it is completely possible to embark an Armoured Cavalry Regiment and theoretically it can fight once it's off the ship.

In the context we are discussing here, it is also entirely possible to embark Space Marines, Stormtroopers, or other similiarly well-trained unit onto a transport vessel, and trust that they can fight. Whether to repel boarders, or to be landed on some unknown battlezone and reinforce said battlezone.

[Einzige]

I'm going to jump in here on a tangent totally unrelated to the previous debate.

I wonder if this might not be a scenario where the "Dark Empire" from the eponymous comics might not actually be better suited for the conflict than the standard Galactic Empire from the films? As I recall, the revived Palpatine's Empire, because it could no longer count on absolutely massive numbers of normal recruits, took to dabbling in bizarre experiments like Shadow Droids and Dark Side-imbued weapons like Chrysalides, as well automatons such as the X-1 Viper to supplement their deteriorating numbers of 'normal' troopers.

I wonder if this altered make-up of Imperial forces might not enable them to resist Chaos corruption? In other words: does the fact that Shadow Droids, Chrysalides, etc. are created via use of the Dark Side immunize them from Chaos?

[Serafina]

I'm going to jump in here on a tangent totally unrelated to the previous debate.

I wonder if this might not be a scenario where the "Dark Empire" from the eponymous comics might not actually be better suited for the conflict than the standard Galactic Empire from the films? As I recall, the revived Palpatine's Empire, because it could no longer count on absolutely massive numbers of normal recruits, took to dabbling in bizarre experiments like Shadow Droids and Dark Side-imbued weapons like Chrysalides, as well automatons such as the X-1 Viper to supplement their deteriorating numbers of 'normal' troopers.

I wonder if this altered make-up of Imperial forces might not enable them to resist Chaos corruption? In other words: does the fact that Shadow Droids, Chrysalides, etc. are created via use of the Dark Side immunize them from Chaos?

If anything, it should make them MORE vulnerable.
After all, the Dark Side revolves mostly around anger, hate and other negative emotions - perfect fodder for Chaos.

True droids might be more resistant to chaos corruption, but since they are sentient they are most definately not immune.
The other stuff are still living beings enhanced by the dark side and are most likely more suspectible to subtle chaos corruption than your normal SW-soldier.