Planetoids attack the Empire ...

[Ubiquitous]

Do you have any evidence that Hypermissiles will for some reason not work on SW shielding?

[His Divine Shadow]

Do you have any evidence that Hypermissiles will for some reason not work on SW shielding?

Well, the fact that they are hullhugging should be it.

Achuultani shields where somewhat hull-hugging and this made it alot harder for the hypermissiles to do what they are supposed to do, jump in under the shield, there is no jumping in under the shield with SW shields, they'll most likely strike the shield due to the simple fact that it's so close to the ships hull.

[His Divine Shadow]

Simply plow through them with an Enachman drive. It'll smash all of them too close and let the planetoid go free.

Is that possible? why did they not do that to the achuultani ships if not? It sure looks like the easiest way to have gotten rid of them

[SylasGaunt]

Well plowing through them on Echanach won't do anything, it's dropping out of Echanach that does the whole shredding bit, and that they did do.

Firepower-wise it's hard to say on the effectiveness of imperial shields against a planetoid's energy weapons simply because of how unconventional they are.


As for the achuultani warhead.. it also only caused less than half of one percent combat impairment IIRC, and it was stated to be a 'chasm' not a crater, 20 kilometers deep. How much of that was empty space? We just don't know.

[XaLEv]

AGGGGHHH!!!!. A planetoid can destroy any conceivable fleet?!?!?
A planetoid would run out of ammunition before destroting the sort of fleet the Empire could field if it felt threatened.

One planetoid, maybe. There are two thousand here. And they can make more missiles if they need to.

A commonly agreed upon trait of vs. arguments is that reverse engineering of enemy technology should be impossible in the scale of the argument, are we just going to throw that out the window when it comes to the dahakverse?

No reason to do that.

Fact: Imperial materials technology is vastly inferior to Star Wars, shown in the favt that 10 gigaton warheads carved 20 kilometer craters in planetoid hulls, while Star Wars ships have taken far greater magnitudes of fire to unshielded hulls smaller in size than the aforementioned craters, without the complete destruction of the affected hull.

Conceded.

Fact: Star Wars has shown the capability to act within close distance of full scale permanent black holes, with no ill effects.

But not the capability to survive inside of a black hole.

Fact: Star Wars shield technology has taken collisions from mile long ships coming out of their hyperspace, without damage to the vessel hit.

And we have never seen an Imperial shield fail due to bombardment. All shield failures have been due to a missile slipping through an unprotected band and taking out the generator.

Opinion: there is no reason to believe that Star Wars shields will be completely ineffective against hyper missile fire,

Then you should have no problem proving that SW hyperspace is the same as Dahakverse hyperspace, or that SW shields block more than one hyperband.

and signifigant reason to believe it is capable of stopping planetoid energy weapon firepower.

Fourth Imperium Gravitonic disruptors can break molecular bonds; Fourth Empire and Fifth Imperium disruptors can break atomic bonds. When have SW shields demonstrated the ability to block gravity this strong? Fourth Empire and Fifth Imperium warp cannons project a cylindrical hyperfield which translates anything within it into hyper. Prove that SW shields can block such phenomena, and will not simply be translated along with anything else the beam touches.

That is, unless you consider the destuction of 60 km of Deathdealer, constructed with the aforementioned inferior materials technology, to be a much greater release of energy than 100 gigatons, which is not supported by the available evidence.

Deathdealer was destroyed by a gravitonic warhead, whose yields cannot be rated in such units as gigatons. Infact, it was torn in half. Deathdealer was around 120 km long intact.

Fact: The planetoids will have no idea of where to attack, and will have to perform signifigant reconnaissance before even knowing where to hit.

So they will.

Fact: Dahakverse shield technology has been shown to be inferior to Star Wars technology in one important respect; they are incapable of generating hull-conforming shields, and are forced to project a bubble some distance away from the hull.

The Fourth Imperium and Fourth Empire planetoids, perhaps, but there are ten Imperial Terras too. They, and their parasites, have both bubble shields and conformal shields reverse engineered from the Achuultani.

The empire would still be fucked by the tactical manuevrability and speed of planetoids, but the long term campaign wouldn't be nearly as one sided as you are suggesting.

Prove it.

[XaLEv]

Do you have any evidence that Hypermissiles will for some reason not work on SW shielding?

Well, the fact that they are hullhugging should be it.

Achuultani shields where somewhat hull-hugging and this made it alot harder for the hypermissiles to do what they are supposed to do, jump in under the shield, there is no jumping in under the shield with SW shields, they'll most likely strike the shield due to the simple fact that it's so close to the ships hull.

Earth's defense fleet was able to put hypermissiles inside of Achuultani ships(not between the hull and the shield), as evidenced by descriptions of Achuultani ships destroyed by gravitonic warheads collapsing in on themselves rather than being jerked to the side and bent around the site of detonation. There is also reason to believe that gravitonic warheads incorporate hyperspace phenomena: some Achuultani ships hit by gravitonics during the Siege of Earth were described as simply dissapearing; and the lack of sixteen supercompressed masses being left over after Iapetus was destroyed by Dahak Two. This suggests that any mass sucked into a warheads black hole is also translated into hyper.

[Captain Cyran]

Actually lets add some varierty. 990 Utu, 1000 Asgerd and 10 Imperial Terra.

I'm not even readin on after this....considering 5 Imperial Terra could wipe the floor with the Empire I think that is enough said...and How in God's name did the DS destroy a planetoid? Did it SOMEHOW manage to fire it's superlaser first considering that would be all they could do before it was turned into dust particals?

[Stormbringer]

Is that possible? why did they not do that to the achuultani ships if not? It sure looks like the easiest way to have gotten rid of them

It's entirely possible. The things is the pair of enormous black holes it uses to bend space tend to be harmful to planets. Dahak screwed up the orbit of Pluto arriving because he E-drive had been tampered with. Trying that right by Earth would be a no no.[/quote]

[SylasGaunt]

Plus there wasn't any Echanach capable ship near Earth.

But the thing with the Echanach drive is that it can shred your ships to.

[consequences]

Okay, for the fleet size, look at the Death Star 2. That was the equivalent volume of millions(exact number dependent on the scaling used to generate the DS2"s size) of ISDs built in a six month period, in near total secrecy, with no permanent construction facilities available, without affecting the Galactic economy. Scale up for production lines and permanent shipyards. Scale up for lack of secrecy needed. Scale up for full wartime production efforts. Without scaling, the Empire could afford to lose a million ISDs a month, while easily keeping pace with losses, and get around the crewing requirements with a combination of speed cloning with ysalimiri, flash imprinting techniques for skills, and droid controlled ships.
For the effect of Planetoid Weapons, a 4th Empire energy beam hit the Deathdealer, cut through the shields like butter, and destroyed 60 km of hull, but left the back half intact. This means they are not all-consuming implements of destruction.
For the upper limits of shields, we know that Iapetus accelerated to a few thousand kps was going to cut through 4th Imperium shields like butter, and that kinetic impacts in general were affected.
For strategic speed, we know that the Planetoids are going to have ftl speeds ranging from 720c toabout 3000c. The Empire can get its entire existing fleet plus the first months worth of crash building to meet them before they cross the Outer Rim. The Empire will know they are coming almost as soon as they penetrate the galaxy, due to the Holo-Comm network, and will be able to issue commands across the entire Empire in real-time.
For magazine capacity, we know that 16 planetoids exhausted a signifigant portion of their magazine capacity to destroy 200,000 ships.
We do not know the effects of Grav-well generators upon Planetoid drives, whether they be Gravitonic, Enchanach, or Hyper. It is likely that Grav well generators of sufficient number and strength will prevent Planetoid Hyper travel, and be dangerous for Enchanach ships to operate in, from the mutual suicide commited by two planetoids in Armageddon Inheritance which got too close while using the Enchanach drive, when their gravity wells merged briefly before detonating.
Question: For the purposes of this debate, what technology levl is in use for the Planetoids? Are they unaltered versions of the original hulls? Do the older ships have upgraded electronics, ammunition, shields, full refits to 5th Imperium status?

[consequences]

On a related question, which Death Star? Has the Galaxy Gun been built, or can it be completed in a reasonable amount of time? Has Centerpoint Staion been found and placed under Imperial control? Is Thrawn alive? Before I make assumptions on any of these issues I'd like to hear the Thread starters say.

[XaLEv]

Okay, for the fleet size, look at the Death Star 2. That was the equivalent volume of millions(exact number dependent on the scaling used to generate the DS2"s size) of ISDs built in a six month period, in near total secrecy, with no permanent construction facilities available, without affecting the Galactic economy. Scale up for production lines and permanent shipyards. Scale up for lack of secrecy needed. Scale up for full wartime production efforts. Without scaling, the Empire could afford to lose a million ISDs a month, while easily keeping pace with losses, and get around the crewing requirements with a combination of speed cloning with ysalimiri, flash imprinting techniques for skills, and droid controlled ships.

And your evidence that they can realistically scale up as you suggest?

For the effect of Planetoid Weapons, a 4th Empire energy beam hit the Deathdealer, cut through the shields like butter, and destroyed 60 km of hull, but left the back half intact. This means they are not all-consuming implements of destruction.

That was a gravitonic warhead, not a beam weapon.

For the upper limits of shields, we know that Iapetus accelerated to a few thousand kps was going to cut through 4th Imperium shields like butter, and that kinetic impacts in general were affected.

Those were Fourth Imperium planetary shields. You imply here that because they fully expected Earth to be destroyed, the shields must have been weak rather than the weapon strong. At the time Iapetus' velocity was stated, it had enough energy to disperse Earth's mass at greater than escape velocity. This was sometime before it would have actually hit, and was still accelerating on both it's engines and Sol's gravity.

For strategic speed, we know that the Planetoids are going to have ftl speeds ranging from 720c toabout 3000c. The Empire can get its entire existing fleet plus the first months worth of crash building to meet them before they cross the Outer Rim. The Empire will know they are coming almost as soon as they penetrate the galaxy, due to the Holo-Comm network, and will be able to issue commands across the entire Empire in real-time.

They are already spread throughout the galaxy, as stated in the OP.

For magazine capacity, we know that 16 planetoids exhausted a signifigant portion of their magazine capacity to destroy 200,000 ships.

The Imperial Guard Flotilla was not restored to full combat capacity. They might not have had full magazines in the first place.

We do not know the effects of Grav-well generators upon Planetoid drives, whether they be Gravitonic, Enchanach, or Hyper. It is likely that Grav well generators of sufficient number and strength will prevent Planetoid Hyper travel,

Yes, but only within a certain distance of the Interdictor. Planetoids typically engage targets from several lightminutes. Can an Interdictor affect targets this far away, or survive long enough against a planetoid to do any good?

and be dangerous for Enchanach ships to operate in, from the mutual suicide commited by two planetoids in Armageddon Inheritance which got too close while using the Enchanach drive, when their gravity wells merged briefly before detonating.

What evidence do you have that the gravity wells employed by Interdictors are this strong?

[XaLEv]

Okay, for the fleet size, look at the Death Star 2. That was the equivalent volume of millions(exact number dependent on the scaling used to generate the DS2"s size) of ISDs built in a six month period, in near total secrecy, with no permanent construction facilities available, without affecting the Galactic economy. Scale up for production lines and permanent shipyards. Scale up for lack of secrecy needed. Scale up for full wartime production efforts. Without scaling, the Empire could afford to lose a million ISDs a month, while easily keeping pace with losses, and get around the crewing requirements with a combination of speed cloning with ysalimiri, flash imprinting techniques for skills, and droid controlled ships.

And your evidence that they can realistically scale up as you suggest?

In any case, it is irrelevant to this debate as the Imperial forces have already been stated.

[His Divine Shadow]

And your evidence that they can realistically scale up as you suggest?

That evidence, I did provide already, in other threads.
Imperial Armed Forces nearly doubled in strenght in the time inbetween ANH and TESB.
Which means not just the Imperial Starfleet, but every last organization.
The starfleet alone must have doubled in strenght too, and by ANH it's already nearly twice as powerfull as the Deathstars main weapon.

[consequences]

In any case, it is irrelevant to this debate as the Imperial forces have already been stated

So, you are saying that the Empire cannot build anything at all dring the 40 YEARS it would take for an Imperial Terra to simply cross the Star Wars Galaxy, while other people have already said that the Planetoids will be able to rearm themselves and reverse engineer Hyperdrives. Thanks for being fair and impartial, just like Graham Kennedy was to the Empire.
The post is Planetoids attack the Empire, not Planetoids kick the living shit out of outgunned elements of the Empire's Fleet.
The evidence that the Empire can scale up its production and fleet is inherent in the information provided about the Death Star's construction, read the technical commentaries and Wong's site for a better explanation than I can provide.

That was a gravitonic warhead, not a beam weapon.

That was a beam weapon, did you read the novel Armageddon Inheritance at all?
page 307 of Armaggedon Inheritance

One such beam lashed out, and Deathdealer's forward half exploded.

Besides, if it was a Warhead, you have just shot a nice 60 km hole in your theory that a gravitonic warhead will one hit kill any target

[consequences]

And your evidence that they can realistically scale up as you suggest?

My evidence is every war ever fought in the history of mankind. During war, resources are redirected from the civilian economy into production of military resources. Ask yourself, how many aircraft carriers were built between 1930-1939 by the U.S., and how many were built from 1940-1945?
On the kinetic energy front, would an ISD hitting something at lightspeed not have a considerable amount of kinetic energy?

They are already spread throughout the galaxy, as stated in the OP

In which case, the Empire has known about them for at least 100 years given the travel time of an Utu, and the ridiculously large Gravitic signature each of them has, unless you are trying to claim that the Empire cannot detect over a thousand gravity wells larger than a startraversing the galaxy at ftl speeds.

[His Divine Shadow]

Here is hard evidence, it's always better:

Recently, the might of the Empire has grown with frightening speed. Since the destruction of the Death Star, the Emperor has shifted the focus of his limitless military and industrial power almost exclusively toward crushing this upstart Rebellion; as a result, the Imperial Armed Forces have nearly doubled in strength."

(ref: Rebel Alliance Sourcebook)

[consequences]

The reason it only doubled in strength? Because you don't destroy a Rebellion root and branch with Star Destroyers, you do it with spies, informants and propaganda.

[XaLEv]

So, you are saying that the Empire cannot build anything at all dring the 40 YEARS it would take for an Imperial Terra to simply cross the Star Wars Galaxy,

Strawman. What I said was that the scenario does not include any growth of Imperial forces. If Ali G wants to come back in here and state that they can increase their forces drastically, fine. Until then, the Empire gets the forces laid out in the OP.

while other people have already said that the Planetoids will be able to rearm themselves and reverse engineer Hyperdrives. Thanks for being fair and impartial, just like Graham Kennedy was to the Empire.

They can rearm themselves. I have not said that they could reverse engineer SW hyperdrive. I did make an offhand comment about them becoming even more powerful if they were to gain SW hyperdrive, but that's it. The arguments of others have no bearing on my argument. I also like how you compare me to Graham Kennedy. I'm sure that's a logical fallacy, but I can't think of it's name.

The post is Planetoids attack the Empire, not Planetoids kick the living shit out of outgunned elements of the Empire's Fleet.

okay...

The evidence that the Empire can scale up its production and fleet is inherent in the information provided about the Death Star's construction, read the technical commentaries and Wong's site for a better explanation than I can provide.

Not part of the scenario.

That was a beam weapon, did you read the novel Armageddon Inheritance at all?
page 307 of Armaggedon Inheritance

One such beam lashed out, and Deathdealer's forward half exploded.

So it was. My mistake.

Besides, if it was a Warhead, you have just shot a nice 60 km hole in your theory that a gravitonic warhead will one hit kill any target

Another strawman. I have never said that a single gravitonic will kill anything. What I have said is that a single low yield gravitonic is enough to destroy any of the Empire's non-planetoid scale warships, and the larger ones can destroy a DS in one shot.

Now, tell me, how many of these non-planetoids does the Empire have which are longer than 60 kilometers?

On the kinetic energy front, would an ISD hitting something at lightspeed not have a considerable amount of kinetic energy?

I imagine it would. What is your point?

In which case, the Empire has known about them for at least 100 years given the travel time of an Utu, and the ridiculously large Gravitic signature each of them has, unless you are trying to claim that the Empire cannot detect over a thousand gravity wells larger than a startraversing the galaxy at ftl speeds.

The gravity wells only grow that large during the initialization and deactivation of the drive.

[consequences]

Once again, if the planetoids attack the Empire, they are attacking the whole of the Empire, not just whatever the Empire happens to have available at the time.
The Empire is composed of over a million worlds, all of which have products they produce, and these planets do not simply enter some sort of stasis field at the start of a vs. argument unless the creator of the argument explicitly says so.
If 2000 planetoids are given the advantage of starting position, surprise, and the inability of an enemy to use their resources, then they will win, much like the Empire will win from its assumed starting position when put against the UFP.
By starting the planetoids off throughout the Empire ALI_G has negated just about everything the Empire could do to even the odds, especially combined with the bizarre inability of the Empire's sensors to detect planetoids in FTL inherent in the scenario given.
I apologise for misreading the start of the thread, and assuming that any sort of level playing field was intended.

[consequences]

On a technical note, we still do not know the actual eefects of Planetoid weaponry vs. Star Wars shields, or vice versa, we are all simply making assumptions of how they would interact based on our own perception of the situation. We will not, and can not know, given the lack of hard energy figures inherent in David Weber's writing, until Weber and Lucas give us a joint declaration of the technology interaction. Since I don't think this is likely, opinions are all that we have.
I will admit to playing devil's advocate in this situation, partly from the fact that no one else seemed to want to, but also from the fact that no other Weber fan on this site seems willing to put thought into how you could stop the Planetoids O'Doom with disimilar technology.

[consequences]

The reason I did not post a 4th Imperium/Empire/5th Imperium vs. Galactic Empire thread is that my reading ofa full scale engagement between the two would slaughter the GE, unless it was the GE on the offensive from another galaxy, with no wormhole access. This is as uninteresting to contemplate as a Star Wars vs. Star Trek argument would be without the idiots to mock. Reducing the scale but rigging the fight results in the same problem.

[SylasGaunt]

You know all a planetoid would have to do to take out an Imperial star system is stop fairly close in, then it could leave again.

And the reason there's not much in the way of energy numbers is that most of the Imperium weapons aren't exactly conventional (hyper-guns and gravitonic disruptors).

But the best the Empire's going to be able to do for tracking them is with the line of systems going silent along with the occasional blip from one of them dropping out of echanach.

[Captain Cyran]

You know all a planetoid would have to do to take out an Imperial star system is stop fairly close in, then it could leave again.

I must disagree with you there as it took 8(?) planetoids to make that star go nova.

[XaLEv]

You know all a planetoid would have to do to take out an Imperial star system is stop fairly close in, then it could leave again.

I must disagree with you there as it took 8(?) planetoids to make that star go nova.

It did take several of them to supernova Zeta Trianguli Australis, but a single planetoid dropping out of, then reentering Enchanach right beside a star couldn't be good for said star.