Galactic Empire Vs Imperium of Man (Vs Chaos)

[NecronLord]

Are the quotes from the audiobook? They do not look familiar at first glance. But, granted, we cannot know for certain where the ship was waiting.

The comic. I only have the original comics themselves.

Perhaps he was afraid of losing control of them, given how dangerous they could be even to him? I do believe, though, that the DESB mentions that his acolytes are trained in sdirecting them once he conjures them up, so that would appear to indicate that he has used them before, only not on the battlefield.

Interesting. Clearly he should have brought some such acolytes to the Eclipse then!

Ah. So it was pretty rare, then, and not a natural ability - a "superweapon" perhaps comparable to the Eclipse (rearranging surfaces sounds rather close to what its onboard superlaser does)?

No, not a superweapon. Merely something they don't normally need to do. They fully understood its construction, and could set one up on any conquered planet.

Mind, it required enslaving the entire population and grinding them into paste to mortar the abominable thing, so it's not easy to build. But they can certainly build more.

And it was more precise than that; they used it to bring necron ruins under an ocean to the surface, so they could steal from them.

As I understood it, he was using a weaker version of that same power to drain them over time without depleting them completely - milking the cow as opposed to butchering it, I suppose. This is, admittedly, partly conjecture on my part.

Yeah, that's the impression I got too.

I hunted down the quote; it was actually the Dark Side Sourcebook, not the DESB:

Palpatine has spent decades studying the most arcane and esoteric Jedi disciplines. It is believed that he has mastered nearly all the known powers, previously unknown powers, and devises new ones at his pleasure.

This to be combined with the DESB's substantial accounts of his in-depth studies of obscure Force disciplines. It does not mention any power outright, of course, but the Thought Bomb was "known" and, as noted, documented.

Darth Bane supposedly destroyed the only known documentation of it, though. It's conjecture to presume he re-inscribed it somewhere.

Is that strictly necessary? I thought Kaan was going mad by then, trapped in the cave as he was, and just wanted to go out with a bang. As for the participation, I shall have to re-read that story.

I don't have the Jedi vs Sith or Darth Bane book, but I've hunted down the Jedi Knight passage...

And so the decision was made to place death before life. More than a thousand highly trained minds were focused on a single task. First came the creation of a mental construct that was analogous to a bomb casing. A container in which energy could be stored. Then came the process of turning the Force inside out, of tapping the darkness within and channeling that energy into the newly created vessel.

Time hung suspended, the air crackled with barely supressed energy, and three of the [dark] Jedi died, their minds overcome by the violence of the process. Others went insane, rose with weapons drawn, and were excecuted by the master-at-arms.

Given that, I must withdraw the idea that the others are necesserily needed to do the intellectual work, as opposed to just 'channelling energy.'

On numbers, there does not appear to be any hard data; Wookiee says that the total number exceeded six hundred, but that clause is unsourced and most likely fanon. On a maximalist note, I debated a guy who claimed they must number in the millions, as the Official Encyclopedia said Palpatine intended for them to replace the planetary governors; given the canon, this might mean literally billions if that statement is true and to be taken at face value. However, that would go against more or less the entire implied scope of Force-sensitivity in the rest of the EU. Anyone with access to the Encyclopedia who could check?

It's speculation, but supposedly, (IIRC, it's the Revenge of the Sith novel) there had been billions of jedi knights' journals in the temple, which would imply that in the past twenty five thousand years, there have been far more than ten thousand knights, at times. Certainly, the talent to use the force doesn't seem that rare, and Palpatine could feisably recruit millions into his new empire ('Shadow Academy' and suchlike springs to mind, but of course, on a lesser scale, and for that matter, turning to the dark side is apparently easy, so it should be possible to train darksiders in greater numbers than Jedi. I doubt anyone would be keeping their force sensative children from this regime, which must surely happen quite often...

Oh, I would think that they could clone or shapeshift in some version of Padmé for him; the issue would be whether he could tell it was a fake, and if so whether he could do so straight away.

I'd assume he's not a moron, and would check on their abilities first... in both cases.

[NecronLord]

Vader is repeatedly portrayed as plotting to overthrow Palpatine and rule the Empire himself. All a Chaos god needs to do is say, "I'll give you powers beyond the pittance you now have, powers you may use to overthrow your master and rule two galaxies yourself," and Vader will begin negotiations.

And then he'll find out that they're just not capable. They're not even capable of overthrowing a far more disorganised empire.

As for restoration, I believe one of the stories in 'Let the Galaxy Burn' describes a Chaos Space Marine having a hand replaced by one made of crystal. Chaos gods should have the ability to give Vader new lungs, new arms and legs, but they won't be human lungs, arms and legs, they'll be... gills... tentacles... birdlike talons or something, along with "bonuses" like wings and extra heads.

I rather doubt he'd approve.

[Thanas]

^I don't really think you can compare replacing a hand to the injuries Vader suffered anway. Replacing a hand is quite easy giving the Empire's cloning tech, yet it did nothing for his injuries.

[Thanas]

edit: Replace "giving" with "considering", please.

[NecronLord]

Nurgle could do something, no doubt. It can even reanimate the dead. But I don't think Vader would want to become a nurgle-thing. He nurtures ambitions of actually restoring himself, after all. Not becoming a bloated, giant ulcer.

[wrigglybear]

Vader is repeatedly portrayed as plotting to overthrow Palpatine and rule the Empire himself. All a Chaos god needs to do is say, "I'll give you powers beyond the pittance you now have, powers you may use to overthrow your master and rule two galaxies yourself," and Vader will begin negotiations.

And then he'll find out that they're just not capable. They're not even capable of overthrowing a far more disorganised empire.

When it comes to corruption from Chaos, the IoM is far better defended and prepared than the GE. The Imperium knows what it is facing; it knows the perils (to an extent), it has organisations completely devoted to routing such influences, and, perhaps most importantly in fighting Chaos; it has blind faith in it's own God.
The GE has none of these. Chaos, if it got it's hands on Vader and the ruler of the GE it would easily reduce it to nothing more than a machine of sacrafice and war for the Gods, and Anakin has already shown to be easily corrupted. When it comes down to it; Chaos would have a much easier time with the GE.

[Ghost Rider]

Vader is repeatedly portrayed as plotting to overthrow Palpatine and rule the Empire himself. All a Chaos god needs to do is say, "I'll give you powers beyond the pittance you now have, powers you may use to overthrow your master and rule two galaxies yourself," and Vader will begin negotiations.

And then he'll find out that they're just not capable. They're not even capable of overthrowing a far more disorganised empire.

When it comes to corruption from Chaos, the IoM is far better defended and prepared than the GE. The Imperium knows what it is facing; it knows the perils (to an extent), it has organisations completely devoted to routing such influences, and, perhaps most importantly in fighting Chaos; it has blind faith in it's own God.
The GE has none of these. Chaos, if it got it's hands on Vader and the ruler of the GE it would easily reduce it to nothing more than a machine of sacrafice and war for the Gods, and Anakin has already shown to be easily corrupted. When it comes down to it; Chaos would have a much easier time with the GE.

One small point. In a versus match, it is usually assumed that both sides have a working knowledge of the opponent's or you get shit replies like yours. Wherein we will just circle jerk to see which side can masturbate harded.

[open_sketchbook]

Vader is repeatedly portrayed as plotting to overthrow Palpatine and rule the Empire himself. All a Chaos god needs to do is say, "I'll give you powers beyond the pittance you now have, powers you may use to overthrow your master and rule two galaxies yourself," and Vader will begin negotiations.

And then he'll find out that they're just not capable. They're not even capable of overthrowing a far more disorganised empire.

Overthrowing the Galactic Empire is a completely different beast from overthrowing the Imperium of Man. For Darth Vader, all he needs to do is kill the Emperor and declare himself the new Lord of the Sith and Emperor of the Galaxy. Chances are, nobody will argue, and with the speed of communication and troop deployment, anyone disagreeing with the idea will quickly find themselves crushed by the loyalist Imperial Starfleet. If Vader is granted the power of Chaos, well, it'd be an interesting fight between him and Palpatine, I'll say that.

Overthrowing the Imperium is a completely different matter. The Imperium as a civilization is very robust, with no single man or organization critical to it's function. Thousands of years fighting a bewilderingly vast array of diverse enemies, many experts at subverting elements of their enemies, creates a system with an infinitely deep set of checks and balances, especially after the Horus Heresy and Age of Apostasy. The Empire can offer all the planetary shields it wants, fact is it hasn't got much the Imperium doesn't and it's not going to ever make any friends in the Mechanicus or Imperial Cult. It'll have to put a lot of capital into most of the planets it wants to subvert, a lot more, I think, than they can afford while at the same time fighting loyalist resistances, the bulk of the Imperium's armies and it's vast Naval power, not to mention having to then hold the planets it takes from the Imperium, which can call a lot of resources to get them back.

In addition, the Imperium can run a long game better than anyone. The Empire hangs on a thin thread as it is, with a sizable and well equipped rebellion running around inside it secretly funded by a galaxy's worth of dissidents. How long can the Empire fight and pour resources and capital into that fight before their grip on power falters? How high can they raise the taxes? The Imperials already deem it necessary to rule by fear and maintain a fleet of 25, 000 Star Destroyers, without an obvious external threat, so widescale rebellion is obviously considered a possibility. (Considering how rapidly the Empire came apart after the Battle of Endor, this fear is well-placed) When the Empire starts running out of money, it'll have to nationalize the local megacorperations like Kuat and Seinar just to keep fighting, and that will not sit well with the corporate elements. Rebels with Star Destroyers, anyone?

Hell, Palpatine might drop dead of old age long before the Imperium is conquered, and without his will behind the whole thing the Empire will fall apart on it's own. Conquering the Imperium will take decades, centuries even, and it seems likely the old guy will croak before Terra falls.

[Ford Prefect]

Overthrowing the Galactic Empire is a completely different beast from overthrowing the Imperium of Man. For Darth Vader, all he needs to do is kill the Emperor and declare himself the new Lord of the Sith and Emperor of the Galaxy. Chances are, nobody will argue, and with the speed of communication and troop deployment, anyone disagreeing with the idea will quickly find themselves crushed by the loyalist Imperial Starfleet. If Vader is granted the power of Chaos, well, it'd be an interesting fight between him and Palpatine, I'll say that.

It is not nearly that simple. The Galactic Empire is not nearly that homogenous, and it is unlikely that people like Sate Pestage, certain Grand Admirals, certain Grand Moffs, other dark side adepts under Palpatine and so on would recognise Vader as undisputed ruler. Palpatine holds together the Empire; if he dies it is likely to fall into civil war, much like the imperium did when Goge Vandire showed up.

[Darth Raptor]

Palpatine isn't just some old guy, convenient political fiction notwithstanding. When his original body deteriorates too far, he'll reincarnate into a cloned body or be completely reborn as Anakin Solo. People like him don't die until you make them dead.

[open_sketchbook]

Overthrowing the Galactic Empire is a completely different beast from overthrowing the Imperium of Man. For Darth Vader, all he needs to do is kill the Emperor and declare himself the new Lord of the Sith and Emperor of the Galaxy. Chances are, nobody will argue, and with the speed of communication and troop deployment, anyone disagreeing with the idea will quickly find themselves crushed by the loyalist Imperial Starfleet. If Vader is granted the power of Chaos, well, it'd be an interesting fight between him and Palpatine, I'll say that.

It is not nearly that simple. The Galactic Empire is not nearly that homogenous, and it is unlikely that people like Sate Pestage, certain Grand Admirals, certain Grand Moffs, other dark side adepts under Palpatine and so on would recognise Vader as undisputed ruler. Palpatine holds together the Empire; if he dies it is likely to fall into civil war, much like the imperium did when Goge Vandire showed up.

In that case, the Empire falls to pieces and the Imperium wins anyway, likely the result that Chaos wants in the first place, as it can now gleefully take advantage of the turmoil to find a few gullible saps to tattoo eight-pointed stars onto themselves.

Palpatine isn't just some old guy, convenient political fiction notwithstanding. When his original body deteriorates too far, he'll reincarnate into a cloned body or be completely reborn as Anakin Solo. People like him don't die until you make them dead.

Those clone bodies don't last too long, as I remember. Long enough for him to find an alternate plan? Certainly. But in the meantime, the Empire's armies are still being whittled away. The Empire can't Base Delta Zero everyone, especially if they're handing out FTL communicators to every other planet as a bribe. News will spread. They're going to have to get their hands dirty on some planets eventually, and I think Imperial Army vs Death Korp might test the patience of even the most determined Generals after the ten year mark. Eventually, the Empire is going to run out of steam and fall apart if it tries to push the war against the Imperium.

[Darth Raptor]

Where does this idea that any and all orbital bombardment must be a crust-slagging, dinosaur-killing geocidal mass extinction event? The Galactic Empire has ludicrous space supremacy. If they're fighting the Imperium on the ground, then they are Doing It Wrong. Unless the Imperium has the theater or planetary shields that are ubiquitous in Star Wars, this opens up their worlds to bombardment of surgical precision by the (Galactic) Imperial Navy. I readily concede that there's a rough parity on the ground, but what the hell does that matter when the Galactic Empire is the undisputed king of space?

[open_sketchbook]

The Imperium does have theater shields, as a matter of fact, they are what forces the siege warfare conditions of the Siege of Vraks. However, the Imperium prefers a more direct method of anti-orbital tactics, with planetary defense lasers lethal enough to make assaulting a planet within their arc of fire a suicidal action. Basically, all that power that goes into making a theater shield, goes into making a directed energy weapon; a battery of under a dozen of these weapons forces the Krieg armies to land on the opposite side of the planet from them and build a long railroad to get to the enemy position.

I'd also dispute the Imperial Starfleet's space superiority over the Imperial Navy, and I've always founded it strange, in my long, long lurking of this board, it's pretty much assumed. Imperial Navy vessels seem perform similarly to vessels of the Imperial Starfleet of comparable size whenever the matter is seriously discussed, and I'd also like to bring up that Imperial Starfleet vessels are completely venerable to teleport attacks by Navy vessels, unless Star Wars has developed warp-based void shielding and nobody told me. Considering that teleport attacks are a tried-and-true tactic of the Imperium, I'd expect the advantage would be quickly exploited to the fullest regardless of other circumstances.

[Tanasinn]

Even if you assume similar firepower and defensive ability (which isn't entirely unfair), the GE has a MASSIVE advantage when it comes to strategic mobility.

[Darth Raptor]

Exactly. The (Holy Terran) Imperial Navy might as well be a fleet of battle stations. Hours or even days of in-system, sublight maneuvering to arrive on-station? Slow-ass, unreliable and extremely dangerous FTL? Like I said, whoever is in charge of the (Galactic) Imperial invasion force must be criminally inept if they're playing to the Imperium's strengths and not their own. Why do that?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Exactly. The (Holy Terran) Imperial Navy might as well be a fleet of battle stations. Hours or even days of in-system, sublight maneuvering to arrive on-station? Slow-ass, unreliable and extremely dangerous FTL? Like I said, whoever is in charge of the (Galactic) Imperial invasion force must be criminally inept if they're playing to the Imperium's strengths and not their own. Why do that?

How does an Imperial Invasion force plan to overcome the vast array of ground based anti-ship defences? Defences that could easily pulverise an equivalent Imperium vessel. Getting into close orbit will simply be a suicidal, and there are millions of PDF troops on the ground in a typical Hive world or Forgeworld.

[open_sketchbook]

Spending days in-system to maneuver into position doesn't sync up with the .6c combat speeds shown in other works, so I think Tanasinn was referring to hyperdrive speed rather than sublight speeds, seeing as sublight combat speeds are a tactical, not strategic, asset. Of course, it is also possible that ships red-line their engines in combat to achieve such high speeds, but Starfleet ships can't be much faster than that in normal operation anyway.

The Imperial Starfleet can play to it's own strengths all it wants, the Navy'll be playing it's strengths as well, which is to say, numbers, teleport raids, and planetary defense systems. The Imperium knows the Navy is slow, and they've set up their tactics to match. The Empire won't be able to just jump Imperial Navy vessels in ones or twos, as Navy ships like to stay in their flotillas, which, as mentioned in other discussions, are really, really big. While Starfleet escorts and Star Destroyers are trying to batter through a hive city's shields, they'll be jumping on them and forcing them to fight or flee. The Imperium is on a defensive war, so they can let the enemy come to them anyway, seeing as that's what they do with pretty much everyone else in the universe, and they've had 10,000 years of practice!

[Ghost Rider]

Start putting something beyond your own personal conjectures.

[Connor MacLeod]

Spending days in-system to maneuver into position doesn't sync up with the .6c combat speeds shown in other works, so I think Tanasinn was referring to hyperdrive speed rather than sublight speeds, seeing as sublight combat speeds are a tactical, not strategic, asset. Of course, it is also possible that ships red-line their engines in combat to achieve such high speeds, but Starfleet ships can't be much faster than that in normal operation anyway.

To my knowledge there is only one relatavistic example and that one tends to be mitigated by the fact it was an attack occuring shortly after emerging from the warp (suggesting they probably startted out at that velocity)

Besides which, relatavistic velocities require substantial acceleration, and that requires substantial power for reactoin drives if you're going to do it quickly. In a combat situation you have to power other systems (IE weapons) as well as engines, so you have to settle for lower accelerations.

The Imperial Starfleet can play to it's own strengths all it wants, the Navy'll be playing it's strengths as well, which is to say, numbers, teleport raids, and planetary defense systems.

Limited by the fact they won't know where to strike to be effective. Just randomly lashing out will be of limited effect.

The Imperium knows the Navy is slow, and they've set up their tactics to match. The Empire won't be able to just jump Imperial Navy vessels in ones or twos, as Navy ships like to stay in their flotillas, which, as mentioned in other discussions, are really, really big. While Starfleet escorts and Star Destroyers are trying to batter through a hive city's shields, they'll be jumping on them and forcing them to fight or flee. The Imperium is on a defensive war, so they can let the enemy come to them anyway, seeing as that's what they do with pretty much everyone else in the universe, and they've had 10,000 years of practice!

Why would they "jump on them" after they started to attack the planet? Moreover, you seem to assume they'll simply concentrate their forces at will - the Imperium's systems can encompass facilities throughout the whole system that must be defended (asteroid mining, orbital stations, etc.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Even if you assume similar firepower and defensive ability (which isn't entirely unfair), the GE has a MASSIVE advantage when it comes to strategic mobility.

Which is the same problem I just pointed out for the Imperium - they have to know where to strike to begin with to be effective, and their "strategic mobility" with hyperdrive depends GREATLY on (among other things) having accurate coordinates. And in this case it won't work really to bribe anyone for maps, given the way the Imperium works. (Hell even their best maps, as I recall from the second Soul Drinkers novel, were still incomplete.) THey'd have to rely on mapping to figure out where to go.

[Connor MacLeod]

Where does this idea that any and all orbital bombardment must be a crust-slagging, dinosaur-killing geocidal mass extinction event? The Galactic Empire has ludicrous space supremacy.

Depends on how many ships they have (and send) and the system in question. System defenses can vary tremendously in the Imperium from system to system.

If they're fighting the Imperium on the ground, then they are Doing It Wrong. Unless the Imperium has the theater or planetary shields that are ubiquitous in Star Wars, this opens up their worlds to bombardment of surgical precision by the (Galactic) Imperial Navy. I readily concede that there's a rough parity on the ground, but what the hell does that matter when the Galactic Empire is the undisputed king of space?

Uh, conquest (the point in the OP) kinda requires the ability to take and hold ground, so at some point yes they WILL have to go in on the ground and fight. And yes, theatre shields exist in 40K - how common they are depends on the planet/facility in question (but then again thats true in the Empire too.. its not as if evey planet in the outer Rim has a planetarey shield, for example.)

Palpatine isn't just some old guy, convenient political fiction notwithstanding. When his original body deteriorates too far, he'll reincarnate into a cloned body or be completely reborn as Anakin Solo. People like him don't die until you make them dead.

He doesn't just pop into a new body right away, he needs time to recover. And that can be dangerous for him to do, given how Palpatine-oriented the functioning of the Empire is. (Having him suddenly pop out of the picture would be rather bad news - recall that the Empire is set up so that it cannot function effectively without him.)

This also means that he has to be careful just how much he wanks out, because those abilities (even with the myraid means of s upport he has) can put some tremendous abuse on his body, hastening his death (and need tor reincarnation.)

[Connor MacLeod]

One small point. In a versus match, it is usually assumed that both sides have a working knowledge of the opponent's or you get shit replies like yours. Wherein we will just circle jerk to see which side can masturbate harded.

True, but the Empire isn't exactly a stable entity. Remember that without Palpatine its designed to fail, and as a rule they have a fair number of dishonest/disloyal peopel in it (up to and including folk like VAder and Tarkin) and that betrayals even while the Empire was powerful have happened, so there are plenty of opportunities to cause grief for the Empire.

The problem, though, is that some of the easiest means of doing so aren't going to work because SW has no psykers to speak of - their "link" to the warp is alot smaller (possibly nonexistent) than it is for beings in 40K. That means attempt at corruption have to rely on other means (mundane bribery, alliances, or corruption via chaos artifacts) all of which require contact be established with the Empire (which has its own risks and problems, obviously.)

[Connor MacLeod]

It doesn't need to. Planetary governors would defect in droves: "More trade, better FTL transport and communications, better protection than the Imperium can offer in a month of Sundays (can we say 'planetary shields') better medical treatment... where do I sign?"

I'm not sure that you can neccesarily argue they'd automatically have access to alot of the neat shit SW has. Remember that there are plenty of worlds in the Empire itself that don't have access to planetary shields either (the Core worlds seem to do their utmost to keep that as an advantage to themselves). And I wouldn't say communications or transportt are neccesarily faster, but they are safer and more reliable (and speed is really dependent upon a number of factors - SW has its own "slow end" hyperdrive examples too, after all.) And the sorts of worlds that are most likely to be able to successfully defect (IE worlds that don't have significant arbites, naval personnel, or a Guard Garrison) probably aren't worth shit by Imperium standards to begin with.

Compare to: "The Empire's standard Sector Group strength was only twenty-four Star Destroyers. They were able to exercise control over an entire system with a single Imperial-class ship. They were able to overwhelm anything up to a Class Four planetary defense with one-third of a Sector Group."

To control an area consisting of thirty six full member worlds, and 40,000 settled dependancies.

Yeah, it's not as if 40k's unique in that kind of minimalism.

It varies. 50-75 seems to be the low end (though I'd guess that 60-70 ships is a good average "per sector" figure. And that's strictly for warp capable warships. That doesn't include subsector and system level defence forces (including sublight vessels and those vessels that travel the warp without navigators.) vessels of allied forces (the Inquisition, AdMech, Arbites, Ecclesiarchy, Astartes, etc.) and most of those are probably simply ships leased out by the Navy as it is. It also doesnt include armed merchant vessels/Q-ships and other second/third line vessels, and older vessels that would be in mothballs/reserve, vessels they'd normally use as fire ships, etc - so in theory the Imperium can always pull out far more ships than the 50-75 figure. (Doing so requires pulling in additional manpower, probably increases costs/maintenance requirements, puts a greater strain on the infrastructure, and other problems that prevent it from being done so save out of neccessity.)

Likewise, the Sector Fleet example from the ISB of "24 ISDs per sector" is a lower limit and generally assumes a "peaceful" sector (but probably works as an average too) reasonably well. It does not seem to include "other Star Destroyer" types like the smaller Venators/Victories, or larger ISDS (and possibly ones like the Tector, but that's up in the air.) It also probably doesn't cover the larger "non-Star Destroyer" vessels like Star cruisers or Star Dreadnoughts, though you won't usually see more than 1-2 SSDs per sector (of Executor Grade at leasT) and probably only a handful of cruisers.

It also doesn't cover mobile assets - ie squadrons/fleets not attached to a particular sector or ships attached to specific individuals (IE Tarkin or Vader.) or the private fleets of local sectors (some of which like KDY are bound to be quite powerful in tehir own right)

Oh, I see. They have craploads, let's be honest. And Galactic Empire ships are just flat-out-better in many ways.

How many do you think "craploads" is exactly? And they're better in some ways, but not all. The big advantages are greater offensive firepower given equally sized ships, better FTL sensors, possibly better ECM, and more reliable FTL (and faster, given the right circumstances). 40K ships still have better operational endurance, accelerations as good (possibly better) than SW ships (and possibly better mobility), and they're considerably tougher (SW ships will last minutes or seconds in a flat out battle, 40K ships take minutes or hours typically.)

It could also be about a million worlds. While I'm sympathetic to maximalism and all, one million worlds has been a pretty constant line in warhammer 40,000 from first to fifth edition.

Who said its anything about "maximalism?" 40K itself has tossed around variable figures on sizes, using "millions" of worlds interchangably with "million", as well as suggesting higher numbers (which I've addressed elsewhere.) It has to be reconciled somehow.

And I might point out as well the same is precisely true for SW - despite hints at "millions" (or billions) of worlds in the GE, it has historically (and the Republic before it) and consistently described as a "million system" Empire/REpublic, and that had to be reconciled as well (even if the "million world" figure is higher canon as it were.)

That combat is radically different, and far less dangerous. For a start, hyperdrive is vastly faster, and more accurate. A hyperdrive equipped ship can plop into place anywhere in a system. A warp drive ship can do that, if you want to risk your soul, but normally has to re-enter realspace at least a day's travel from the primary.

Hours or days, depending on the type of system (IE size) and the ship in question. And just how close you get seems to depend on how good a navigator you have.

And again I think you're oversimplifying hyperdrive, becuase there's a whole fuckton of factors that go into things like "how fast they go" (the quality of the hyperdrive, the conditions of space they travel in - remember that they're traveling in realspace, so even the smallest of collisions is an issue -, the quality of navigational data and nav computers, etc.) And Hyperdrive accuracy/capability can go from "we can't change course until we arrive at our destination" to "we can manuver while in hyperspace so as to go around a planet" depending on your source.

Vast and undefined. However, given that they're as physically threatening as the likes of wraithlords, they'd crush him. Sorry, but even DE Wankatine¹ isn't really that formidable. He's fast, but that's about it. He is still not lightsaber proof.

¹ Indeed, when I actually got around to reading DE, I was gratified to see how well done the lightsaber duel at the end was. Much more believable realistic than some of the absurd things they get up to in the prequels.

I have no doubt that in personal combat the Deceeiver could crush Palpatine, since Palpatine's close combat skills are overrated. His lethality in "fightihng" is more tht at a distance (hell he even admits to himself he tended to eliminate his enemies at a distance with the Force in DE.) and his "great power" tends to involve alot of tricks and manipulations (being able to tap into other force users he's linked with, sucking the life forcee out of others, magic sith crystals/temples/whatchamacallits, etc.) - many of which are not tappable instantly.

What i tend to wonder more is whether PAlpatine would be warned about such a danger and seek to avoid it (or ambush it in other ways = he's certainly not above sacrificing others for his own means.) if he can. And this depends to a great extent on the Deceiver's own abilities to "remain undetecteD" or "infiltrate" a planet. Can he just like teleport in anywhere at the SW Galaxy at will, is he somehow able to "detect" things across the galaxy (some sort of precognition or clairvoyance.) or similar abilities, or what? I certianly can't recall running across any sources off hand to suggest any of the above, at least.

Roll in CIS style self-replicating production centres, and replace it completely.

[/quote]

They don't seem to even utilize this technology as openly as they should be in SW as it is (the DS is the only example, and that was a "hidden" project. Likewise, the World Devastators, which are basically what you just mentioned above, are also considered "superweapon" level as well.) It would seem that there is a prolonged anti-droid bias that makes utilizing such technologies rather taboo if not outright restricted. (and likely with good reason, since if the CIS had been even slightly less inept than it had been they would have steamrolled the Republic.)

That is not to say they wouldn't use it, but I don't think they're just going to be handing it out willy nilly, nor are they going to pull it out from the get go either (as I said, we're talking "Superweapon" here.)

[Ford Prefect]

To my knowledge there is only one relatavistic example and that one tends to be mitigated by the fact it was an attack occuring shortly after emerging from the warp (suggesting they probably startted out at that velocity)

Is that, by any chance, the example of Imperial fighter craft making an attack run at .75 cee?

[Darth Raptor]

Uh, conquest (the point in the OP) kinda requires the ability to take and hold ground, so at some point yes they WILL have to go in on the ground and fight. And yes, theatre shields exist in 40K - how common they are depends on the planet/facility in question (but then again thats true in the Empire too.. its not as if evey planet in the outer Rim has a planetarey shield, for example.)

And that's counter-insurgency after you've blasted everything bigger than an IFV from high orbit. What I'm talking about is large-scale, set-piece "play your dudes like a RTS game" surface maneuvers. Starting off with an invasion by landing massive armies that close to engage the Imperium at grimace and jowl range only to get raped by chainsaw swords and walking castles is asinine. There's no reason for the Empire to give them the satisfaction.