One ISD in ST galaxy (serious)

[Patrick Degan]

How effective would the ISD's hyperdrive be in the ST Galaxy without star maps and such? Their first goal would be to get a hold of some in order to make their hyperdrive jumps accurate and safe, yes?

OK, let's say you're lost in a strange galaxy and you want to be able to find your way about. What's the first thing you do? Find the landmarks.

In this case, you identify key astronomical phenomena: the galactic core, pulsars, supernovae, black holes (powerful X-ray sources). Upon these, you can triangulate positional markers and have sufficent information to form a rudimentary grid coordinate system. From there, you deploy probe droids and employ your navicomps to calculate true positions for the aforementioned phenomena compensating for redshift and stellar drift over the centuries/millenia. From those building blocks and probe data it is possible to fill in the details for a navigational chart.

The Federation com traffic would provide beacons for civilised planets for the ISD crew to identify and locate.

[Vertigo1]

And if you want to know why: AQ has no planetary shields,

Thats not true at all. Earth has a planetary shield as demonstrated in ST:TMP and ST:TVH. It's mentioned as "planetary defenses".

[Vertigo1]

How effective would the ISD's hyperdrive be in the ST Galaxy without star maps and such? Their first goal would be to get a hold of some in order to make their hyperdrive jumps accurate and safe, yes?

Here's a hint: if you don't want to get flames, familiarize yourself with old standby arguments and their stock rebuttals, so you that you don't make an ass out of yourself by rehashing one of the oldest fucking stupid Trekkie arguments in existence. For the umpteenth time, with ordinary telescopes and probe droids they can easily make their way, dumb-ass. How the fuck do you think we know where the stars in our galaxy are?

Excuse me Mr. Wong, but there's a HUGE flaw in your little quip. See, telescopes are all fine and good, but it takes TIME to map stars. We've been mapping stars for CENTURIES and we have only mapped a small portion of our galaxy. The only viable method I know of that they could obtain a ready-to-use map is to either board a vessel and steal it or purchase one from a trader. That way the crew wouldn't die of old age before they found out where Earth is.

[SirNitram]

And if you want to know why: AQ has no planetary shields,

Thats not true at all. Earth has a planetary shield as demonstrated in ST:TMP and ST:TVH. It's mentioned as "planetary defenses".

And it canonly takes less firepower than a BDZ to drop it.

[Ender]

nope. Sorry. BDZ is only in the books. The books are not canon.

No but they are official. Hence, allowed. Just because the Trek EU in not counted, does not mean this is true for all series. You are committing the fallacy of "generalizing from self"*.

On the other hand, the fact that you seem to know what a BDZ is means ou are simply trying to apply your personal opinions as to what the standards should be. The is the fallacy of "I am the world".

Plus the fact that you simply feel that a short response refutes all the other posts without the need to actually disprove their validity simply indicates you are yet another lousey debator who comes in here reciting DITL and old defeated arguments; assuming that we will all crumble and admit that yes, hyperdrives only go 1.5C, that nav shields would block lasers, and that lost tech would be fully implemented on every Feddie ship so that they could take out the Xeelee with ease.

We need trek debators for this place to survive, but we do not need morons and trolls.

In closing, Blow Me.

*source "Chapter 9: You are wrong because...", The Joy of Work, Scott Adams

[Ender]

That's how we know about the stars in our galaxy, but we don't know as much info from just telescopes as an ISD would need. The ISD would need to know where the subspace "things" are (in ST that's every other light year) and the local conditions like Gavaity.

That is why telescopes are mentioned in conjunction with probe droids. As for the anomaly of the week, no they wouldn't. ISDs travel in Hyperspace, as is clearly shown in ROTJ, not Realspace like Trek ships do.

Tell me, have you even seen the movies, or are you just DarkStar under another name? Either case would not really suprise me.

[SPOOFE]

nope. Sorry. BDZ is only in the books. The books are not canon.

George Lucas says otherwise... the EU intrudes in between the movies. So until you can provide a canon quote that says "BDZ is not possible", the EU stays.

See, telescopes are all fine and good, but it takes TIME to map stars. We've been mapping stars for CENTURIES and we have only mapped a small portion of our galaxy.

Flaw in your logic: We've accomplished more in the past ten YEARS than we have in the previous ten centuries.

We've mapped quite accurately the surrounding 100 lightyears or so. So they only need to map ahead twenty or thirty lightyears at a time (to be safe). It'll take 'em a few days to map out the Alpha Quadrant.

[seanrobertson]

George Lucas says otherwise... the EU intrudes in between the movies. So until you can provide a canon quote that says "BDZ is not possible", the EU stays.

Precisely.

And as Michael has said, it is utterly STUPID to think that ships in the Imperial Navy are limited to miniscule total firepower when we have the Death Star's planet-cracking energies in Ep. IV and VI. The Death Star is simply a massive compound turbolaser, built on a scale far larger than any Imperator's heavy guns. Scale that superlaser down to the
size of such a warship, and one needn't speculate as to the likelihood
of Base Delta Zero level firepower: it becomes apparent immediately.

Sean
Analyst http://www.babtech-onthe.net/

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Excuse me Mr. Wong, but there's a HUGE flaw in your little quip. See, telescopes are all fine and good, but it takes TIME to map stars. We've been mapping stars for CENTURIES and we have only mapped a small portion of our galaxy. The only viable method I know of that they could obtain a ready-to-use map is to either board a vessel and steal it or purchase one from a trader. That way the crew wouldn't die of old age before they found out where Earth is.

The ability to map stars is closely related to your technological level. Most of the problem there is that we can't even SEE the stars until recently, because our instruments are not sensitive enough. All one really needs to do is plot bearings and elevations (there are two beautiful equivalent terms in astronomy for these, but they escape me for now) of stars and other, more unique phenomena. Then they move a short distance to obtain a parallax solution. Then you have a map of the observable universe that you can begin using.

[Darth Wong]

Excuse me Mr. Wong, but there's a HUGE flaw in your little quip. See, telescopes are all fine and good, but it takes TIME to map stars. We've been mapping stars for CENTURIES and we have only mapped a small portion of our galaxy. The only viable method I know of that they could obtain a ready-to-use map is to either board a vessel and steal it or purchase one from a trader. That way the crew wouldn't die of old age before they found out where Earth is.

You're a fucking moron. Did they have modern technology throughout all those centuries? The reason it took so long was that they were figuring out the tricks and techniques for the first time! If we had to start over with modern technology and knowledge of astrophysics, we'd obviously be orders of magnitude faster. I can't believe the dumb-shits they allow to operate computers nowadays ...

[Master of Ossus]

How effective would the ISD's hyperdrive be in the ST Galaxy without star maps and such? Their first goal would be to get a hold of some in order to make their hyperdrive jumps accurate and safe, yes?

Here's a hint: if you don't want to get flames, familiarize yourself with old standby arguments and their stock rebuttals, so you that you don't make an ass out of yourself by rehashing one of the oldest fucking stupid Trekkie arguments in existence. For the umpteenth time, with ordinary telescopes and probe droids they can easily make their way, dumb-ass. How the fuck do you think we know where the stars in our galaxy are?

Excuse me Mr. Wong, but there's a HUGE flaw in your little quip. See, telescopes are all fine and good, but it takes TIME to map stars. We've been mapping stars for CENTURIES and we have only mapped a small portion of our galaxy. The only viable method I know of that they could obtain a ready-to-use map is to either board a vessel and steal it or purchase one from a trader. That way the crew wouldn't die of old age before they found out where Earth is.

Idiot! The Empire mapped and conquered 150 sectors in less than a decade. Hapan forces were able to move out of their cluster into the Galaxy at large mere days after re-emerging into the Galaxy for the first time in centuries, perhaps longer. And it is clear from Traitor that the YV use hyperspace. It is obvious that mapping new territory takes very little time in SW (at least, mapping it to an extent where hyperspace travel is relatively easy).

[tharkûn]

1.
a. Personally I see no reason to risk the ISD in any fashion whatsoever. Sell some tech to the Ferengi and buy some bioweapons (which *Quark* once "sold") if you don't have them onboard to begin with. Send out small hyperdrive capable shuttles, fighters, whatevers and deploy the bioweapons on outlying worlds and some on major population centres. Your preferred bioweapon is highly contagious with a long (several week) incubation period and higly mutagenic (i.e. something with an error prone polymerase like HIV). Some worlds, like earth, may have the medical facilities and compotent staff to combat mass biological warfare. The outlying systems are going to start falling quick and SF will organize medical releif missions ... read easy pickings.

By all appearences the Feddies have crap in terms of counter biowarfare operations (how many times have we seen the E-D act as a medical courier and her crew respond poorly to biological agents)? With a long incubation period and a suitably subtle virus that makes in through the swiss cheese "biofilters" you should be able to seriously deplete federation man power. With a nasty virus most systems will end up in quarantine. If you start blowing the subspace relay system at this point most systems will end up on their own and anybody not infected will keep possibly infected crews the hell out. At this point the AQ is fragmented and seriously depleted.

b. Send the Borg a small gift - a shuttle (or whatever) that is hyperdrive equiped and has all the information needed to replicate the hyperdrive planted in the computer. If possible make it look like new feddie tech (i.e. throw a few dead ensigns in the shuttle, a slew of federation phasers/tricorders/assorted junk and talk about some ubersecret federation research project in the "captain's log"). Let the Borg do the messy work of mopping up the AQ for you, some fates are indeed worse than death (and if the E-E, Janeway et. al are able to start beating the now hyperdrive equiped Borg, just hype in and ahem "even" the odds).

All told the feddies are spread thin with a rather nasty plague, the borg are now attacking with multiple cubes, and you've been an ass and started cutting communications =). Given the Riker from the one parrallel universe if the Borg do conqueor the AQ they don't leave that many survivors ... which is quite good.

Risk to the ISD: 0
Chances the AQ will be assimilated in near total: High
Vegeance factor for messing with the empire: Very High

bonus points for being able to hype to another galaxy and live the good life.

2.
If the numbers I found on the web are right SF does have a hope against a single ISD, a lousy chance I'm sure, but it's better-than-nothing. We've seen the E-D accelerate a moon massing about 6 * 10^13 kg. The common figures for an ISD I found from Google were about 25 million tons which, if I'm converting right, is 2.5 * 10^10 kg. So the ISD would be about 1/1000th of the mass of of the moon in "Deja Q". So the only way I can see for a collection of GCS, SCS, etc. is to tractor the ISD and push it somewhere bad (like the centre of the sun, a blockhole, etc.). This will of course mean high casualties (as in get a tractor lock, push, kiss you ass goodbye as you get blown to smithereens, then the next ship repeats the procedure). Mike's numbers say an ISD can accelerate at about 30 km/s/s so if we assume Geordi is right and each GCS can push with enough force to acheive 4 km/s/s of acceleration against a moon with massing 1000 times as much, they should be able to push hard enough to acheive 4000 km/s/s of acceleration (and yes I'm just using Newton's F = ma). So the question then becomes how fast can I keep the GCS's pushing before being blown to shreads?

I don't know. But assuming the weapons are useless, I don't have enough mass to ram the sucker, and I can't find some treknobabble to save my ass I'd go for pushing the ISD into:
1. A nice blackhole. Not likely (you'd have to get a tractor up, go to warp and fly into a blackhole ... all without the ISD managing to escape).
2. The centre of the sun. Possible, but assuming respectable rates of fire from the ISD you'd need a *lot* of GCS, etc. to push the sucker from say earth to the sun.
3. Planetside. An orbiting ISD's gravitational potential energy is about 5*10^18 joules if its orbiting at about 20,000 km and I'm doing the calc right. Which is roughly equivalent to 50,000 heavy TL shots. No idea how much of that energy would be go into breaking apart the ISD (as oppposed to the planet it hits), but if enough goes in ... it would do the trick.

So here's my best half-assed feddie tactic. Use your cap ships to push the ISD into a gravity well. Screw weapons and sheilds as they don't matter all that much anways. Just try to push/pull the sucker *down*. You are still going to end up losing billions of people if you do down the sucker, but they are going to die anyways, at least you have some faint hope of killing the sucker.

Its one thing I've always wondered about all sci-fi battles that occur in orbit ... one good solid push downward should kill most ships, yet nobody big has ever done it to the best of my recollection.

[tharkûn]

Who *cares* how long it takes to map the galaxy ... its not like you can't *buy* a bloody map. Assume the Empire knows about the Ferengi ... make a small detour there. Offer not to kill them in mass and some nice shiny AT-AT's for a map to the neighborhood. And I pretty damn sure the Ferengi's would be broadcasting their location throughout the known galaxy to attract customers.

[Master of Ossus]

Who *cares* how long it takes to map the galaxy ... its not like you can't *buy* a bloody map. Assume the Empire knows about the Ferengi ... make a small detour there. Offer not to kill them in mass and some nice shiny AT-AT's for a map to the neighborhood. And I pretty damn sure the Ferengi's would be broadcasting their location throughout the known galaxy to attract customers.

I've always thought of the "buy a map" idea as fairly stupid, as it relies on outside forces and their cooperation. I have also found the idea that "The Empire can't map areas cause they haven't had to for a long time" enormously stupid, as it ignores a multitude of official evidence.

[tharkûn]

Why is buying a map stupid? Its been done for thousands of years. Are maps classified info? No (barring say ones with the location of nuclear subs and such). Its the quickest, cheapest way to get the basics. Why waste resources doing the work yourself when somebody else can do it cheaper and quicker?

[Master of Ossus]

Why is buying a map stupid? Its been done for thousands of years. Are maps classified info? No (barring say ones with the location of nuclear subs and such). Its the quickest, cheapest way to get the basics. Why waste resources doing the work yourself when somebody else can do it cheaper and quicker?

I just think that it relies on outside forces unnecessarily. You are ignoring my points. It takes no resources, or insignificant resources, to map a bit of space. You further have no evidence that it would be cheaper and quicker to buy a map because you have no idea how long it would take. It took the Hapans an insignificant amount of time, and an insignificant amount of resources. Why pay for something you can do for practically nothing? Further, say that you go to the Ferengi. Logically you would need something to give them in exchange for a map. Now, the Empire has massive amounts of things to give the Ferengi for a map (like a hyperdrive, weapons, etc), but why would they care? Why should they have to? They can just map the area themselves quickly and easily.

[Mr Bean]

They can just map the area themselves quickly and easily.

Each Probe they send out increase the chances of detection and interception meaning the Feddys know somthings up

and that ruins the envoutal Hype in and BDZ Earth plan as a Visable sign then a few days later massive plauges start tearing through everyone else popluations?
That would scare them beyond anything else
(Espcialy if you got the Bajor, and the other Race home planets too)

[Master of Ossus]

They can just map the area themselves quickly and easily.

Each Probe they send out increase the chances of detection and interception meaning the Feddys know somthings up

and that ruins the envoutal Hype in and BDZ Earth plan as a Visable sign then a few days later massive plauges start tearing through everyone else popluations?
That would scare them beyond anything else
(Espcialy if you got the Bajor, and the other Race home planets too)

The Hapans did not use probes. The point is irrelevent.

The real point is that the Empire can almost certainly map something without devoting any strategic or even tactical assets to the job, AND they can do so without risking detection. Not even SW technology was able to detect the Hapan efforts to map the Galaxy in The Courtship of Princess Leia, that is why the Hapans caught Zsinj by surprise.

[Mr Bean]

The real point is that the Empire can almost certainly map something without devoting any strategic or even tactical assets to the job, AND they can do so without risking detection. Not even SW technology was able to detect the Hapan efforts to map the Galaxy in The Courtship of Princess Leia, that is why the Hapans caught Zsinj by surprise.

Err what are you refering to?
I've got the book handy but what are you talking about in particular as its kinda hard to scan the firs 140 pages(When they are not on Dathmir) in vaine hope I'll grasp your logic

Please Ossus help me out here what are you refering to?

[Master of Ossus]

Okay. At the start of the book, it is stated that the Hapans have not left their little POS cluster in millenia, and have just taken steps to re-establish contact with the NR. They send out an expedition from all of their worlds, and make their gifts to Leia. During their centuries lying dormant in the Hapes Cluster, all of their maps would have become obsolete. They then jump to Dathomir, later, having never sent a probe there or it would have been easily detected by Zsinj and his ships in orbit around the planet. The entire Hapan fleet then jumps to Dathomir and engages Zsinj's battle group. This demonstrates that the Hapans were easily able to map things using only sensors or similar, or else that detailed maps are not needed (only calculations). This is shown because the Hapans mapped the Galaxy so quickly in their ability to move to Coruscant to re-establish contact, and their ability to move rapidly to Dathomir, which is understood to be some distance from Coruscant.

[tharkûn]

1. As I recall the Hapans had inordinately more than 1 ISD, further did it say they mapped the galaxy or is that just assumed?
2. Maps are bloody cheap, were aren't talking the crown jewels here, we are talking about something just about every trading vessel in the Galaxy has on hand and can reproduce for *nothing*.
3. Making your own maps does take time and resources. You are looking for planets, not stars. Finding the stars is dirt simple, finding the ones with sub-Jovian planets requires significantly better data (using modern techniques we have found *0* stars with Earth type planets).
4. Intercepting com-traffic means two things: 1 its omni directional, if subspace shoots in a straight line, planet to planet your chances of intercepting those communications is nil. 2 the imps can read the FTL signals and discern those from the background ... all from a random point in space.

Some planets/place undoubtedly broadcast their location hoping to maximize their signal, however these are not likely to be the federation core worlds. Further some of the heavy points of com traffic are going to be unmanned. Computers generate far more traffic than humans even today. In the federation your heaviest points of traffic are likely to be relay stations which are most likely to be in the nether regions of space.

The fact of the matter is finding *planets* from the interstellar void is not going to be trivial unless they are broadcasting with intent to maximize their signal. The wobble caused by large planets (i.e. Jupitor and Satern) is still very slight, we find perhaps a dozen or so a year at current rate. The wobble caused by habitable planets is going to be *orders of magnitude* less so you need *much* more sensative measurements and that *will* take time unless there is some treknobabble reason why not.

Anyway despite 10k years of mapping in Imp space you still have "unknown regions" if its so damn easy why haven't they done that in *10,000* years?

Could an ISD eventually map out the federation? Sure. In a timely fashion? Likely not, unless they have some treknobabble device to do it.

[Master of Ossus]

I assumed that the Hapans either created maps, or did not need them, from the circumstances of the thing. This was also, kind of, demonstrated in BFC when the Yevethan fleets were able to move out of their cluster of worlds without any problems, but they had been able to capture Imperial navi-computers, and so with them their maps. On the other hand, seeing as how the NR did not even know where they were coming from at the start of the trilogy it strikes me as being inconsistent that the NR fleet was able to move into Yevethan territory without first mapping the region (if it is even necessary).

The Hapans did have more than 1 ISD, but the speed at which they were able to "map" vast tracks of the Galaxy without any real forethought appears to indicate that it was simple and VERY fast.

Finally, the Unknown Regions are explainable by a combination of factors and theories.
1. No one has cared to explore, because there has been no reason to. This is actually supported by considerable evidence.
2. They are "mapped" but no one has cared enough to actually go through and thoroughly explore the planets (or similar). This is supported by the fact that the OR sent an expedition swinging through the Unknown Regions in an effort to move outside the Galaxy (Outbound Flight). The expedition was then intercepted by Thrawn and some of his forces.
3. The Unknown Regions are primarily termed Unknown not because they are not "mapped," but because they present some kind of a navigational hazard. This is possible, but not really supported by the evidence.
4. The Unknown Regions are unknown because they have never been formally surveyed. This is also possible, but somewhat unlikely.
5. The Unknown Regions are mapped but they have isolated themselves through a combination of location, lack of resources, and attacking intruding vessels. This is also supported by considerable evidence, and is not in any way unprecedented in SW. For instance, the Hapes Cluster (which keeps coming up in this debate, despite its lack of importance in the grand scheme of things) purposely isolated itself until it had been removed from starcharts and hyperspace lanes, attacking ships that DID happen to wander into it.

[tharkûn]

I assumed that the Hapans either created maps, or did not need them, from the circumstances of the thing.
Umm the Hapans had *captured* Imperial ships, right? Ones with *intact* navigational computers? The simplest explanation is some Imperial ship wandered into the Hapes Cluster, got its ass kicked and they used *that* ship's computer records. Remember *every* ship capable of crossing the galaxy has maps. Once the Hapans capture *1* ship they have a map to the galaxay.

This was also, kind of, demonstrated in BFC when the Yevethan fleets were able to move out of their cluster of worlds without any problems, but they had been able to capture Imperial navi-computers, and so with them their maps.
And this doesn't apply to the Hapans also? They brought imperial ships to Leia as I recall. If *one* of those ships was captured with an intact nav computer, then that is where they got their map.

For instance, the Hapes Cluster (which keeps coming up in this debate, despite its lack of importance in the grand scheme of things) purposely isolated itself until it had been removed from starcharts and hyperspace lanes
Do you have any idea how ludicrious this is? Star charts do *not* go away because nobody goes there, you *can't* stop a star 100 lightyears away from ending up in some astronomer's telescope ... even if you black out the sun it is still visible for 100 years. Given that imperial space contains stars thousands of lightyears away ... it would take *far* longer than 1000 years if they used <trecknobabble> which magically stopped the light from shining before they wouldn't show up star charts.

"1. No one has cared to explore, because there has been no reason to. This is actually supported by considerable evidence. "
Doesn't matter. We are talking about light from a teloscope. If you are looking for something you need to tack off what's already there. For instance when they went looking for comets the made a list of things that weren't comets, but appeared similar. If you are using teloscopes to find *anything* (i.e. comets, blackholes, brown dwarves) its a *really* good idea to have a list of everything else.

"2. They are "mapped" but no one has cared enough to actually go through and thoroughly explore the planets (or similar). This is supported by the fact that the OR sent an expedition swinging through the Unknown Regions in an effort to move outside the Galaxy (Outbound Flight). The expedition was then intercepted by Thrawn and some of his forces. "
I thought Outbound Flight was to go to other galaxies (which is rather startling considering the standard distance between galaxies is not too much larger than a galactic diametre). If the star's aren't on the star charts we can throw this one out. If you need to send "thoroughly explore" a region or send a whole frikking expedition (as opposed to a simple droid) ... then it is by no means trivial for an ISD to do it.

"4. The Unknown Regions are unknown because they have never been formally surveyed. This is also possible, but somewhat unlikely. "
Again it comes down to can you hype into these regions, do you know where habitable planets are? If not then its just another sign that 1 ISD doesn't have the resources to quickly and cheaply map a whole section of space.

"5. The Unknown Regions are mapped but they have isolated themselves through a combination of location, lack of resources, and attacking intruding vessels. "
This does not get you off the star charts. In the 1400's maps had "here be there dragons" and other voids, this had *nothing* to do with places where ships would be attacked. Indeed up till Perry landed in Japan one simply didn't go ashore into Japan (except at one port) ... yet it was still on the maps.

The fact of the matter is mapping is going to take time and effort. The emporer, a known psychotic megalomaniac, didn't bother to map these regions, so the most likely conclusion is that its not trivial to find every planet. Most likely mapping requires virtually nothing to find the stars, a little more effort to find the ones with gas giants, and lots more effort to find the ones with masses corresponding to earth class planets.

All told I'm sure the imperials could map the galaxy, but I'm also sure it would be easier to buy it. I mean seriously it likely wouldn't cost more than a cold beer (and maybe the use of a nubile young woman) to a lowly navigator on a lousy freighter. Tactical maps (like the bigot stuff for Normandy) yes, those one cannot buy. But ones showing where cities (planets), countries (empires), etc. are ... those are dirt cheap, hell we give them away for *free* at visitor information centres.

[SPOOFE]

I think it's entirely plausible to assume that the Imperials have sensing technology that's at least on par with the Hubble telescope. The Hubble, of course, is capable of resolving images that are billions of lightyears away. I see no problems with the Imperials mapping out an around of a hundred lightyears or so in either direction, rather rapidly.

[Enforcer Talen]

doesn't vader sent out thousands of probe droids to find settlements? they can look at a new star, zip there, take pictures, and send them back. if anyone has a chance of capturing them, they explode. little chance of assuming their's a big bad starship plotting domination behind a small explosion dozens of light yrs away.

then the isd goes and has fun. doesn't even need to contact an information broker.