David Weber's Dahak series vs... Anybody

[keen320]

David Weber's (author of the more well known Honor Harrington series) Dahak series starts with the book Mutineer's Moon. The major plot point of this book is that the moon isn't really the moon... it's a "planetoid class" spaceship disguised as the moon. Spoiler

The ship was built by the 4th Imperium, which was dedicated to fending off an invasion by aliens called the Achultanni, who periodically sweep through the galaxy smashing all life that may become a threat to them. It is suggested that they deliberately wiped out the dinosaurs with an asteroid 65 million years ago. They also destroyed a planet between Mars and Jupiter, which is now the Asteroid belt. The ship has been abandoned for 50,000+ years because of a mutiny that crippled it, and the ships Central Computer has become self aware. The mutineers fled to Earth as the Loyal crew members were forced to abandon ship. The Loyal crew lived out their days on the planet, and all humans on earth are their ancestors. You know what, read the rest on Wikipedia.

Summary of the Ship's Capabilities:
It's the size of the moon, -160km of diameter, which is made up for by covering it with an 80km shell of the lunar surface to disguise it.
Crew is 250,000 (it's heavily automated by the computer), with up to a 60% increase due to births
Optimum deployment time, 25yrs
Support vessels are numerous two seat ficgters, cutters, and ~300 parasite warships massing up to 80,000 tons
Weaponry includes energy weapons capable of breaking molecular bonds, as well as both sublight and hyper capable missiles (which can appear within an improperly shielded target) capable of carrying antimatter and "gravitonic" warheads (create a short lived, mini black hole) -- Overall, enough weaponry to vaporize a planet
Dahak employs a STL reactionless drive capable of attaining .52c
Its FTL drive is not a hyper drive but an Enchanach drive. This drive cause the ship to disappear and reappear repeatedly through space at different points, essentially teleporting itself through the use of black holes. A side effect of this drive is that the black holes can cause a star to go nova. It's said that the fourth imperium had a fleet of such ships, probably numbering in the thousands, or perhaps even hundreds of thousand.

Fourth Imperium Personnel undergo standard "biotechnic" enhancement surgeries that gives them a Neural feed, reinforced bones, sensory enhancement and the addition of other senses such as infrared, a 10x strength increase and 3x reactions increase, and a 500 year life span. Their ground soldiers routinely use powered armor capable of withstanding fire that would destroy a modern tank, and consider similar weaponry a sidearm. They employ high power energy weapons, as well as "warp grenades" that transport objects into hyperspace.

Can anyone think of another sci-fi universe that could resist all that? Either by direct military means or some other means?

[fgalkin]

Plenty. The Culture, the Xelee, the Time Lords....hell, probably SW as well.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Thanas]

This thing sounds in many ways like a less sophisticated Death Star.

[Vendetta]

It's probably more interesting to ask what the lowest level 'verse that could resist it is.

Because otherwise unless the Outside Context Probem du jour is something like the Photino Birds this type of topic is dead at post two because, well read post two.

[Themightytom]

This thing sounds in many ways like a less sophisticated Death Star.

?? how so? Its more automated and has more ways to kill a planet. maybe no one shot superlaser, but they used gravitic missiles to rip Iapetus apart instantly when the Achuultani decided to throw it at Earth... in fact, they seemed reasonably sure that if they could get ONE of the 80 parasites in close enough IT could destroy Iapetus or at least knock it off track. (This was done by an Asgerd class though not a Utu. The OP described just the Utu class that posed as the moon for 50,000 years. It was actually obsolete.

I doubt the Death star could pull the speeds even Dahak could manage given that it took them some to clear the orbit of Yavin before they could hit the rebel base.

They had zounds of them too.. There were 78 of them in just the imperial guard. As of the fall of the 4th imperium, battlefleet had 988,712 planetoids.

The 4th imperium was actually dedicated to repelling a galaxy wide invasion, they spent literally millions of years advancing and arming. By contrast the Death Star is the product of a relatively stagnant civilization intended to terrorize its own population.

Here's a story link by the way
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/09-A ... llCostsCD/

The vong on the other hand could exploit Imperium transmat technology, they 4th imperium was wiped out because of a bio weapon that spread across most of their worlds. For that matter the Ori could probably try the same stunt, presuming there are stargates on 4th Imperium worlds and the 4th imperium has no way to follow them back to their home galaxy.

[Vehrec]

Webber's writing never makes any sense to me. Always with the gravitic weapons/drives and missiles too, you would think he would occasionally want a tech settup with more interesting tools. It sounds like a less sophisticated death star because it's simply too big, too silly, and too unsophisticated to believe. Where was it's return to base feature? It's distress beacons? Its search and rescue pods to rescue the 'loyalist' crew? Why does anyone even have any planets occupied in this setting to begin with? Try as he might, he still can't come up with anything that sounds genuinely compelling and interesting to me.

To defeat them I nominate Humanity from Gunbuster/Diebuster, because nothing says 'Fuck you' like blowing up the core of the galaxy, or a mecha bigger than Earth.

[Themightytom]

Webber's writing never makes any sense to me. Always with the gravitic weapons/drives and missiles too, you would think he would occasionally want a tech settup with more interesting tools. It sounds like a less sophisticated death star because it's simply too big, too silly, and too unsophisticated to believe. Where was it's return to base feature? It's distress beacons? Its search and rescue pods to rescue the 'loyalist' crew? Why does anyone even have any planets occupied in this setting to begin with? Try as he might, he still can't come up with anything that sounds genuinely compelling and interesting to me.

To defeat them I nominate Humanity from Gunbuster/Diebuster, because nothing says 'Fuck you' like blowing up the core of the galaxy, or a mecha bigger than Earth.

Thank you!!
I thought I was taking crazy pills.. he uses hyperspace, hyper missiles, battlesteel and a number of other terms in all of his books regardless of setting, even character types and plots.The new "Off Armageddon Reef" series has the same basic "Humanity is wiped out by extra galactic invaders, We must prepare For Their Return, But Luckily An AI And A Cache Of Weapons Has Been Hiding here All Along And Can Lead Us Through A Complete Technological Revolution in Time For Us To Beat Them" theme.

It was actually so formulaic, that Bladed Crescent took elements, made the obligatory nod to Weber, and then wrote a better series with The Children of Heaven story.

Sometimes I wonder if he rebooted the mutineer's moon verse into the new one because he overpowered the 4th and then 5th Imperium to such a degree the Achuultani's inevitable return would be hilariously anticlimactic.

[Samuel]

I thought I was taking crazy pills.. he uses hyperspace, hyper missiles, battlesteel and a number of other terms in all of his books regardless of setting, even character types and plots.

There isn't anything wrong with using the same terms each time. As long as they are essentially generic names it works fine. On the other hand the constant plot recycling is a bit bad. He uses very similar plots in Apocalypse Troll and The Excalibur Alternative.

[dworkin]

Did anyone else read the Dahak books as a parody of and homage to Space Opera? Interspersed with a few Weber rants about how 'Libruuls are the Evulz!!!111' because the man just cannot help himself. Mad Weber rants aside the books comprise a frenzied romp through classic space opera motifs. It's a guilty pleasure.

As for the OP. I'ld send in the Culture. Mainly because they are peace loving do-gooders who use the fruits of their civilisation to make life for the plebes paradise rather than just churning out endless amounts of military hardware which can only be justified by the author's villain-ex-machina.

[keen320]

I've suspected while reading the series that Weber deliberately set out to create some of the most overpowered spaceships imaginable.

I thought I was taking crazy pills.. he uses hyperspace, hyper missiles, battlesteel and a number of other terms in all of his books regardless of setting, even character types and plots. Sometimes I wonder if he rebooted the mutineer's moon verse into the new one because he overpowered the 4th and then 5th Imperium to such a degree the Achuultani's inevitable return would be hilariously anticlimactic.

Hmmmmm, now that you mention it, Weber's books seem less and less original. Or maybe I should say, more unoriginal. He even reuses the same system's of government in his books, namely the constitutional monarchy (particularly empire), all of which are conveniently set up so as to preclude a tyrannical ruler, especially since almost all the "good Guy's" in his books are perfect (except for the ones who are easily identifiable to the reader as traitors or scumbags). I still like his books, though. Unoriginal doesn't mean bad. Besides, Mutineers Moon could actually constitute his most "original" work, because it's his 2nd or 3rd big novel, chronologically. Besides, a ship the size of the Moon is just awesome.

It sounds like a less sophisticated death star because it's simply too big, too silly, and too unsophisticated to believe. Where was it's return to base feature? It's distress beacons? Its search and rescue pods to rescue the 'loyalist' crew? Why does anyone even have any planets occupied in this setting to begin with? Try as he might, he still can't come up with anything that sounds genuinely compelling and interesting to me.

Weber explains away the distress beacon issue by saying the mutineers first step was to disable the ship's hypercomm, and saying that the rest of the sabotage almost but not quite destroyed the ship and touched off a stalemate that somehow lasted for 50,000 years. It's orders to suppress the mutiny trap it at earth, but suppressing the entrenched and shielded mutineers would kill 70% of human life. Actually, that almost makes it sound less credible, now that I think.
On the other hand, I have to admit there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to live on planets. If nothing else, anyone who could build so many huge ships (allegedly they just chop up planets and convert them to the proper materials - book 3) could probably build a dyson sphere or ringworld. Of course, the Imperium doesn't seem very wise by the second book. Spoiler

The imperium had a huge civil war that caused it to become an Empire. Thousands of years later, a bio-weapon was accidentally released that was designed to kill ALL LIFE. Literally designed to kill ALL life, even plants and micro-organisms. It's probably almost as deadly than the flood, especially since it has a dormant incubation period of 30 months to spread before it starts killing and you even know it was released. It can also survive for hundreds of years without a host. Finally, the 4th Empire had interstellar transport technology that hastened the spread of the bioweapon during it's dormant period.

[Vendetta]

Of course, the fact that they've got endless amounts of really rather scary military hardware just lying around doesn't hurt either.

[Thanas]

?? how so?

Smaller, less one-shot firepower, no hyperspace (does it even have FTL sensors?), has rock crust etc which cannot be good for shielding etc....

[keen320]

Smaller, less one-shot firepower, no hyperspace (does it even have FTL sensors?), has rock crust etc which cannot be good for shielding etc....

1. It's not smaller. The Death Star 1 is supposed to be 120 km, Death Star 2 is probably 160 km. Dahak is the size of the moon MINUS 160 km!, and the moon is 3476 km in Diameter. For a visual comparison, go to http://www.merzo.net/index.html and click on -2000 at the top. Scroll down to the death stars and compare it to the Moon backdrop.

2. It's only covered by Lunar Material as camouflage. The actual ship is made of "Battle Steel," which is Weber's generic sci-fi super metal of choice. It's shields can withstand dozens of hits by missile weapons rated as 10,000 megatons. The ship itself can withstand hundreds of hits even when the shields are failing.

3. It's FTL is not much slower than hyperspace in the books. Also, later, more advanced planetoid ships in the series have hyper drive and "Enchanach drive." Besides, Enchanach drive can cause a star to go nova (suncrusher, anyone?) and allow the ship to escape. How is that inferior?

4. Imperium FTL sensors (admittedly on dedicated platforms, but ones significantly smaller than Dahak and likely equal) can detect Achultani ships something like 15 years away! Granted, the Achultani hyperdrive is pretty slow, probably comparable to UFP warp drive (and insanely slower than Imperium FTL), but that's still impressive. Also, they can detect hyperspace exit points enough in advance to ambush ships coming out of hyper in deep space light years from stars.

5. How would something like a Death Star hit anything that can go 50% of lightspeed? Especially when that something can go to FTL within less than a second if they risk blowing up a star (almost certainly blowing up the death star in the process).

6. While Imperiem shields are specifically designed to block hyperspace missiles, Galactic Empire shields likely could not, given that even Imperium shields are not 100% effective. Also, Imperium Hyper missiles can hit a fighter on a straight course in Earth's atmosphere from Dahak's orbit as the moon, a distance of 363,300 km. Dahak could likely fire these missiles at something like the death star or a star destroyer from a much greater distance (they are bigger and can't do effective evasive maneuvers), with the missiles appearing inside it's enemies shields, or even inside their ship.

[Star Wars 888]

The galaxy gun, centerpoint station or another long range superweapons might win.

Galactus from Marvel Comics.

Ellimist from Animorphs

Q from Star Trek

[Imperial528]

Well, the GE does have the galaxy-gun, which fires a star-destroyer sized missile which is also a capable combat warship of its own.

A source for your claims would be nice too.

Also, 10,000 megatons would be properly written as 10 gigatons, which means it is probably among the same strength of durasteel.

And I don't see why you would need to go FTL in less than a second if you just blew up a star, since at 1 au or more there is at least ~8 minutes of time before anything reaches you.

Although, I really don't think that any civilization which can credibly use lunar material as a way to camouflage a giant fucking space station would have such powerful sensors, as the thermal readings would give it away in seconds to anyone with a thermal imaging telescope and some math/google skills.

[Star Wars 888]

Btw I responded in he Lotf galaxy vs empire tread.

WTF is it with this durasteel wanking? Sure it's strong, but it isn't as strong as some claim; iirc some claimed that durasteel could survive in the core of a star or even in the center of a black hole.

[Vehrec]

Smaller, less one-shot firepower, no hyperspace (does it even have FTL sensors?), has rock crust etc which cannot be good for shielding etc....

1. It's not smaller. The Death Star 1 is supposed to be 120 km, Death Star 2 is probably 160 km. Dahak is the size of the moon MINUS 160 km!, and the moon is 3476 km in Diameter. For a visual comparison, go to http://www.merzo.net/index.html and click on -2000 at the top. Scroll down to the death stars and compare it to the Moon backdrop.

That site is just DEAD WRONG. First Death Star scales to 160km, not 120. The second Death Star is over 900km in diameter, but both of them probably have more useful space than Dahak. Look at how much of the Death Star is habitable. Look at how Dahack is 90% stardrive. Who has more space to serve as a warship?

2. It's only covered by Lunar Material as camouflage. The actual ship is made of "Battle Steel," which is Weber's generic sci-fi super metal of choice. It's shields can withstand dozens of hits by missile weapons rated as 10,000 megatons. The ship itself can withstand hundreds of hits even when the shields are failing.

Stupidest plot device ever. For chrissake, TTGL had a more believable battleship moon in the Cathedral Terra. As for the weapons, the Death star would have been unflinching the face of hundreds or even thousands of multi-terraton weapon hits. It withstood a significant fraction of that just from impacting debris from Alderaan.

3. It's FTL is not much slower than hyperspace in the books. Also, later, more advanced planetoid ships in the series have hyper drive and "Enchanach drive." Besides, Enchanach drive can cause a star to go nova (suncrusher, anyone?) and allow the ship to escape. How is that inferior?

Hyperdrive is YONKS faster. You can cross the galaxy in less than a day, so how is that not faster? As for novaing stars, the Suncrusher makes stars Supernova, and a Star Wars FTL on a Star Destroyer is a planet cracker (the incident in question happened off-screen during the Clone Wars.) I would not be surprised if the Death Star could either superlaser a star to induce a mild nova, or use it's hyperdrives to do something similar.

4. Imperium FTL sensors (admittedly on dedicated platforms, but ones significantly smaller than Dahak and likely equal) can detect Achultani ships something like 15 years away! Granted, the Achultani hyperdrive is pretty slow, probably comparable to UFP warp drive (and insanely slower than Imperium FTL), but that's still impressive. Also, they can detect hyperspace exit points enough in advance to ambush ships coming out of hyper in deep space light years from stars.

Except that hyperpace in Star Wars is FAST. Very fast. So fast that 15 light years might as well be no FTL sensors at all for detecting inbounds with Star Wars drives.

5. How would something like a Death Star hit anything that can go 50% of lightspeed? Especially when that something can go to FTL within less than a second if they risk blowing up a star (almost certainly blowing up the death star in the process).

Prove that this would blow up the Death Star, since it has very heavy shields and can simply hyper away itself. As for hitting anything at .5C, that's actually easier in some ways, because the time dilation will dull their responses and ability to maneuver.

6. While Imperiem shields are specifically designed to block hyperspace missiles, Galactic Empire shields likely could not, given that even Imperium shields are not 100% effective. Also, Imperium Hyper missiles can hit a fighter on a straight course in Earth's atmosphere from Dahak's orbit as the moon, a distance of 363,300 km. Dahak could likely fire these missiles at something like the death star or a star destroyer from a much greater distance (they are bigger and can't do effective evasive maneuvers), with the missiles appearing inside it's enemies shields, or even inside their ship.

Interdictors can project a Hyperspace nullifying field of gravity. Each and every Star Wars ship has Tensor and Stasis fields to hold it together as it snaps to the other side of the lightspeed barrier. Star Wars FTL drives can drop you off much closer to Dahak than a single light second. Star wars ECM and ECCM bend space and time so badly that only the mark one eyeball was reliable during the attack on the first Death Star.

I bid one HAB Resource Extraction Facility, Planetary, Unified Production, Organic and Industiral to defeat this abortion of a Sci-fi series.

[Batman]

All REAL world effects of blowing up a star are going to take their sweet time reaching you if you do it from several lightminutes away. That doesn't mean all IN UNIVERSE effects will. I don't know about the work in question but SciFi is LOUSY with blowing up a star having effects propagating FTL.

[Thanas]

Keen, most of your post is not that impressive and actually subpar of Empire level tech. But let me just point out a few things:

Smaller, less one-shot firepower, no hyperspace (does it even have FTL sensors?), has rock crust etc which cannot be good for shielding etc....

1. It's not smaller. The Death Star 1 is supposed to be 120 km, Death Star 2 is probably 160 km. Dahak is the size of the moon MINUS 160 km!, and the moon is 3476 km in Diameter. For a visual comparison, go to http://www.merzo.net/index.html and click on -2000 at the top. Scroll down to the death stars and compare it to the Moon backdrop.

2. It's only covered by Lunar Material as camouflage. The actual ship is made of "Battle Steel," which is Weber's generic sci-fi super metal of choice. It's shields can withstand dozens of hits by missile weapons rated as 10,000 megatons. The ship itself can withstand hundreds of hits even when the shields are failing.

So a single ISD can tear it up with ease, seeing as how it has a broadside which can put out at least 1,600,000 megatons.

Note that a single cannon barrel of an ISD turret has at least a firepower of 200,000 megatons. And an ISD has 16 of those.

Also, if all they have is that low of shielding/damage absorption, a single DS blast is overkill. Way overkill.

5. How would something like a Death Star hit anything that can go 50% of lightspeed? Especially when that something can go to FTL within less than a second if they risk blowing up a star (almost certainly blowing up the death star in the process).

SW ships are capable of that speed themselves. What counts here is acceleration - how fast can that thing accelerate?

6. While Imperiem shields are specifically designed to block hyperspace missiles, Galactic Empire shields likely could not, given that even Imperium shields are not 100% effective.

"Likely" is not a good argument. However, even if we assume the shields will all be ineffective (which I am not prepared to stipulate to) then let me point out that ISDs have withstood salvos from each other without being shielded (Granted, not full salvos, but still definitely on the level of 100 GT at least)

Also, Imperium Hyper missiles can hit a fighter on a straight course in Earth's atmosphere from Dahak's orbit as the moon, a distance of 363,300 km.

Star wars ships have been shown to hit kilometer-sized targets from a distance of an entire solar system.

With that in mind, the rest of your scenario does not work. A single ISD will most likely take it.

[Thanas]

The rest of you - stop dogpiling.

[keen320]

Sorry I wasn't more specific about sources. Most of the OP info comes from Chapter's 2 through 4 of Mutineer's Moon. Other stuff comes from various parts of Empire from the Ashes, the omnibus book of Weber's Dahak series.

I was using the Death star as a reference because it's a well known Uber-battle station most people know about, and several people have immediatley compared the two.

Also, How would ANYTHING survive a nova or supernova blast? That's one of the most destructive things in the known universe.
My point of going to FTL in less than a second is that it could dodge a shot from the Death star superlaser, which takes a second or so to fire. Dahak is a computer with near instant reflexes and could dodge. Also, it could micro jump all over in an engagement.
Dahak is not 90% star drive. It's about 30-40% star drive. Also, habitable space is wasted space as far as weaponry is concerned.

Interdictors can project a Hyperspace nullifying field of gravity. Each and every Star Wars ship has Tensor and Stasis fields to hold it together as it snaps to the other side of the lightspeed barrier. Star Wars FTL drives can drop you off much closer to Dahak than a single light second. Star wars ECM and ECCM bend space and time so badly that only the mark one eyeball was reliable during the attack on the first Death Star.

Dahak's Hyper missiles can hit something in Earth's atmosphere, and that is a much stronger gravity field. They can also be launched from Earth, if their launcher is evacuated of all air. The primary interfering factor for Imperium hyper drives is weather they start from a vacuum.

Offensive power is also far stronger than 10 gigatons per missile, as the Imperium's missiles have warheads that create mini black holes for a fraction of a second. There isn't any plausible way for a physical object to survive a mini black hole. And the missiles can almost certainly detonate within shields.

Now can we stop with the Star wars comparisons? Also, I put in some stuff on their ground capabilities, someone could compare that to something.

[Batman]

Also, How would ANYTHING survive a nova or supernova blast? That's one of the most destructive things in the known universe.

It also wastes the vast majority of its power on EMPTY SPACE. All you have to do to survive a supernova is be far enough away. Which isn't all that far in interstellar terms. With Wars level shielding you can essentially IGNORE it.

[keen320]

Can we please get off the Star wars bit, or move to ground combat with something else? The derived/published figures for star wars weapon energies are simply so absurdly high as to destroy pretty much anything. Personally, I think these figures are rather ridiculous, but I'll admit that lots of people swear by them, so i won't argue with them.

Side question: Why did the empire even bother with a Death Star? They could wipe out just about any planet unshielded with one star destroyer, and a fleet big enough to punch through a shield is presumably much more efficient.

[Cykeisme]

The derived/published figures for star wars weapon energies are simply so absurdly high as to destroy pretty much anything. Personally, I think these figures are rather ridiculous, but I'll admit that lots of people swear by them, so i won't argue with them.

Yes, the ability to bring the gravitational potential energy state of an entire Earth-like planet up to zero is ridiculous, but there we go.

Side question: Why did the empire even bother with a Death Star? They could wipe out just about any planet unshielded with one star destroyer, and a fleet big enough to punch through a shield is presumably much more efficient.

- A top-grade planetary shield has a network of neutrino re-radiators all across (possibly even within) the planet. It'd take a spike of energy to overload it and punch through it.
Engineering and building a single huge reactor may be more efficient cost-wise and/or volume-wise than having many small ones spread throughout many ships. Plus, coordinating to dump the energy in a single point on the shield's boundary, at a single point in time, is probably easier with a single large weapon.

- They already had a big fleet.

- Aside from its military value (not insignificant), it works well as a terror weapon.
Slagging cities or planet surfaces from orbit it something that's been around for millenia in Star Wars, so you need to up the ante to make people go "wtf" and scare them enough that you'll never need to actually do it.

- Because they could.

[Themightytom]

Also, How would ANYTHING survive a nova or supernova blast? That's one of the most destructive things in the known universe.

It also wastes the vast majority of its power on EMPTY SPACE. All you have to do to survive a supernova is be far enough away. Which isn't all that far in interstellar terms. With Wars level shielding you can essentially IGNORE it.

Maybe I'm confused, I thought the reason DS I was creeping up on Yavin was because it couldn't come out of hyperspace closer, and its Sublight speed limitation was the reason it couldn't just whip around Yavin.

So a single ISD can tear it up with ease, seeing as how it has a broadside which can put out at least 1,600,000 megatons.

Note that a single cannon barrel of an ISD turret has at least a firepower of 200,000 megatons. And an ISD has 16 of those.

Also, if all they have is that low of shielding/damage absorption, a single DS blast is overkill. Way overkill.

First I don't know if Keen's hypermissile numbers are accurate. The Dahak, or any of the planetoids couldn't have been withstanding attacks from "just" dozens" because that would mean that like one in ten ships attacking them were firing a missile, there had to be literally thousands of missiles hitting as well as the significantly more powerful energy weapons the AChuultani used. Emperor Herdan for example was being raked with thousands of such beams, her shields eventually failed and she hypered out instantly when her captain ordered it. The last report was she was 41 % combat capable, with 900 KIM hunks torn out of her southern pole. The debate so far seems like it is between ONE Asgerd and the Death Star, not a dozen, not a hundred, not thousands. This I don't understand. How is the Death Star II with a three minute charging time, supposed to deal with hundreds of planetoids hypering in and out of range and spamming it with missiles that took out a moon with twice its mass.

There Are A Lot of Planetoids. And Each Has At Least 80 parasites which, while doubtless shielded less effectively, fire the same gravitonic missiles which are in at least the gigaton range.

Keen is probably talking up the hyper missiles because they pop in and out of dimensions to bypass shields but my udnerstanding is the gravitonic missiles use the same means of delivery, Dahak's fleet left at Earth and the technology they sued to defend against several hundred thousand Achuultani was primitive and out of date by 50 thousand years by the time they found the Asgerd planetoids and their gravitonic weapons. While this probably isn't effective on say snub fighters, the Deeath Star has all kinds of convenient trenches and landing bays for a missile to emerge into. Ignoring the shield bypass aspect, the missiles are described as creating miniature black holes, the same weapon that was used very effectively by the Vong on post Imperial technology, to rip shields away among other things.

As for firepower, 16 of them blew up Iapetus, and even the parasites were hurling them by the dozen at the Achuultani coming after Earth. 4th imperium shields can't cover EVERY "Hyperband" and the Achuultani can't either so the idea is they missile spam across many many many dimensions until they start getting through.


A single SD is not going to match a utu let alone an Asgerd, because thanks to the automation the planetoids are still deadly after taking massive damage.

The Empire has the Death Star. The imperium even without a challenge to the death star, has an absolutely retarded number of Mobile bases full of fighters and battleships. They really just need to be a match for the star destroyers deployed throughout the galaxy in order to beat the Empire.

SW ships are capable of that speed themselves. What counts here is acceleration - how fast can that thing accelerate?

It can instantly enter Enchanach. The book mumbles something about hyperspace being "predetermined points" which is probably something like doing hyperspace calculations, it doesn't cause a problem when they are engaged in a pitched battle with hundreds of thousands of Achuultani, when they want to leave they just do. I can't find any references to sublight acceleration time from cruising to maximum because it appears to take place within the space of dialogue. I would think a huge factor here would be keeping the planetoids out of the way of the superlaser once it was charged up, but I don't see why at most a dozen couldn't wipe the Death star out before it was prepared to fire, even at a reduced power level that would be capable of destroying a planetoid.

"Likely" is not a good argument. However, even if we assume the shields will all be ineffective (which I am not prepared to stipulate to) then let me point out that ISDs have withstood salvos from each other without being shielded (Granted, not full salvos, but still definitely on the level of 100 GT at least)

What evidence is there that SW shields operate in multiple dimensions, and why even if there IS an obscure weapon they are designed to repel, would the gravitonic missiles enjoy at least the success of the Vong weapons, given that the Vong were effective with basically the same systems years later?

Star wars ships have been shown to hit kilometer-sized targets from a distance of an entire solar system.

With that in mind, the rest of your scenario does not work. A single ISD will most likely take it.

I don't think a ranged attack is in the imperium's best interest though I would argue an imperium ship could probably intercept a SW missile, and definitely seems to carry more ordinance. I think the Imperium's best plan would be to use its numbers and plan for deploying overwhelming firepower.

Most of the scenarios I have envisioned have admittedly been on the Empire's turf, I'm really not sure how it would play out if the Empire tried to mess with the Imperium, but the Op seemed to say who could survive the Imperium not vice versa