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Federation v Empire

In a war between the Federation and the Empire, who wins?


  • Total voters
    32
In a government of a million systems, there's going to be a lot of important ones. Face it. The empire can afford to fight a war of attrition, the federation can't. Even if the federation won 90% of the battles that were fought, they'd still lose the war.
Yes, there is -- but then, the ease of destroying them is incredible.
It also seems to me - and this is just an impression, but is vaguely backed by the information on film and makes sense given we're talking about an Empire - that while the Empire may be vast, the locus of power is small, as are the number of strategic facilities. So, it might very wll be that there are lot of Imperial planets, there are a disproportionally few that are important.
 
Actually, I don't support that figure, it seems ridiculously high. I do support the estimates based on the scene in TESB where the star destroyer is vaporizing asteroids in the hoth asteroid belt, as well as some other estimates based on things shown on-screen, which comes out to something between 5 and 50 megatons per shot.
I'd take a look at the opening scene of E4, where a Blockade Runner takes a direct hit from a SD turbolaser. A 5MT blast directly to the hull would vaporize it.
But, even with that number, thats well within the realm os ST weapons - a single Photon can destroy an asteroid comparable in size to the cruiser that launched said photon.
But, its good that you agree that the numbers your source came up with are ridiculous.

Federation phasers put out something around the same amount of energy, but star destroyers carry more guns and can fire more often.
I dont know that you can say more often... but by scaling back the weapons to comparable power, you also scale back the protection afforded by the shields. This means that Fed ships are able to, in a resonable short period of time, reduce the shields and blow holed in the engineering and control spaces. Dont forget that the main reactor of a SD pokes out the belly.

I dismiss the idea of federation ships fighting solely from warp, because what's shown on-screen doesn't support it.
Sure - they often drop to sub-light. But they clearly do not HAVE to, and are capable of firing all their weapons from warp. Whatever advantage there may be in dropping to SL is negated by the advantage of your opponent not being able to shoot at you.
 
Yes, there is -- but then, the ease of destroying them is incredible.

As is the ease of destroying federation planets. So it's essentially going to be a race to see who can destroy the other's ability to make war first. The empire has the edge in that kind of fight. The federation is relatively small, not only population wise, but actual size-wise. It's only a few thousand light-years across. The empire stretches across a significant portion of a galaxy. Even assuming that there are a similar number of 'important' planets that need to be destroyed (which I'm not sure I agree with), and assuming that star wars hyperdrives move at the same speed as federation warp drives (which I also disagree with), the empire will have an easier job of it, since they simply have less distance to cover.

It also seems to me - and this is just an impression, but is vaguely backed by the information on film and makes sense given we're talking about an Empire - that while the Empire may be vast, the locus of power is small, as are the number of strategic facilities. So, it might very wll be that there are lot of Imperial planets, there are a disproportionally few that are important.

Could be true, it's hard to tell based solely on what's shown on-screen. The same is true of the federation though, and possibly their situation is even worse. I'm not as familiar with Star Trek, (especially not the original series) but isn't starfleet command and pretty much all of their shipbuilding centered on earth?
 
If that were the case, you'd have a point.
Its not, so you don't. The parameters of the discussion are clear; if you don't want to discuss the topic withing those parameters, then you're simply wasting everyone's time.

Are you actually going to address your mindless butchering of canon on both sides, or just keep deflecting? Just curious...
 
I'd take a look at the opening scene of E4, where a Blockade Runner takes a direct hit from a SD turbolaser. A 5MT blast directly to the hull would vaporize it.

Without knowing what the blockade runner's hull is made of, it's impossible to say whether a 5MT blast could vaporize it or not. The blast did seem to do a good bit of damage though (the radius of the explosion was close to the same size as the blockade runner itself)

But, even with that number, thats well within the realm os ST weapons - a single Photon can destroy an asteroid comparable in size to the cruiser that launched said photon.
But, its good that you agree that the numbers your source came up with are ridiculous.

Well, the site I posted uses information that comes from a lot of sources. Not all of it is from the films/TV shows. The 500GT per shot figure comes from one of the myriad of 'technical manuals' that's been published for star wars. Some people use those, some people don't. In a discussion using only on-screen sources, then those kinds of power numbers are unsupportable. Using only on-screen sources, I would say that the power of SW and ST weapons seem to match up fairly well, probably within an order of magnitude or so.

I dont know that you can say more often... but by scaling back the weapons to comparable power, you also scale back the protection afforded by the shields. This means that Fed ships are able to, in a resonable short period of time, reduce the shields and blow holed in the engineering and control spaces. Dont forget that the main reactor of a SD pokes out the belly.

I would argue that they can fire more often. Check out the two videos below.


This shows the firing rate of an early-model star destroyer. Watch for it to come out of the bottom left corner of the screen at 35 seconds. The little flashes of light on the top of the hull are its guns firing. It fires maybe 10 or 12 times in the 3 or 4 seconds that it's on-screen. There's some other good footage of a serious SW space battle in the video as well.

Compare that to this:

The enterprise's phasers fire much less frequently.

Sure - they often drop to sub-light. But they clearly do not HAVE to, and are capable of firing all their weapons from warp. Whatever advantage there may be in dropping to SL is negated by the advantage of your opponent not being able to shoot at you.

I'm still not sure I buy it. Based solely on on-screen evidence, ST ships fight almost solely at sublight speeds. Speaking of which, has it ever been shown that ST ships under warp can attack ship-sized targets which aren't moving at warp speeds? Mostly when they show combat under warp, it's two warp-speed ships fighting each other.
 
I'm not as familiar with Star Trek, (especially not the original series) but isn't starfleet command and pretty much all of their shipbuilding centered on earth?

Actually, no. While Starfleet Command is on Earth, facilities such as ship building and so on are scattered throughout the Federation. For instance, Enterprise D was built at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards in orbit of Mars.
 
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Are you actually going to address your mindless butchering of canon on both sides, or just keep deflecting? Just curious...

I'm going to back Goobie up on this one. It's his question, he should be able to set the terms under which it's answered. "Only what you see, pal" is a perfectly valid assumption for this type of debate. The only thing he could have done better was to spell out what sources were allowed in the OP.

If you want to ask the same question with different source material, start your own thread.

Besides, the on-screen evidence still favors the empire, it's just less overwhelmingly so. :mrgreen:
 
Actually, no. While Starfellt Command is on Earth, faciliteis such as ship building and so on are scattered throughout the Federation. For instance, Enterprise D was built at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards in orbit of Mars.

Multiple facilities in a single solar system aren't don't really count as multiple locations. Does the federation have major facilities in remote locations?
 
Multiple facilities in a single solar system aren't don't really count as multiple locations. Does the federation have major facilities in remote locations?

Federation shipyards - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
The following is a list of Federation shipyards and maintenance and repair facilities. In addition to the facilities listed here, most larger starbases and outposts are also capable of repairing and building ships.

* 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards
* Antares Ship Yards
* Baikonur Cosmodrome
* Beta Antares Ship Yards
* Copernicus Ship Yards
* Earth Station McKinley
* Luna Shipyards
* Marin County Starfleet Yards
* NX Drydock (22nd century)
* Oakland Fleet Yards
* Proxima Maintenance Yards
* Riverside Shipyard
* San Francisco Fleet Yards (also known as "San Francisco Naval Yards" or "San Francisco Yards")
* Tranquility Base
* University of Copernicus
* Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards (also known as "Utopia Planitia Ship Yards")
* Warp Five Complex (22nd century)

According to the USS Enterprise's computer in the CD-ROM game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, the Tri-Rho Nautica shipyards are one of the largest in the Federation. They orbit Tri-Rho Nautica III in a system that is close to the Klingon border.
 
I'm going to back Goobie up on this one. It's his question, he should be able to set the terms under which it's answered. "Only what you see, pal" is a perfectly valid assumption for this type of debate. The only thing he could have done better was to spell out what sources were allowed in the OP.

If you want to ask the same question with different source material, start your own thread.

Besides, the on-screen evidence still favors the empire, it's just less overwhelmingly so. :mrgreen:

I realize it's still no contest and I've already conceded not using tech outside of the SW movies, however, he's violating his own canon in an attempt to produce a victory and I'm just taking him to task on it.

He can spell out the time periods, but it's still Star Trek according to Roddenberry and Paramount, not according to Goobieman. ;)
 
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Federation shipyards - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
The following is a list of Federation shipyards and maintenance and repair facilities. In addition to the facilities listed here, most larger starbases and outposts are also capable of repairing and building ships.

* 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards
* Antares Ship Yards
* Baikonur Cosmodrome
* Beta Antares Ship Yards
* Copernicus Ship Yards
* Earth Station McKinley
* Luna Shipyards
* Marin County Starfleet Yards
* NX Drydock (22nd century)
* Oakland Fleet Yards
* Proxima Maintenance Yards
* Riverside Shipyard
* San Francisco Fleet Yards (also known as "San Francisco Naval Yards" or "San Francisco Yards")
* Tranquility Base
* University of Copernicus
* Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards (also known as "Utopia Planitia Ship Yards")
* Warp Five Complex (22nd century)

According to the USS Enterprise's computer in the CD-ROM game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, the Tri-Rho Nautica shipyards are one of the largest in the Federation. They orbit Tri-Rho Nautica III in a system that is close to the Klingon border.

This proves my point. Out of that list of 17 facilities, 11 lie in the sol system. The federation is heavily tied to earth. Their government, and most of their industrial base is there.
 
Federation shipyards - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
The following is a list of Federation shipyards and maintenance and repair facilities. In addition to the facilities listed here, most larger starbases and outposts are also capable of repairing and building ships.

* 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards
* Antares Ship Yards
* Baikonur Cosmodrome
* Beta Antares Ship Yards
* Copernicus Ship Yards
* Earth Station McKinley
* Luna Shipyards
* Marin County Starfleet Yards
* NX Drydock (22nd century)
* Oakland Fleet Yards
* Proxima Maintenance Yards
* Riverside Shipyard
* San Francisco Fleet Yards (also known as "San Francisco Naval Yards" or "San Francisco Yards")
* Tranquility Base
* University of Copernicus
* Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards (also known as "Utopia Planitia Ship Yards")
* Warp Five Complex (22nd century)

According to the USS Enterprise's computer in the CD-ROM game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, the Tri-Rho Nautica shipyards are one of the largest in the Federation. They orbit Tri-Rho Nautica III in a system that is close to the Klingon border.

Just curious, because I don't know: How many of those were in TOS?
 
Are you actually going to address your mindless butchering of canon on both sides, or just keep deflecting? Just curious...
There's nothing to deflect. You can have the dicsussion within the parameters provided or not. Your choice.
 
As is the ease of destroying federation planets.
This eas assumes there is a Death Star present and that the Fed cannot disbale the mai weapon before it fires. This is far more complicated and than what the Feds need to do, risks far more assets, and thus more likely to fail at a degree too costly to bear for any length of time. CAN they do it? Sure. How often?

Even assuming that there are a similar number of 'important' planets that need to be destroyed (which I'm not sure I agree with), and assuming that star wars hyperdrives move at the same speed as federation warp drives (which I also disagree with), the empire will have an easier job of it, since they simply have less distance to cover.
Perhaps.

Could be true, it's hard to tell based solely on what's shown on-screen. The same is true of the federation though, and possibly their situation is even worse. I'm not as familiar with Star Trek, (especially not the original series) but isn't starfleet command and pretty much all of their shipbuilding centered on earth?
The last place the imperial fleet wants to be is anywhere near Earth :mrgreen:
 
There's nothing to deflect. You can have the dicsussion within the parameters provided or not. Your choice.

You're re-writing canon to fit your agenda instead of having a fun debate. That's not a discussion I'm interested in having. Thanks anyway.
 
This eas assumes there is a Death Star present and that the Fed cannot disbale the mai weapon before it fires. This is far more complicated and than what the Feds need to do, risks far more assets, and thus more likely to fail at a degree too costly to bear for any length of time. CAN they do it? Sure. How often?

I would argue they could do it fairly often. The death star's power generating capabilities are MANY orders of magnitude greater than any other ship we've seen in the SW universe. That would lead me to believe that their shields are able to take much more of a pounding as well. This is also supported by the fact that the alliance felt it was not worth even trying to attack it with their heavy ships. And the empire could most likely build more than one if they felt it was necessary (remember that the second death star, which was considerably larger than the first, was perhaps 60% built in just a few months).

The death star is the one imperial ship that I feel safe saying that the federation would have an extremely hard time hurting.

The last place the imperial fleet wants to be is anywhere near Earth

Are you kidding me? Earth is target number one. Sure, it would be heavily defended, but all they have to do is get the death star close enough for one superlaser shot, and the federation not only loses its leadership, but a significant portion of its manufacturing base as well.
 
Without knowing what the blockade runner's hull is made of, it's impossible to say whether a 5MT blast could vaporize it or not. The blast did seem to do a good bit of damage though (the radius of the explosion was close to the same size as the blockade runner itself)
The area of a 5MT blast -greatly- exceeds the size of the BR.
The blast took out the shield generator. The ship still had power, weapons, etc. There wasn't any evidence of damage within the hull - no smoke or debris on the corridors, etc. For the hull to withstand that much force with so litle damage, it would need to be made of unimaginableium.

Using only on-screen sources, I would say that the power of SW and ST weapons seem to match up fairly well, probably within an order of magnitude or so.
Good - we agree.

I would argue that they can fire more often. Check out the two videos below.
The enterprise's phasers fire much less frequently.
The phasers on TOS fore far more often than in the clips. So do the photons
But, lets say that Imperial weapons have a measureably faster ROF.

I'm still not sure I buy it. Based solely on on-screen evidence, ST ships fight almost solely at sublight speeds. Speaking of which, has it ever been shown that ST ships under warp can attack ship-sized targets which aren't moving at warp speeds? Mostly when they show combat under warp, it's two warp-speed ships fighting each other.
Goven that it is -harder- to target a ship at warp then whle stationary, I dont see why you could not hit a stationary target while at warp. Video evidence - top of my head: STTMP, Enterprise at warp speed - in a wormhole - destroying an ship-sized asteroid w/ a photon. They -were- going to use the phasers.

Like I said - there may very well be an advantage to slowing to impulse to fight - but there's no need to do so, and to not do no means the target cannot shoot back.
 
The death star is the one imperial ship that I feel safe saying that the federation would have an extremely hard time hurting.

really, fly a shuttle craft in (like the alliance flew in snub fighters) and beam a bomb into/onto the power generator. no need to fly down a laser turrent corridor and hit a target the size of a womp rat. easy peasey.
 
really, fly a shuttle craft in (like the alliance flew in snub fighters) and beam a bomb into/onto the power generator. no need to fly down a laser turrent corridor and hit a target the size of a womp rat. easy peasey.

The target is well shielded. Hence the attack run at the exhaust port in the movie. Attempting to beam anything through shields either doesn't work or has a very poor success rate in the ST universe. The rebels lost a good protion of their fighters in the attack on the Death Star, so I'd have to say a single shuttle would be just cannon fodder. ;)
 
I would argue they could do it fairly often. The death star's power generating capabilities are MANY orders of magnitude greater than any other ship we've seen in the SW universe. The death star is the one imperial ship that I feel safe saying that the federation would have an extremely hard time hurting.
No doubt. And to take it out would be difficult. BUT... its clear that the Feds would have an aopportunity to do, given what we see on film. Note too that it doesnt need to be destroyed, just have its main gun disabled.

That would lead me to believe that their shields are able to take much more of a pounding as well. This is also supported by the fact that the alliance felt it was not worth even trying to attack it with their heavy ships.
Yes.. but that was due very much to the fact that the DS could destroy those ships with a single shot. The Feds dont have that issue.

If we were using non-film canon, I'd argue that the Feds would just send squadrons of F15s and A20s to get inside and make a mess :mrgreen:

Are you kidding me? Earth is target number one. Sure, it would be heavily defended, but all they have to do is get the death star close enough for one superlaser shot, and the federation not only loses its leadership, but a significant portion of its manufacturing base as well.
Yeah. My bet is that they cannot. The DS apparently has to be close, and apparently moves rather slowly when not in HS - how long did it take to set up the shot in E4?. Remember that the Feds can ignore anything the Imperials send w/ the DS until the DS is disabled, and so until that point, the DS gets shot at by any and everything in range.
 
The target is well shielded. Hence the attack run at the exhaust port in the movie. Attempting to beam anything through shields either doesn't work or has a very poor success rate in the ST universe. The rebels lost a good protion of their fighters in the attack on the Death Star, so I'd have to say a single shuttle would be just cannon fodder. ;)

the rebels lost a good portion of their fighters because the fighters had to make their way down that ridiculous narrow tunnel. a shuttle with a transporter would not have such limitation. also...the exhaust port was "ray" shielded which was why they had to use torpedo. the rest of the death star was not shielded, as evidenced by the explosions and damage caused by rebel fighters shooting it or crashing into it. so the shuttle would not have to worry about beaming the explosive thru shields.
 
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Actually that’s incorrect. Both Death Stars were defended by hundreds of shield projectors, and thousands of turbolasers, ion cannons and laser cannons. The first one contained a complement of seven to nine thousand TIE fighters, along with tens of thousands of support craft, bombers, and gunships. Massive docking bays provided several Star Destroyers with dry docks, and more than a million Imperial personnel were on board both battle stations.

The reason the rebels were not confronted with a swarm of TIE fighters right away was due to the fact that Tarkin thought they were not a serious threat. Against an entire fleet, like the Federation, the Empire would be less likely to make that same misjudgment.

There were small gaps in the shields of the first Death Star; but again, the Empire believed that this was harmless since only small ships could wiggle through the gaps. The shields of the second Death Star would have had no such gaps.

The ships you see striking the surface are already inside the shield of the Death Star. The rebel fighters had to fly the trench to stay under the multitude of surface guns on the station.

On a side note, the second Death Star also corrected several other flaws in the original design. The two-meter exhaust vent that doomed the first station was replaced with millions of millimeter wide tubes, each designed to seal if excess energy was detected. The second station also boasted far more turbolaser batteries with redesigned targeting systems, allowing them to target starfighters more easily. The greatest concentration of turbolasers was located near the Emperor's throne tower.
Here’s a good summary detailing a substitution of the Federation for the Rebellion in the Battle of Yavin. Granted a few of the examples in it are from outside TOS (for that I apologize) but it’s pretty thorough none-the-less. This is not to say that the Federation could never, under any circumstances, destroy a Death Star, it’s just not as easy as you make it out to be... and the Empire demonstrated the ability to produce those pretty quickly ;)

• First, we must define their assets. Instead of thirty X-wing fighters, they would have thirty runabouts or Peregrine fighters. Their base defenses would presumably consist of orbital defense platforms, although they would be insignificant compared to a Death Star.
• If they have capships at their disposal, they wouldn't fare any better than the defense platforms. Much like the Gungan theatre shield in TPM, the ANH Death Star shield was apparently semi-permeable, permitting passage only for slow-moving, small objects (this explains why the X-wings would accelerate to intercept the Death Star, decelerate to match speeds with it, and then "accelerate to attack speed" after passing slowly through the shield). Capital ships would never slip through its shield, thus making them useless (except as clay pidgeons for the Death Star's surface guns).
• Therefore, it would fall to the fighters to stop the Death Star, just as it did in the original battle. The fighters would have to lob a torpedo into the exhaust port in spite of the massive jamming which was described in the canon ANH novelization. This means they would have to get close enough to get a target lock and hope that their missiles fly true in spite of the jamming. It also means that they would have to make the trench run just like the X-wing fighters did, for the same reason (to fly in under the impenetrable defensive cross-fire over the port).
• This means they would have to fly largely on manual control, while evading TIE fighters and defensive blasts until they can get close enough to launch their missiles. Therein lies the first serious problem: Federation pilots are rarely capable of doing anything on manual control. Riker is considered an exceptional pilot (the best on the Enterprise, as we found out in "Chain of Command"), largely because he can do it while others can't.
• A second serious problem involves simple geometry. While an X-wing's proton torpedoes measure less than 0.5 metres in any dimension, a Federation photon torpedo measures 2.1 metres in length and 0.76 metres in width. This means that it is virtually impossible for a photon torpedo to approach the port from the side, make a hard 90 degree turn and enter the port without touching the walls, by virtue of its size. However, micro-torpedoes are smaller, so this problem would only apply to ships which have been outfitted with full-size torpedoes.
• A third serious problem involves maneuverability. While we witnessed Luke's torpedo execute a hard turn in ANH requiring many tens of thousands of g's of acceleration, we've never witnessed such maneuverability from a photon torpedo. Photorp turning circles are in the range of hundreds of metres or even several kilometres, not one or two metres. They've never demonstrated the ability to execute anything remotely like the ANH maneuver, which was a 90 degree turn inside a turning circle of one metre.
• If the Federation replaced the Rebellion they would be forced to adopt the Rebellion's tactics, which were the only way to attack the Death Star due to its shields, defensive weapons and jammers. But they aren't capable of duplicating Luke's shot into the exhaust port, due to problems with pilot skill and torpedo maneuverability.
 
The Federation wins, of course. The good guys always win in the end.
 
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Luke's shot was BS for SF anyway. no way in hell that torpedo could have entered the shaft, made a 90 degree turn downward and followed the tunnel all the way to the reactor without impacting on any surface and detonating prior to reaching the intended target unless it was somehow guided. completely and totally implausible.
 
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