What if the Empire invaded modern day Earth?

[Srelex]

And what's stopping them from going nuclear if all else fails?

[Stark]

The OP?

[Srelex]

Bah, shit.

Do MOABs count as WMDs then?

[Ghost Rider]

And it doesn't matter if Earth goes Nuclear. Honestly, let the Nukes fly! It'll destroy the land assets, and fuck if they could conquer Earth anyway.

Earth still gets fried because nothing is going to stop the 100 TIEs from potholing the planet except when they run out of fuel...a week later.

[Ritterin Sophia]

It is probable that stormtrooper blasters have greater firepower than modern artillery pieces.

Are you serious?

This is a Copperhead fired from a Paladin. I want you to show me where in Star Wars a blaster rifle had a blast radius of 40ft.

[Imperial528]

What if the Empire invaded?

Interesting question...

Well, since the OP never specified that he wanted specific speculation, here's some:

[For laughs]At least 25% of the members on this site try to join with the Empire or otherwise not be a threat to them. George Lucas proclaims on live television "I. Was. RIGHT!" and is seen being evacuated from the planet by a mysterious rebel ship he had buried in his ranch. Super-Versus Trekies take to the front lines with their treknobable and become the first civilian casualties.[/For laughs]

Globally, several nations surrender or offer aid to the Empire after the global attack(s) against the Imperial force fails simply because an E-web blaster can probably take out modern tanks with ease, stormtrooper armor is like super-man to modern infantry firearms ('cept the black parts), a single tie fighter is capable of destroying the largest bunker complexes ever built given the time to do so, and no Imperial invasion force with AT-ATs can be taken out by modern weapons save nukes (this may be one situation where the nuclear landmine would be a good idea) and/or (A LOT OF) powerful explosives. Countries who do not side with the Empire get royally curb-stomped again and again until they have surrendered. [For laughs]Palpatine gets happy because he finally found the home world of all humans and thus has gotten material to continue the nazi-like anti-alien propaganda the Empire loves so much.[/For laughs]

[Shroom Man 777]

Those who resist will be destroyed, together with entire cities or nations full of men, women and children, just by one shot from the TIE fighter's tiny cannons or the AT-ATs that can throw Tsar Bombas with each and every shot. Imagine, TIE fighters firing Tsar Bombas with each shot, at rapid fire! Oh man, we're fucked. Imagine an AT-AT doing that! The forces of Earth would be so intimidated, after waiting for the AT-AT to WALK SO FUCKING SLOWLY towards whatever targets it wants to kill. Oh no.

Anyway, after an AT-AT emerges from the ocean like a slow-ass fuck-ugly Godzilla to "intimidate" people, it can blow up New York and you'll get Imperial apologists justifying how New York had it coming because Mayor Giuliani was collaborating with the resistance or some shit. Then when the Imperials land a transport on top of a school and crush all the children, people will say they had it coming too. I mean, they have awesome uniforms and theme songs and shit, so they must be cool rite? Haha.

[LionElJonson]

Odds are, the Imperials roll in, and Brazil surrenders after a few cities get levelled. America digs into the Star Wars canon to figure out how to resist them as the walkers start loping north at 60 miles an hour, and figures out they'll need nukes to do anything.

Nuclear fire ensues. All the Imperial groundtroops die. We then broadcast a message offering good treatment to any TIE fighter pilots who land their craft and surrender, since they'll die when they run out of fuel if they don't.

[Lagmonster]

Despite the power of Star Wars weapons and armour, that still won't help them if they have neither long-term supplies, fuel, morale, or manpower.

Tactically, for example, an AT-AT is a walking pot of invulnerability, but can it cross oceans? Mountain ranges? Is its engines strong enough to resist simply being netted, tangled, bogged down, climbed on by guys smearing poo over the cockpit, etc.? How much weight can it move? How long can the crew stay in one before they have to come up for food?

[Ghost Rider]

Despite the power of Star Wars weapons and armour, that still won't help them if they have neither long-term supplies, fuel, morale, or manpower.

Tactically, for example, an AT-AT is a walking pot of invulnerability, but can it cross oceans? Mountain ranges? Is its engines strong enough to resist simply being netted, tangled, bogged down, climbed on by guys smearing poo over the cockpit, etc.? How much weight can it move? How long can the crew stay in one before they have to come up for food?

Hell, even if we take into account that each and every piece is invulnerable and such not, there isn't enough to occupy the planet in any real way. The scenario is idiotic because to take down a military is by far the easier part; it's the occupation that demands a massive resource unless you get cooperation on all fronts.

So for the destruction of our cities and junk, the TIEs alone take it. The rest sort of sit in a few cities putting down constant problems unless they decide to throw their arms up in defeat and scour the planet.

[Thanas]

Or unless they drill mass conscripts or get allies. Humans are opportunistic, I think quite a few would join up in an auxillary capacity.

Heck, you could probably police a city with a bataillon of Stormtroopers who act as the shock force whereas you have a division or so of earth forces with standard Earth gear to do the rest.

[Mobius IO]

Realistically even a small lightly armored group of solders from any ftl capable galactic empire should be able to decimate any opposition Earth throws at them. But Star Wars has never had any use for realism.

So as long as a bunch of three foot tall teddy bears who's idea of cutting edge weaponry consists of sharpened rocks tied to sticks can put up a fight against the Empire's ground forces I'm giving it to modern day Earth.

[Ghost Rider]

Realistically even a small lightly armored group of solders from any ftl capable galactic empire should be able to decimate any opposition Earth throws at them. But Star Wars has never had any use for realism.

So as long as a bunch of three foot tall teddy bears who's idea of cutting edge weaponry consists of sharpened rocks tied to sticks can put up a fight against the Empire's ground forces I'm giving it to modern day Earth.

Yeah, let's ignore those multi KT weapons on their orbital single manned craft . Is using one's brain passé, these days?

Or unless they drill mass conscripts or get allies. Humans are opportunistic, I think quite a few would join up in an auxillary capacity.

Heck, you could probably police a city with a bataillon of Stormtroopers who act as the shock force whereas you have a division or so of earth forces with standard Earth gear to do the rest.

Likely what would happen after a few cities go up, and not much is outright destroying the transports. Though it becomes an odd political notion because whomever joins has a force of immensely mobile weapons that outdo most nuclear muntions as a hammer to anyone that says otherwise.

[Srelex]

So as long as a bunch of three foot tall teddy bears who's idea of cutting edge weaponry consists of sharpened rocks tied to sticks can put up a fight against the Empire's ground forces I'm giving it to modern day Earth.

Except that until they lost their walkers thanks to Chewbacca, the Empire was winning. Not to mention that there were only what, a few dozen soldiers they had max, as opposed to hundreds of Ewoks? Plus we don't really get any confirmation that any of the stormtroopers really died, we just see them get knocked over, and that'll happen to any normal-massing man being hit by a large rock. I mean, a thousand ancient Celts would still beat 20 US Marines in a tight space like a forest.

[Mobius IO]

Yeah, let's ignore those multi KT weapons on their orbital single manned craft . Is using one's brain passé, these days?

Well according to wookiepedia tie fighters have maximum atmospheric speed of 1,200 km/h which is just under Mach 1 and come armed with 2 laser cannons.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/ln_starfighter

So what multi KT weapons are you talking about?

[Srelex]

Well according to wookiepedia tie fighters have maximum atmospheric speed of 1,200 km/h which is just under Mach 1 and come armed with 2 laser cannons.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/ln_starfighter

So what multi KT weapons are you talking about?

That's overridden by the films, where we see TIEs travel at much faster speeds (e.g. from the Alderaan ruins to the Death Star) and the source given is an old crappy one anyway.

[Darth Hoth]

I thought that X-wing firepower was in the terajoules, or double-digit gigajoules as a lower limit (established by Mike Wong from original film footage, so this should override any book that might say otherwise)? With that in mind, it is extremely doubtful that the basic lasers of a TIE would be orders of magnitude weaker. That is perhaps not evidence for kilotons, but it does come fairly close.

[Sarevok]

The TIEs can destroy powerplants and military bases. They can also fuck up areas containing semiconductor industries. No electronics = no fancy smart weapons for us. Then with electricity gone and major military bases and industry damaged Earth will be reduced to African nation level military power in a few years. It would be then upto the AT-AT army to cow them into fear System Lord style.

[Mobius IO]

Well then can anyone provide actual numbers on the atmospheric speed adn firepower of a tie fighter? Not just zooom fast!

How about hours of maintenance per hour of flight? How often important parts fail? Remember the Imperial forces are going to be cut off from the their supply/tech base.

RotJ showed that Storm Troopers and walkers can be stopped by stone age level weaponry so neither of those are going to have an overwhelming advantage against modern Earth armies or even rag tag insurgents. The Imperial only really effective tools are the 100 AT-ATs and 100 tie fighters.

The AT-AT's have very limited mobility and even if we grant them immunity to Earth weapons (a fairly big if given how poorly AT-ST's hold up to logs) they can still be countered by tripping etc. Also the Empire has no way to transport them across Oceans and possibly even mountain ranges.

That leaves the Tie fighters. So again how well do they perform in an atmosphere? How often do they need to be resupplied and refueled? How much damage can their laser cannons do and do they cause large scale explosions or over-penetrate and burn relatively small holes through things?

[Srelex]

RotJ showed that Storm Troopers and walkers can be stopped by stone age level weaponry so neither of those are going to have an overwhelming advantage against modern Earth armies or even rag tag insurgents.

So? An Abrams tank would be vulnerable to a stone-age camoflagued deep ditch as well, as would US Marines. The walkers were only really stopped by logs, while everything else bounced off. Plus, as I said, they were dealing with an overwhelming number of stone-age equipped enemies; a thousand tribesmen will always win over ten soldiers in a jungle.

[Mobius IO]

So? An Abrams tank would be vulnerable to a stone-age camoflagued deep ditch as well, as would US Marines. The walkers were only really stopped by logs, while everything else bounced off. Plus, as I said, they were dealing with an overwhelming number of stone-age equipped enemies; a thousand tribesmen will always win over ten soldiers in a jungle.

And there are tens of millions of modern day humans under arms they have to fight, plus hundreds of millions more that will be mobilized.

The fact that the walkers were stopped by logs shows they can be (easily) stopped by modern weapons as well. So they are not going to provide the Empire with any overwhelming advantage.

Same with the storm troopers, they are not that much more dangerous then modern solders and vastly outnumbered.

[Srelex]

And there are tens of millions of modern day humans under arms they have to fight, plus hundreds of millions more that will be mobilized.

The fact that the walkers were stopped by logs shows they can be (easily) stopped by modern weapons as well. So they are not going to provide the Empire with any overwhelming advantage.

Same with the storm troopers, they are not that much more dangerous then modern solders and vastly outnumbered.

Just because the walkers were tripped up with logs doesn't equate to modern munitions being easily able to hurt them. Hell, modern military vehicles could get foiled by nasty terrain or even sand clogging up the works, and that doesn't mean that Roman Legoinaires could take them on. Now, concentrated fire could down AT-STs, which is where your numbers point comes in, and that I agree with.

[Srelex]

The TIE fighters will be shot down by guided missiles before they realize they have even been engaged. They have never demonstrated long range capabilities nor impressive maneuverability (christ, they were canonically defeated by fucking inertial rocks)

What? In ANH, one of them travels at least hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Alderaan's rubble to the Death Star in minutes.

The "Emperor's finest" stormtroopers and AT-ST walkers were canonically defeated by a stone age army of teddy bears.

No, they weren't. If you watch the movie, they were slaughtering the Ewoks until Chewbacca took down their walkers. Nor is there any proof that the Ewoks did much more than knock the stormtroopers about. Hell, as I keep saying, a couple dozen US Marines versus a thousand Celtic warriors swarming them a jungle--what's the conclusion?

AT-AT walkers were canonically defeated by wrapping a cable around their legs and watching them comically trip and explodde. Of course, the real world also has missiles. See the TIE fighter result.

And do we have anything capable of tying them up? And why do I see no justification for the notion that modern battlefield munitions could harm them?

[Mobius IO]

Just because the walkers were tripped up with logs doesn't equate to modern munitions being easily able to hurt them. Hell, modern military vehicles could get foiled by nasty terrain or even sand clogging up the works, and that doesn't mean that Roman Legoinaires could take them on. Now, concentrated fire could down AT-STs, which is where your numbers point comes in, and that I agree with.

I'm talking about the AT-ST that was crushed by the two logs. If they cannot withstand that them modern kinetic rounds are going to make short work of them.

I'm not saying the AT-ST's and Storm Troopers won't inflict casualties just that they are not overwhelmingly more powerful then modern weapons so they're not going to provide the advantage the drastically outnumbered empire needs.

AT-AT's may be (although I have my doubts) but even then their highly limited mobility keep them from being decisive, so it comes down to the Tie fighters.

While it may be possible they could subdue the Earth alone I don't think it is at all a given. As I tried to point out modern military aircraft take a lot of upkeep and maintenance. Is there any reason to believe Tie fighters are different?

Also I don't remember seeing any kilometer wide explosions from fighter scale lasers/blasters in any of the movies. So I find the idea that tie fighters can destroy wholes cities very dubious.

[The Vortex Empire]

How powerful were the snowspeeder blasters? They were just about harmless to the AT-ATs, and I believe they're canonically in the kiloton range. (Could be wrong about this) If that's the case, then we would need at least many nukes to take them out. Of course, a single nuke would likely knock them over even if they weren't damaged by it, rendering them useless.