40K Terminators in a Imperial star destroyer

[NecronLord]

Any evidence Imperial Star Destroyers actually use that system?

No.

An ISD self-destruct is seen in Wraith Squadron and is done by verbal commands to the computer by the Admiral.

Excellent. The librarian can mind-fuck the CO and make him blow up the ship then?

[Crazedwraith]

An ISD self-destruct is seen in Wraith Squadron and is done by verbal commands to the computer by the Admiral.

Excellent. The librarian can mind-fuck the CO and make him blow up the ship then?

Nothing in the text implies they couldn't.

Here's the passage.

Admiral Trigit walked at a fast clip towards the cluster of Interceptors remaining in the now cavernously empty TIE hangar. He spoke into his comlink. "Main computer. Verify identity by voice print. Code omega-one. Prepare self destruct."
"Verfiy self-distruct"
"Apwar Trigit commands self-destruct"
"Confirmed. Verify timing."
The mechanic on duty opened the access port to Trigit's Interceptor. The Admiral climbed in, still talking. "Five minutes from mark. Mark."
"Confirmed. Timer running. Verify resources."
"All remaining power. All weapon systems capacitance. All fuel reserves."
"Confirmed. Self-destruct operation"

Though I should note, the vessel in question in not technically Imperial. Its part of Warlord Zsinj's fleet.

[Steel]

Firstly, why would the primary objective of the marines be to destroy the ship considering they're aboard it because it has been crippled by overwhelming force?

Secondly, why is there all this focus on whether Space Marines are good at boarding actions? Marines board ships. Space Marines board...

SM should be vastly better onboard a ship than on the ground, because they have all the firepower, toughness and concentration of force they have on the ground yet the enemy is hamstrung because they cant use numbers or their heavy weapons or tanks or artillery against them.

I think I've said before that its a waste to use troops like this in normal fighting in a ground war. This is the kind of thing they were made to do.

10 is far too few to take the ship through force in this context, although if you put a company or two onboard at strategic locations then most of the crew could be massacred/contained pretty quickly before they could organise resistance.

Terminators are deployed to vessels in more than squad strenght, a space hulk book mentions that 4(?) empty boarding craft were left behind after the fighting on one hulk as the marines from them were dead. That means at least 20 were killed, and so significantly more were deployed.

[NecronLord]

Firstly, why would the primary objective of the marines be to destroy the ship considering they're aboard it because it has been crippled by overwhelming force?

Because the Inquisition commands it. Do not question the Inquisition.

[Feil]

The Carrack is (according to Wookiepedia) a Clone Wars era design manufactured by one Damorian Manufacturing Corporation. The Star Destroyer, on the other hand, is an Empire era warship manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards. There's not much reason to think they would have a standardized means of scuttling the ship.

[NecronLord]

The Carrack is (according to Wookiepedia) a Clone Wars era design manufactured by one Damorian Manufacturing Corporation. The Star Destroyer, on the other hand, is an Empire era warship manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards.

The Imperator class is a Clone Wars era design, just a later one.

There's not much reason to think they would have a standardized means of scuttling the ship.

They are vessels in the same navy operating under the same regulations and safety procedures, maintained by the same people, crewed by people from the same academies and designed by the same Republic. Of course there's reason to think if one procedure is applied on an Imperial ship, it would apply on others with those applied.

Never mind, we know that the CO can be tortured/mentally compelled into blowing up the ship.

It's still a single point of failure, reasonably expected to be found on the bridge, that a space marine boarding party can exploit.

[Srelex]

Have Space Marines ever done such a thing in actual canon? I mean, even if 40k ships don't have big red buttons, they could still use psykers to have tech-priests overload the reactor cores or something?

[Falkenhayn]

Have Space Marines ever done such a thing in actual canon? I mean, even if 40k ships don't have big red buttons, they could still use psykers to have tech-priests overload the reactor cores or something?

Well, Space Marines haven't. But in Ravenor, Gideon drags his Delta-level psyker ass out of his Professor X chair, casts his warp-self across space, through the raised shields and hull of his target, and possesses the officer in charge of the void shields. He drops the shields over the bridge in neat coincidence with the arriving torpedo salvo.

Granted he could have just roasted the brains of the whole bridge crew, but I guess he felt like a toss.

[Lord Revan]

Isn't Terminator armor extremely rare and valuable? IIRC Space Marine Chapters have dispatched squads to retrieve equipment before. After loosing two squads of Termies aboard the ISD they might switch to standard marines + Apothecaries to recover Equipment and geenseed and only destroy the ship once that's done.

Yes, a Chapter often only has enough for the First Company.

wasn't that first company and few senior personel (like chapter master)?

[Aaron]

wasn't that first company and few senior personel (like chapter master)?

Yeah. Depends on the Chapter. The Space Wolves for example seem to distribute Terminator armour to the Wolf Guard, who I gather are the squad who follow the Company Commander around.

Edit: Along with some of the Chaplains and Librarians.

[Black Admiral]

wasn't that first company and few senior personel (like chapter master)?

Depends on the Chapter, largely; some restrict the use of Terminator armour to the First Company alone, others (Crimson Fists and White Consuls are the first to spring to mind) issue it to senior Captains and other specialists as well, and others (like the above-mentioned Space Wolves) don't pay any attention to the Codex at all when issuing their Terminator armour.

[andrewgpaul]

Firstly, why would the primary objective of the marines be to destroy the ship considering they're aboard it because it has been crippled by overwhelming force?

Because the Inquisition commands it. Do not question the Inquisition.

Fuck the Inquisition. The Red Scorpions left an Inquisitor to die on a Tyranid-infested moon after they got in a huff over their Chapter Master's Thunderhawk getting shot down. If he tries to get two members of the Chapter's elite to kill themselves for no good reason, the answer will probably be "do it yourself".

It's possible that they had conflicting instructions, right enough; the Inquisitor in question was set up by rivals, and they could have told Commander Culln to leave him there. Still, unless it's a particularly important Inquisitor, and the Marine Chapter is fairly unimportant, the Inquisitor asks, not orders.

[Cykeisme]

Astartes chapters have no duty or obligation to follow the orders of the Inquisition; it's just that most of the time, their objectives tend to be in line with each other (for the good of the Imperium and the Emperor's flock), so they get along pretty well.. most of the time.

Anyway, back to the OP.
We've established that they're on fairly even ground, and either side has a decent chance of winning if the other makes a mistake.
It states that the Terminators' general objective is to disable the Imperator. Can we sort of list out what the specific objectives will be? What will need to be accomplished, and in what locations on the ship?

[NecronLord]

Fuck the Inquisition. The Red Scorpions left an Inquisitor to die on a Tyranid-infested moon after they got in a huff over their Chapter Master's Thunderhawk getting shot down. If he tries to get two members of the Chapter's elite to kill themselves for no good reason, the answer will probably be "do it yourself".

It's possible that they had conflicting instructions, right enough; the Inquisitor in question was set up by rivals, and they could have told Commander Culln to leave him there. Still, unless it's a particularly important Inquisitor, and the Marine Chapter is fairly unimportant, the Inquisitor asks, not orders.

Do you think I don't know this? The point is that the OP says the ship must be 'disabled' and it's pretty clear that 'totally destroyed' is sufficient in this context. The point of my utterance was that the motives don't matter. They want to fuck up the ISD, this is the best and fastest way to fuck it up.

Astartes chapters have no duty or obligation to follow the orders of the Inquisition;

Actually they do have a duty. They have the de-facto power to get away with saying no (until they piss off enough Inquisitors to be purged), but in legal terms any Inquisitor may order a space marine chapter to do whatever he wants. Refusing an Inquisitor, even for a space marine, is treason. Space marine chapters are not sovereign entities. They can simply get away with saying no, most of the time. There is a reason the unforgiven chapters stay on tiptoes around the Inquisition. The Inquisition (collectively) has the legal authority and means to annihilate a Space Marine chapter and have its name erased from history, its gene-seed reserves destroyed, and anything else they want to do.

Anyway, back to the OP.
We've established that they're on fairly even ground, and either side has a decent chance of winning if the other makes a mistake.
It states that the Terminators' general objective is to disable the Imperator. Can we sort of list out what the specific objectives will be? What will need to be accomplished, and in what locations on the ship?

If it's atomised it's utterly disabled.

[Korgeta]

Okay, I wondered what would happen if a squad of 10 Warhammer 40,000 Terminators somehow got onto a Imperial star destroyer, which had all the resources and soldiers onboard as they normally do. The terminators get to pick 2 of there regular wargear (Chainfist, Assault cannon, Cyclone missile launcher, Heavy Flamer) and the star destroyer is a regular star destroyer. They are tasked with disabling the star destroyer.

My opinion is that they would plow through the star destroyer with minimal losses, but considering that i'm not as well versed in Star wars as I am in 40K I could be wrong. I'd like to hear your peoples opinions, please.

From what it sounds and whatIi know of the two, the insides of the star destroyer will be utterly trashed. Close quarter combat against these kind of space marines would be suicide. The stormtroopers will have to be on the defensive, sealing off blockading vital areas, planting bombs or luring them to a area where they will have the tactical advantage. Close up exchange fire is like arming han solo with a water squirter and sending him off to fight darth vader.

[Darksider]

It's not you know. A manual control sure beats R2D2 detonating them remotely. (World Devastators)

Nitpick. The World Devastators were mainly automatons rather than starships. They were essentially giant droid factories with minimal personnel on board, and they were controlled via a remote signal because Palpatine didn't want anyone turning his latest superweapons against him. Also, R2 was not able to make them self-destruct. He was able to briefly shut them down, and when the crews were finally able to re-activate them, he hacked their targeting protocols and turned them on each other.

[NecronLord]

Nitpick. The World Devastators were mainly automatons rather than starships. They were essentially giant droid factories with minimal personnel on board,

That's wrong for a start. They contained such things as staff offices and recreation areas. They had a full crew including naval security and stormtroopers, and used slave labour. ("War Technology more lethal than the Death Star" - Dark Empire #2) There is no reason to think their crew was 'minimal' especially compared to something like a Confederacy of Independant Systems ship.

and they were controlled via a remote signal because Palpatine didn't want anyone turning his latest superweapons against him. Also, R2 was not able to make them self-destruct. He was able to briefly shut them down, and when the crews were finally able to re-activate them, he hacked their targeting protocols and turned them on each other.

The point is that it's a weakness; they can be easily destroyed by a breach in information security (and letting untrustworthy people have the codes is a breach in info security). A ship where you have to have two men on the bridge to destroy it is more secure than that.

If you preffer, I could say the Eclipse II, which was destroyed by R2-D2 plugging into it and taking control. Having a physical lever that has to be pulled is actually one of the better Star Wars security measures.

[Dark Hellion]

You know I actually doubt that the Terminators can accomplish this at all without support from techmarines or other Ad Mech personnel. ISDs have secondary bridges and controls and can simply just crank the artificial gravity up to ridiculous in whatever portion of the ship the terminators are on. Its not like the Imperials give a shit about the mooks that will get turned into paste if it kills a squad of 11 foot tall walking tanks.

With Ad Mech support they can probably turn off the AG to the sections they are in, even if it is just by having the TechPriest/Marine find the physical location of that sections AG and chainfisting it out.

Despite the appearance most of the SM boarding actions I have seen don't simply use the SMs physical capabilities but make wide use of the superior tech that the SM have as well. Without it they are certainly tough but nearly every naval vessel of a galactic scale power will have assloads of defenders and automated anti-boarding protections that SM just don't have the numbers to deal with.

[NecronLord]

You know I actually doubt that the Terminators can accomplish this at all without support from techmarines or other Ad Mech personnel. ISDs have secondary bridges and controls and can simply just crank the artificial gravity up to ridiculous in whatever portion of the ship the terminators are on.

Proof? Please explain to me why this obvious tactic, which should be standard on warships if this were possible, was not used by say, General Grievous, or the commanders of Tantaive VI, or the Death Star...

I seem to recall some pirates in one book using that on Luke Skywalker in their asteroid belt; having had weeks knowing he was coming to set up the trap. But other than that, this is not shown in boarding actions.

[Srelex]

Speaking of Grievous and the Invisible Hand, would the ray shield trick work on Terminator boarders? Assuming ISDs have such things built in?

[Serafina]

Speaking of Grievous and the Invisible Hand, would the ray shield trick work on Terminator boarders? Assuming ISDs have such things built in?

That depends on the properties of the force field. If you can walk trough them but take damage by doing so, the Terminators might just be able to withstand it - their armor really can take a lot of damage. If it's a matter of strenght, they are also likely to be able to do it.
It seems unlikely that you can cut trough them with weapons, given that lightsabers were of no use.


Other than that, i doubt these energy traps are very common, else Jedi boarders would be in much more trouble and boarding actions in general would be much more difficult.

[Dark Hellion]

I'll concede I have no proof of it actually being done in any SW source I know of. I assumed it was possible since SW ships can accelerate at thousands of Gs without killing the crew but thinking about it they probably do that with magi-tech inertial dampeners instead of using their AG. It seems reasonably within the tech of SW to be able to do such a thing but their may be secondary reasons for why it isn't done. Perhaps cost of AG units with that power level or fear of enemy hacking.

If this isn't possible I'll concede on that point. Which then leads me to say that your teleport to the bridge plan should work pretty damn splendidly. Since taking out C&C and shutting down important enemy systems seems to be standard Space Marine SOP it is a very reasonable plan that should be very successful.

[NecronLord]

That depends on the properties of the force field. If you can walk trough them but take damage by doing so, the Terminators might just be able to withstand it - their armor really can take a lot of damage. If it's a matter of strenght, they are also likely to be able to do it.

Given that Stormtrooper Armour and mechas are supposedly earthed to be able to pass through ray shields, I wouldn't be surprised if terminator armour is earthed (especially given its original use as a reactor-servicing suit!) sufficiently to step through such things.

I'll concede I have no proof of it actually being done in any SW source I know of. I assumed it was possible since SW ships can accelerate at thousands of Gs without killing the crew but thinking about it they probably do that with magi-tech inertial dampeners instead of using their AG. It seems reasonably within the tech of SW to be able to do such a thing but their may be secondary reasons for why it isn't done. Perhaps cost of AG units with that power level or fear of enemy hacking.

Maybe it costs more to purchase gravity plates capable of exerting more force?

Incidentally, the pirates who trapped Luke in some kind of gravity trap were, IIRC, the Cavrilhu Pirates in Spectre of the Past.

[Ryan Thunder]

Aren't Terminators like 3 metres tall? Do we have any reason to believe they'd even fit through any of the doors or hallways?

[NecronLord]

Aren't Terminators like 3 metres tall? Do we have any reason to believe they'd even fit through any of the doors or hallways?

No they're not. Maybe two and a half tops. And take a look at the sizes of imperial corridors for me please.


And on the Excecutor. Plenty of headroom.