ST v SW

[Batman]

Three main parts:
1) The galaxy is huge. Even if you have a basic idea about where to look, it's just an incredibly large place.

No it's not. I can absolutely believe it's 100,000ly across and holds more than 400 billion stars I'll happily agree it's pretty damn big though.

Quick quiz: how many stars are within 100 light years away from earth?
a: in the ballpark of ten to fifteen thousand
It's possible that they can narrow it down by listening to radio chatter, but even if so, the range of subspace radio is miniscule compared to the galaxy, and the number of wild goose chases they'd have would be big - starships, natural sources, etc.

Earth is the latecomer to the game and even for us, per TNG they'd have 400 years worth of radio signals to work with for old fashioned EM radio alone. (Of course, we also know that by the time of the NR, that's considered hopelessly antiquated and not used anymore so unless Lando Calrissian is part of the invading fleet it's entirely likely they'll never think of that ).

Even if you assume they can investigate a single star in a matter of minutes, you're still looking at a long, long, long time doing recon.

If they have to do that recon, absolutely. If they can somehow acquire maps of the AQ (say, by buying them off the Ferengi) the missile spam scenario becomes much more practical-who cares if there's billions of stars if you have the coordinates of the planets that actually have people on them?

Note that most sources agree that there's unknown regions to the Star Wars galaxy, though they disagree on how big it is.
2) Spatial anamolies make hyperspace navigation difficult. New trade routes pop up fairly rarely in Star Wars.
Star Trek is packed full of weird shit.

Weird shit that may or may not affect hyperspace travel. Irrelevant either way though as they won't know where that weird shit is until they've either mapped themselves or acquired maps of the AQ showing these anomalies.

The hyperdrive speed advantage may be limited by the Imp ships being forced to take a long way around, since they just don't have the navigation data.

Given the speed differential I doubt it's going to matter much (provided they have the navigational data to get there to begin with). We're talking a several orders of magnitude differential here.

Personally, I see Han's 12 parsec line as bullshit (like Ben did, look at his face). But the canon says it reflects the reality of his ship's advantage - it is able to cut distance off a trip that most people have to do the long way, by taking additional risks in navigation.
So, there's some precedent for shortcuts mattering in SW too.

To a completely undetermined extent. Unless there's any information on how far the long route for the Kessel run is? (I very much suspect it was mentioned in the second Han Solo trilogy but it's been eons since I read that).

3) Mapping a system is likely to take a lot longer than just observing it, or even arriving at it. Just because you know a star is there doesn't mean you know enough details about it to make decisions, whether navigational or strategic.

Actually, navigational decisions are easy-'Let's not run into it if we can avoid it'. But I assume you meant in-system navigation.

[Batman]

If they have to do that recon, absolutely. If they can somehow acquire maps of the AQ (say, by buying them off the Ferengi) the missile spam scenario becomes much more practical-who cares if there's billions of stars if you have the coordinates of the planets that actually have people on them?

Yeah, that's possible, in principle. Though it does raise the question of why they are fighting if they are able to have a nice business relationship to get their initial footing...

Because this is another stupid vs scenario? And it's not like real world humanity has been above making nice with the natives to get the lay of land only to invade later.

I ran some quick numbers and even with the navigational difficulties, assuming they have maps, I think the average speed is still about 100x higher than ST - enough to still be a major advantage. This is based on averaging the speed in hyperspace over much more frequent stops to change direction and recalculate a course.

You can canonically change course without leaving hyperspace (whatever hyperspace may be these days), it just seems to be easier to do it in realspace.

Though I wonder.... what kind of fuel efficiency does an ISD get in stop and go situations?

According to the Rogue Squadron books hyperdrive is actually a lot more fuel efficient than the sublight drives but they never go into the details of whether that means reactant vs stuff burned for power generation (which is unsurprising since you can't go FTL by simply throwing stuff out the back of your ship really fast) and besides, that's snubfighters, which probably don't have hypermatter reactors to begin with.

[Cesario]

The problem with making nice with the natives to get your maps is that you lose your suprise advantage. Instead of arriving in a wave of unstoppable warships that no one has ever seen before and everyone being dead before they have time to even think about a countermeasure, you've exposed your ships to standard scans over the course of your trade expeditions, meaning that at least the power you're trading with has basic information about your ships. If that information includes how hopelessly outmatched they are against you, that's incentive to start cooking up countermeasures or bargaining with someone who can just in case you decide to press your hopelessly potent advantage at a later date when you've got all the maps you were after.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The obvious solution to that Cesario is to not use your major warships as scouts. Send out corvettes small frigates and the like to collect your information. Thus, it appears that you are simply a new spacefaring power trying to learn more about it's neighbours.

Then, once you have Earth/vulcan/Andor/Quo'nos/Romulus/Cardassia/Ferenginar etc. located, you can sweep in with your massive fleet of unstoppable warships.

[Batman]

Why would they even have to send military vessels to begin with? Just use civilian ships. It's not like hiring/requisitioning/just plain stealing civilian ships is something that hasn't happened in the real world.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That works too.

[Cesario]

Isn't it a standard conceit of your side that even the lowliest of Wars vessels could wipe the floor with entire fleets of Trek ships?

If they don't have ships avalible that won't tip off the AQ powers that they're behind, how are they going to know that they should be building deliberately crippled ships to send in as scouts so they don't tip off their enemies to how unstoppably powerful they are?

Makes buying the necessary maps somewhat more complicated a matter, don't you think?

[Eternal_Freedom]

What's this "deliberately crippled ships" nonsense? Where did anyone say that? I said use light ships as scouts, Batman said use civilian ships. Light ships as scouts makes sense, that's what they're bloody designed for.

What moron thinks using heavy capital ships as advance scouts is a good idea?

[Connor MacLeod]

I would rather think the idea that "we ran across ships from an unknown race/culture" suddenly leaps into "HOLY SHIT ITS THE GALACTIC EMPIRE" from a single encounter. Sure surprise will be "lost" in the sense they now know someone they didn't know about before is out there, but unless they manage to capture detailed intelligence in some way (which is alot more complicated than it sounds) they're not going to go to "FANBOY TACTICS" mode right away.

Of course the same goes the other way too. Getting data from say 'the greedy ferengi' isn't going to be an absolute win either (that assumes the Ferengi are going to be honest, completely disclose all they know, what they know is accurate, you're able to communicate with both sides to begin with, etc.) so there's limitations to the approach as well.

This is a case where scope is going to work for the Empire and against the Federation, I think. I'd think the GE is going to be less surprised by the size of the Federation than the Federation would be surprised by the GE. Which still leaves plenty of surprises in other ways (technology, for example.)

The real fun begins if it comes down to economic matters. Keeping a lid on things becomes much harder (on both sides.) Although actual, all out, to the death warfare is less likely if anything even remotely economic goes on as well. Maybe the Empire would eget into conflicts with the Dominion and Borg, but that's probably it. Oh and 8472 if they show up.

[Cesario]

What's this "deliberately crippled ships" nonsense? Where did anyone say that? I said use light ships as scouts, Batman said use civilian ships. Light ships as scouts makes sense, that's what they're bloody designed for.

What moron thinks using heavy capital ships as advance scouts is a good idea?

I'm telling you that if we believe some of the calcs, even the civilian or light ships are so far ahead of anything the Federation has even heard of, they very much will jump straight to, as Connor puts it "fanboy tactics", because they'll be that scared shitless of them, even before the invincible warfleet shows up on their doorstep.

There are disadvantages to arguing for "500 Gigaton Turbolasers". The most important disadvantage being that the rest of your industrial base will be in the same ballpark.

[Connor MacLeod]

There are disadvantages to arguing for "500 Gigaton Turbolasers". The most important disadvantage being that the rest of your industrial base will be in the same ballpark.

Except by that logic if Death star firepower exists every other ship should be in the same ballpark.. which really isn't the case. that's far too much of an oversimplification.

For one thing it assumes theres absolutely no drawbacks or limitations existing for that kind of firepower (logistics, targeting, structural and maintenance, etc.)

[Batman]

Yeah. Some tramp freighter or other showing up that has considerably more advanced technology than the AQ will immediately scare the AQ into going 'WAAH! They're going to invade!!! We have to use all that nifty technology we somehow never used to save our bacon against in-universe threats' because of-what again? It's not like running into societies considerably more technologically advanced than themselves is something that hasn't happened to them before. Guess what-not all of them were bent on conquest. Why in Valen's name would the AQ immediately assume the guys in the YT-2000s trying to get the lay of the land and wanting to trade-especially willing to trade technology far ahead of what they currently have-inevitably must be the scouts for an invasion force?

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't quite get why the assumption is "they're going to rush in and start shooting things up at maximum firepower" and then expect to get the data anyhow. Issuing threats lke that is not a way to gain cooperation. And it depends entirely on what kind of ship is being sent into the AQ to begin with. Freighters can run from a few tens of metres to kilometers or more. That offers quite a bit of variation in firepower potential even allowing for civilian/merchantmen status.

[Cesario]

Yeah. Some tramp freighter or other showing up that has considerably more advanced technology than the AQ will immediately scare the AQ into going 'WAAH! They're going to invade!!! We have to use all that nifty technology we somehow never used to save our bacon against in-universe threats' because of-what again? It's not like running into societies considerably more technologically advanced than themselves is something that hasn't happened to them before. Guess what-not all of them were bent on conquest. Why in Valen's name would the AQ immediately assume the guys in the YT-2000s trying to get the lay of the land and wanting to trade-especially willing to trade technology far ahead of what they currently have-inevitably must be the scouts for an invasion force?

Odd strangers come trading away technology infinitely more advanced than your own, and all they want are the maps to your homeworld and those of your neighboring powers. Nope, nothing suspicious there. Not at all. No one would ever feel any desire to build a countermeasure against the possibility that these strangers might not be on the up and up. No sir. It's not like anything like this has ever happened in the Star Trek galaxy before, after all.

[KhorneFlakes]

That must be a hell of an ugly freighter then if it can somehow convince the AQ to immediately surrender upon seeing it. Slaanesh must of shat all over it or something.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah. Some tramp freighter or other showing up that has considerably more advanced technology than the AQ will immediately scare the AQ into going 'WAAH! They're going to invade!!! We have to use all that nifty technology we somehow never used to save our bacon against in-universe threats' because of-what again? It's not like running into societies considerably more technologically advanced than themselves is something that hasn't happened to them before. Guess what-not all of them were bent on conquest. Why in Valen's name would the AQ immediately assume the guys in the YT-2000s trying to get the lay of the land and wanting to trade-especially willing to trade technology far ahead of what they currently have-inevitably must be the scouts for an invasion force?

Odd strangers come trading away technology infinitely more advanced than your own, and all they want are the maps to your homeworld and those of your neighboring powers. Nope, nothing suspicious there. Not at all. No one would ever feel any desire to build a countermeasure against the possibility that these strangers might not be on the up and up. No sir. It's not like anything like this has ever happened in the Star Trek galaxy before, after all.

They wouldn't be buying maps specifically for your homeworld...local star maps are more than just a chart with Earth and a big arrow saying "YOU ARE HERE."

And of course, the Federation, peace-loving society that it is, will instantly jump to the paranoid conclusion that this new power is a MASSIVE THREAT. Surely they would try to make peaceful first contact first, as is their mandate?

And having made First Contact, the Federation learns that the freighters are from a distant group of worlds that are seeking to explore other areas of the galaxy, using their newly-developed hyperdrive. Of course, they'd be willing to share this new drive technology with the Federation, once we get to know you better. Etc, etc.

All it needs is a good cover story and a freighter captain with a modicum of sense.

[the atom]

Isn't it a standard conceit of your side that even the lowliest of Wars vessels could wipe the floor with entire fleets of Trek ships?

Where the fuck did that nonsense come from? A dedicated warship certainly could, but a supped up corvette? The MF might be able to take on a Peregrine fighter (depending on it's complement).

[the atom]

And of course, the Federation, peace-loving society that it is, will instantly jump to the paranoid conclusion that this new power is a MASSIVE THREAT. Surely they would try to make peaceful first contact first, as is their mandate?

After the Dominion war? I imagine their reaction would probably be something along the lines of 'not again' followed by desperate efforts to close whatever wormhole the Empire came through.

[Batman]

Isn't it a standard conceit of your side that even the lowliest of Wars vessels could wipe the floor with entire fleets of Trek ships?

Where the fuck did that nonsense come from? A dedicated warship certainly could, but a supped up corvette? The MF might be able to take on a Peregrine fighter (depending on it's complement).

People who only see 'Wars=bigger numbers' and never bother to actually run them, most likely. The Falcon was actually damaged by a whopping quartet of TIEs in ANH, with those birds having highest end low double digit KT firepower per shot but a YT-1300 can eat fleets of Sovereigns for breakfast. And the Falcon is unusually heavily armed for a ship its size.

Yes, a Corellian Corvette probably could defeat the Wolf 359 fleet with little effort. That's a warship, not a civilian vessel (and Valen alone knows what that'd do to their fuel reserves).

[Batman]

Isn't it a standard conceit of your side that even the lowliest of Wars vessels could wipe the floor with entire fleets of Trek ships?

Where the fuck did that nonsense come from?

It comes from here:
http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html

Which, unfortunately for you, says nothing of that kind. It says Wars is massively more powerful than Trek, using numbers that are way below what the canon says, without at any point actually saying what Cesario claimed.

[Batman]

As you can see, the officially published figures are massively in favour of the Empire, even if you disregard the fact that an Acclamator is not a particularly powerful warship by Imperial standards (an Imperial Star Destroyer is roughly 10 times larger (by volume) than an Acclamator and presumably 10 times more powerful, even if we disregard the fact that an Acclamator is just a transport). In fact, the only way to generate a remotely close match between an Imperial ship and a Federation ship is to use a small patrol craft such as Jango Fett's Slave-1:
[...]
Even this seemingly Trek-biased matchup seems to heavily favour the Empire, with Jango Fett's small patrol craft able to hit the Enterprise-D with much heavier firepower than it can dish out in return.

"just a transport" is implying that the lowest warship can crush the Federation's strongest ship

Happily ignoring that the transport in question is an assault transport of considerable size by AQ terms, mounting a goodly number of weapons, not some tiny civilian cargo hauler,

, and the Slave 1 thing is outright saying that even some civilian's small ship is much better for the Empire.

Yeah. A heavily modified bounty hunter vessel based on the in-universe equivalent of a coast guard cutter is absolutely the baseline for 'lowliest ship'. I also completely fail to see the part where Mike claim it could defeat an entire AQ fleet, which is what Cesario claimed.

[Batman]

Mike emphasizes transport and how it is significantly smaller than the other ships. He very clearly was saying even small Imp ships can crush the federation:
" Even with its numerical advantage removed, the Empire would still squash the Federation like a bug. Accept it."
If you go into details, you can see that there's more to the story, but a lot of people look at that page without more.

I still can't find the part where he says how even the lowliest of Wars vessels can defeat entire Fed fleets, sorry?

[Batman]

'Isn't it a standard conceit of your side that even the lowliest of Wars vessels could wipe the floor with entire fleets of Trek ships? '
Show me the part where Mike claims that.

[the atom]

People who only see 'Wars=bigger numbers' and never bother to actually run them, most likely. The Falcon was actually damaged by a whopping quartet of TIEs in ANH, with those birds having highest end low double digit KT firepower per shot but a YT-1300 can eat fleets of Sovereigns for breakfast. And the Falcon is unusually heavily armed for a ship its size.

I know the usual burden of proof might not fall on warsies so hard around here, but mind backing any of this up? Particularly the bit about doubt digit KT weapons for TIEs, but also the idea that a YT-1300 could defeat so much as one Sovereign.

Yes, a Corellian Corvette probably could defeat the Wolf 359 fleet with little effort. That's a warship, not a civilian vessel (and Valen alone knows what that'd do to their fuel reserves).

Considering we see one get disabled by the PD defences on an ISD that range from terajoules to low megatons I'm going to have to say no to that.

I'm no trekkie, but damn.

[Batman]

People who only see 'Wars=bigger numbers' and never bother to actually run them, most likely. The Falcon was actually damaged by a whopping quartet of TIEs in ANH, with those birds having highest end low double digit KT firepower per shot but a YT-1300 can eat fleets of Sovereigns for breakfast. And the Falcon is unusually heavily armed for a ship its size.

I know the usual burden of proof might not fall on warsies so hard around here, but mind backing any of this up? Particularly the bit about doubt digit KT weapons for TIEs, but also the idea that a YT-1300 could defeat so much as one Sovereign.

The double digit KT weapons on a TIE are as per the main site and I called them highest end for a reason. My whole point was that I seriously doubt the MF could take on a Sovereign, leave alone a whole fleet of them?

Yes, a Corellian Corvette probably could defeat the Wolf 359 fleet with little effort. That's a warship, not a civilian vessel (and Valen alone knows what that'd do to their fuel reserves).

Considering we see one get disabled by the PD defences on an ISD that range from terajoules to low megatons I'm going to have to say no to that. I'm no trekkie, but damn.

Against a ship with TT and up shields having MT PD guns. Trek main guns are in the KT to maybe MT range.