Coalition of Planets (2150-60s) vs Galactic Empire

[Zaune]

So, supposing the Caeliar from the Destiny trilogy (a near-Qlike race whose hivemind appears to have Asperger's Syndrome) actually made good on their threat and displaced humanity, every race who'd notice if humanity suddenly went missing and their planets to another galaxy. Being genuinely well-intentioned folk underneath it all, they'd probably pick a galaxy where humanity and its neighbours wouldn't feel too out of place, right...?

Technology-wise... Well, I think it's best to treat Enterprise as an Elseworld for the purposes of this discussion. Not only did we have an entire story arc about an alien race preparing to deploy a Death Star-equivalent against Earth, but remember that one episode in Season 1 when they were installing the new phase cannons and accidentally overclocked the first one? That's going to put quite a dent in a Star Destroyer, and the phase cannons seem quite adaptable to anti-starfighter work judging by that two-parter when they went back to an alternate-history 1940s to stop some aliens help the Nazis to win WWII. (It was better than it sounds.)
On the other hand, not many races seem to possess deflector shields yet, and if Warp 9 is slow compared to hyperdrive then Warp 5 in old money doesn't bear thinking about. Added to which, if the NX class is typical then ST:E ships tend towards three or four very powerful weapon emplacements, putting them at a severe disadvantage versus the Imperial Navy's preference for dozens of small independent turrets; they seem to be better-provided with guided weapons, but if photon torpedoes are their only edge then they're going to have major logistical issues.
I'll be generous and suggest that Enterprise, the cutting edge of human spaceflight engineering and horribly expensive and complicated to build into the bargain, is about up to holding its own in a 1v1 with an old Victory-class destroyer. The Empire might not be able to walk all over them in a week, but they'd definitely be very junior partners in the Rebellion at first.

However, compared to the Federation, the Coalition of Planets have a few important advantages. They all have something that actually deserves to be called a standing army, a high percentage of their total space tonnage is made up of dedicated warships and they've had recent experience of facing a serious military threat. They're probably in a better position to survive an Imperial invasion than at any other time in Federation history before the end of the Dominion War.
Also, warp drive might be a lot slower but it doesn't seem to be affected by gravity wells, and transporter technology is one thing that the Empire definitely hasn't got and probably doesn't know is possible yet.

Of course, there'd be internal divisions that could cause... complications. The Andorians managed to wangle themselves a set of blueprints for the Xindi's own miniature Death Star, and Q only knows who the Xindi themselves would ally with. Same goes for the Suliban and the Klingons, though the Romulans would probably declare war on the Rebels and the Empire on general principles. The existence of Terra Prime also leaves open interesting possibilities for a fifth column on Earth.

So, anyone got a few hundred meticulously-researched words and a ream of calculations telling me I'm talking complete bollocks?

[Azron_Stoma]

I would hardly call the Xindi superweapon a Death Star Equivalent, it took a full 10 seconds or so to destroy earth and quite a bit of that continued after the weapon stopped firing (IE Chain Reaction) and earth itself exploded far less violently than Alderaan.

As for the Overclocked Phase Cannons, I'm guessing you mean this



Keep in mind that destroyed a mountain the size of Mount McKinley

In order to so much as equal one of the main guns of an ISD you have to do better than this.



That left a crater the diameter of the distance between Austin to Huston

[Zaune]

I would hardly call the Xindi superweapon a Death Star Equivalent, it took a full 10 seconds or so to destroy earth and quite a bit of that continued after the weapon stopped firing (IE Chain Reaction) and earth itself exploded far less violently than Alderaan.

It destroyed a planet. What more do you want?

As for the Overclocked Phase Cannons, I'm guessing you mean this

Image

Keep in mind that destroyed a mountain the size of Mount McKinley

In order to so much as equal one of the main guns of an ISD you have to do better than this.

Image

That left a crater the diameter of the distance between Austin to Houston

So... one gun, of which an ISD has a quite large number, outputs two million times the energy of the biggest nuclear detonation in human history per shot? Citations, please.

[Batman]

A single ISD massively outguns the entire TNG era Alpha Quadrant by a comfortable margin but you think NX-01 can stand up to a VSD. Um-no.
Deflector shields or not we're talking about a 5 orders of magnitude differential in firepower (low end) between the E-D and a Clone Wars era troop transport. (200GT per shot per battery-possibly per barrel-for an Acclamator's MTLs vs maybe-MT photorps for NCC-1701D).
Warp can be immune to gravity wells all it wants (which it isn't, see TNG's Relics) with ENT era Warp 4.5 being 100c vs 7 figure c speeds for pretty much EVERYTHING that has a stardrive in Wars that's not going to matter much.
That coalition might be better suited to battle Wars WRT force structure, but theTECH BASE of said structure is even more incapable of doing it than TOS/TNG.

[Batman]

I would hardly call the Xindi superweapon a Death Star Equivalent, it took a full 10 seconds or so to destroy earth and quite a bit of that continued after the weapon stopped firing (IE Chain Reaction) and earth itself exploded far less violently than Alderaan.

It destroyed a planet. What more do you want?

It NOT doing so via a funky technobabble chain reaction. There's no evidence what, if any, effect that weapon would have on a shielded target.

So... one gun, of which an ISD has a quite large number, outputs two million times the energy of the biggest nuclear detonation in human history per shot? Citations, please.

Given that a single MTL on a Clone Wars era troop transport which is nowhere near the size of an ISD and not a dedicated fighting ship puts out 200GT per shot per battery (possibly per barrel)...
Using marginally more than 50 percent of its reactor output an ISD1 can theoretically put out .9 petatons a second. 100TT per shot per gun for an HTL seems decidedly feasible.

[Zaune]

Once again: Citations, please. Because if these numbers are accurate, a single Imperial Star Destroyer could cause extinction-level events on a planet's surface as a matter of course, and I don't remember that coming up in the EU.

[Norade]

Once again: Citations, please. Because if these numbers are accurate, a single Imperial Star Destroyer could cause extinction-level events on a planet's surface as a matter of course, and I don't remember that coming up in the EU.

First of all the 200GT per second figure is from the RoTS:ICS. As for ISD's causing extinction level events does a Base Delta Zero ring a bell, if not do some more research or fuck off to whatever hole you came from.

[Batman]

Show me yours and I'll show you mine. 200GT per shot per battery (possibly even per barrel) is as per the Episode 2 ICS. ISDs can pretty casually do damage way BEYOND extinction level events if given enough time (Base Delta Zero). Why are WE required to give citations if YOU can't be arsed to?

[Norade]

Ghetto edit: My post above should say the AoTC:ICS.

[Zaune]

Okay, I should have been clearer on the fact I was guestimating based on what I'd seen on-screen and read in the EU. I hadn't run across the the term "Base Delta Zero" in the parts of the EU I have read (though not for lack of trying really rather hard to find the Hand of Thrawn series in the library). If there's hard information proving me wrong, I accept that.

But in my defence, I didn't come into this throwing out highly specific numbers.

[Norade]

Okay, I should have been clearer on the fact I was guestimating based on what I'd seen on-screen and read in the EU. I hadn't run across the the term "Base Delta Zero" in the parts of the EU I have read (though not for lack of trying really rather hard to find the Hand of Thrawn series in the library). If there's hard information proving me wrong, I accept that.

But in my defence, I didn't come into this throwing out highly specific numbers.

That's no defense, that just shows that you're worthless and haven't read the board's rules. A quick google or a search of this board, or a reading of the main site would have given you all the info you needed on the ability of Star Wars capital ships to deal damage.

[Batman]

But in my defence, I didn't come into this throwing out highly specific numbers.

YES YOU DID. You came into this claiming an Akiraprise could actually hurt a Victory, that 100c Warp drive would make a difference when Wars hyperdrive is a couple hundred thousand times that fast while blithely ASSERTING an Akiraprize would be able to stand up to a Victory while providing NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support that. OR your firepower numbers for the Akiraprise. In fact you never even QUANTIFIED your firepower numbers for the Akiraprise.

[Dalton]

But in my defence, I didn't come into this throwing out highly specific numbers.

YES YOU DID. You came into this claiming an Akiraprise could actually hurt a Victory, that 100c Warp drive would make a difference when Wars hyperdrive is a couple hundred thousand times that fast while blithely ASSERTING an Akiraprize would be able to stand up to a Victory while providing NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support that. OR your firepower numbers for the Akiraprise. In fact you never even QUANTIFIED your firepower numbers for the Akiraprise.

Batman, you're really not helping your case here. The problem is that Zaune did not come out with any numbers. None, period. The OP was a bunch of unsupported, vague suppositions and guesstimations with little to no actual hard evidence (or citations, for that matter) to back it up.

Zaune, you do not get to ask others for citations when you yourself have provided none. The burden of proof has been on you from the first post. You essentially threw out a bunch of claims without anything to back it up and then asked us to disprove it. Furthermore, you didn't even bother to do much research at all in the first place. You had a lot of balls reporting this thread.

Norade, I get that you're trying to be tough and showy and whatnot by showing those newbies who's boss, but cut it out with the hyperaggressive bullshit. You do far too much of that shit and you're not impressing anyone.

[Lord Revan]

To understand the difference between the Deathstar and the Xindi weapon, lets assume there's a fort you need to get into, now the Deathstar is akin to brinning a battering ram and bashing the front gate down, while the Xindi weapon is akin to setting the gate aflame, while the end result will be the same, meaning the gate will be down and you'll be able to enter, one way depends on specific conditions (meaning that the gate must be flameble) and the gate supplies most of the energy needed, the other doesn't (as a side effect the ramming method also needs more energy as the gate isn't helping you).

[lord Martiya]

In my measly opinion my best case scenario is this: a Terra Prime-controlled Earth will be the capital of a new Imperial sector, and the other guys will end split between the extremes of the surviving Romulans making a life out of fine arts and high-graduation alcoholics and the Xindi being bombed back to stone age for being the only ones with something comparable to Imperial firepower (that superweapon can destroy a planet, after all, and the Empire will not wait and see if they can rebuild it).
Any other scenario will see many more death and destruction and the complete extermination of the Xindi.

[Dalton]

Thread split into HoS.

[Batman]

Batman, you're really not helping your case here.

What you're REALLY saying is I made a complete and utter fool of myself and you're right. I apologize to both Zaune for misunderstanding (possibly deliberately at the time) his point and you for wasting your time by forcing you to point this out to me.