Enterprise vs Millenium Falcon

[Ted C]

Oh, dear. Apparently Adam Savage subscribes to the "no lasers" theory.



Skip to 2:00 to see Adam without having to go through the rest.

[Batman]

Don't people ever get tired of looking like complete morons when mentioning this?

[DarthPooky]

I don't know why people cant put at least a bit of logic into what there saying.

[biostem]

It's really more an opinion piece than any sort of actual examination of facts. Regardless, the Adam Savage bit really threw me off - anyone whose handled a laser pointer will know that they don't look or behave like the turbolasers or blasters of Star Wars.

The only thing I will say in favor of the Enterprise is that if it was just Han & Chewie, they'd be hard pressed to maximize their firepower, (I don't recall seeing Han being able to fire weapons from the cockpit, unlike the Ghost, where we see Hera being able to at least man the front turret from her seat). Still, with the degree of maneuverability demonstrated by the Falcon, I suppose he could simply keep the side w/ the turret Chewie was operating facing the Enterprise...

[Batman]

When Han planned to take out that TIE in ANH everybody was in the cockpit so the Falcon seems to have 'some' weapon that can be fired from the cockpit powerful enough to take out a TIE.

[Venator]

When Han planned to take out that TIE in ANH everybody was in the cockpit so the Falcon seems to have 'some' weapon that can be fired from the cockpit powerful enough to take out a TIE.

Certainly the concussion missile launchers - and presumably the antipersonnel gun on the boarding ramp, for whatever that would be worth.

[SpottedKitty]

When Han planned to take out that TIE in ANH everybody was in the cockpit so the Falcon seems to have 'some' weapon that can be fired from the cockpit powerful enough to take out a TIE.

Certainly the concussion missile launchers - and presumably the antipersonnel gun on the boarding ramp, for whatever that would be worth.

I thought the turrets were locked in "fire straight ahead" mode when they weren't being manually controlled.

[Adam Reynolds]

In any case it is a bit biased to have a small freighter against a capital ship. The fact that this is a common matchup shows how outclassed Trek is against Wars.

[Simon_Jester]

On the other hand, the Enterprise in its various incarnations is the definitive spacecraft from Star Trek, while the Falcon is the definitive craft from Star Wars.

So if you're a fan of both, and you're a crossover kind of person, then the image never goes away. Sort of like "what WOULD happen if Han Solo were up against Captain Kirk." Sure, that may be an 'unfair' match in that Kirk has a huge crew and Han has only himself and Chewie, or whatever. But the idea of two things that are memorable, classic, and well liked confronting each other sticks with you, in a way that "what if the Enterprise confronted some nameless class of Generic Imperial Ship #4" wouldn't.

[Sea Skimmer]

It's really more an opinion piece than any sort of actual examination of facts. Regardless, the Adam Savage bit really threw me off - anyone whose handled a laser pointer will know that they don't look or behave like the turbolasers or blasters of Star Wars.

Did anything, ever, about myth busters make you think either of the hosts knows a single thing about weapons of any form? We can't even say they've merely handled them safely. Every time guns get involved the show has a tendency to get absurdly stupid, and I am not one to think that intentional. Given how much more complex anything else and its effects are and well, I really wouldn't find it hard to believe that it doesn't occur to him that the turbolasers in fact cannot be even slightly linked to lasers.

The only thing I will say in favor of the Enterprise is that if it was just Han & Chewie, they'd be hard pressed to maximize their firepower, (I don't recall seeing Han being able to fire weapons from the cockpit, unlike the Ghost, where we see Hera being able to at least man the front turret from her seat). Still, with the degree of maneuverability demonstrated by the Falcon, I suppose he could simply keep the side w/ the turret Chewie was operating facing the Enterprise...

They might well be able to get into a blind spot on the ship close to the hull and simply start riddling a section of the hull with one turret until Picard declares a unilateral ceasefire or something and they fly off. Though I forgot, I think the E-D once fired phasers from the warp nacelles?

I thought the turrets were locked in "fire straight ahead" mode when they weren't being manually controlled.

That would certainly seem to be what ROTJ implied, as no other fire from the turrets is seen and it would feel rather illogical for them to be completely unused when a major battle was expected. And if not then either that drop down blaster can also take our TIEs, or the Falcon has another hidden gun.

[Adam Reynolds]

Did anything, ever, about myth busters make you think either of the hosts knows a single thing about weapons of any form? We can't even say they've merely handled them safely. Every time guns get involved the show has a tendency to get absurdly stupid, and I am not one to think that intentional. Given how much more complex anything else and its effects are and well, I really wouldn't find it hard to believe that it doesn't occur to him that the turbolasers in fact cannot be even slightly linked to lasers.

Frankly this could be said about much of what they do. While often entertaining, they aren't exactly scientific. And they far too often fall into the trap of not using proper controls in tests. Recently, they did an episode in which they tested whether or not the U-2 was the hardest airplane to fly. Adam was able to fly as a passenger in the trainer version, but they didn't actually compare the U-2 against anything else. I'm sure naval aviators would argue that flying on a carrier is far harder than the U-2 and that fighter pilots would argue that dogfighting is the hardest possible thing one could do. Personally I wonder if the real hardest thing is flying helicopters off of Coast Guard cutters in rough weather.

That would certainly seem to be what ROTJ implied, as no other fire from the turrets is seen and it would feel rather illogical for them to be completely unused when a major battle was expected. And if not then either that drop down blaster can also take our TIEs, or the Falcon has another hidden gun.

I recall the guns angling at least once in that engagement(as the Falcon engages a TIE in front of the medical frigate). And the old EU stated that there were soldiers manning the turret guns. I believe it was based on unused footage. But we also see front on shots immediate after this as well, so it presumably can also fire directly forward.

In any case, concussion missiles should also work quite well and would likely be the preferred weapon against such a large target.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm..I just had a thought. Aside from the Imperial officer on the DS1 reporting to Vader, does anyone actually use "laser" or "turbolaser" in the OT? As best I can recall hand weapons are just "blasters" and the big guns on capships go unnamed apart from that one "they're so small they're evading our turbolasers" remark.

[Elheru Aran]

That would certainly seem to be what ROTJ implied, as no other fire from the turrets is seen and it would feel rather illogical for them to be completely unused when a major battle was expected. And if not then either that drop down blaster can also take our TIEs, or the Falcon has another hidden gun.

I recall the guns angling at least once in that engagement(as the Falcon engages a TIE in front of the medical frigate). And the old EU stated that there were soldiers manning the turret guns. I believe it was based on unused footage. But we also see front on shots immediate after this as well, so it presumably can also fire directly forward.

In any case, concussion missiles should also work quite well and would likely be the preferred weapon against such a large target.

I always took it as a given that the Falcon was probably carrying actual gunners during ROTJ. Lando did get a co-pilot assigned to him, I don't see much reason why they wouldn't have stuck a couple of gunners in the turrets unless they were really desperate for hands... but on the other hand, Lando is the general leading the Rebel vanguard into the attack, I'd think they would want his ship to be manned to allow him to focus on flying. I would find it somewhat silly if they didn't bother giving him a couple of gunners.

[Eternal_Freedom]

They had enough spare guys to have two sitting in the seats behind Lando and his copilot, so either they were using the guns from there or there were others. Or they are collectively dumb enough to have two guys sitting there doing very little instead of manning the guns.

[Purple]

Given that Lando was a general at that point maybe they were handling communications and the like? I can't imagine him piloting the ship AND handling routine radio chatter AND conversing with the people he needs to order around him self and doing everything else on his own.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Um, except we do see him doing that. He talks to Ackbar, he orders Red and Gold wings to attack the DSII, he gives orders to the other pilots on that attack run, he even gives a few warnings to Wedge about other fighters during the main melee.

[Purple]

Um, except we do see him doing that. He talks to Ackbar, he orders Red and Gold wings to attack the DSII, he gives orders to the other pilots on that attack run, he even gives a few warnings to Wedge about other fighters during the main melee.

We see him doing the important communications. That's what I meant by "conversing with the people he needs to order around him self". Those guys might still have handled communications with all the other fighters and incoming ships and such so that he can focus on that. Or they might have been there to back him up but he newer let them. We see, what 5 minutes of screen time total for the lot.

[Borgholio]

That would certainly seem to be what ROTJ implied, as no other fire from the turrets is seen and it would feel rather illogical for them to be completely unused when a major battle was expected. And if not then either that drop down blaster can also take our TIEs, or the Falcon has another hidden gun.

It does appear to have forward-facing guns that can be fired from the cockpit. In the novelization of ROTJ, there are rebel gunners manning the turrets as well.

[SMJB]

Let's see. One point in favor of the Falcon is that it severely outmatches the Enterprise in speed.

While we don't know the actual speeds hyperspace allows, we do know that there was a galaxy-spanning empire, and that puts a certain lower limit on it--if the time it takes for news of a rebellion to reach the imperial capital and for an imperial punitive fleet to reach said rebellion exceeds the time it takes for the rebellion to build and man enough ships to thwart said punitive fleet, the empire's control of this planet was an illusion. The fact that the capital-"R"-Rebellion didn't seem to have some unreachable stronghold the Empire could never strike at implies that no such place exists. We also don't know how long it takes to build ships in the Star Wars universe, but it couldn't have been that long between ANH and ROTJ--implying that the Death Star II was made in, at most, a few years.

Basically, it can be inferred that the time it takes to cross the GFFA (which, in the EU at least, was larger than the Milky Way) can be measured in months (and not even that many months), whereas it would have taken Voyager 70+ years to get home from the Delta quadrant. And the Millennium Falcon is supposedly one of the fastest ships there is.

It also appears to be more complicated than warp drive, to the point of not being able to use it tactically, but at the very least they can escape if things go south...assuming they're in any shape to do so.

In every other conceivable way, though, the Enterprise outclasses the Falcon.

Whether ST transporters can beam through SW shields is a matter best left to authorial fiat--it is reasonable to suspect that shielding tech in ST is in an arms race with transporter tech in an manner analogous to "armor vs. torpedo", but no one has ever actually said so and so it's perfectly acceptable to say shielding is shielding in the interest of making a more interesting story. However, no one has ever said the Falcon has shielding, either.

There is also considerable reason to believe that ST's shields are simply better than SW's--certainly they're utilized more. Even if not, the shear size difference between the ships means that it's reasonable to assume that the Enterprise has more power to put into its shielding (which, again, we don't know the Falcon has in the first place).

Photon torpedoes can strike from distances orders of magnitude greater than anything we've ever seen any ship in SW hit anything from. Now, it's certainly reasonable to invoke Literary Agent Hypothesis and assume that what we see in the movies is just Hollywood bullshit and not how it "really" happened...but do you see a pattern forming yet? There are a lot of areas in which the best case scenario for the SW side is that there's no difference and the worse case scenario is that ST rips them apart like tissue paper.

Straight-up universe vs. universe, the GFFA still has the speed advantage, tends towards political unification, and has the strength of numbers and general callousness towards human life to throw wave after wave of of ships at the Federation until they wear them down (or until the Federation breaks out its time travel...yeah, that's just a thing you can do in Star Trek--watch Star Trek IV if you don't believe me).

But that's neither here nor there. This is about the Falcon vs. the Enterprise--and the Enterprise almost certainly wins.

Now, there's no true correct answer, of course, as both are only actual capable of what the screenwriter wants them to be capable of, but some answers are more reasonable than others; it's certainly okay to have the Falcon beat the Enterprise in your fics, just make sure you have a damn good explanation as to how on hand.

[Scottish Ninja]

However, no one has ever said the Falcon has shielding, either.

I mean, except for Han Solo.

[SpottedKitty]

We also don't know how long it takes to build ships in the Star Wars universe, but it couldn't have been that long between ANH and ROTJ--implying that the Death Star II was made in, at most, a few years.

I dunno, I got the impression that DSII had been an even-more-secret-than-the-original-DS project that Palpatine had started some time ago — possibly even several years before ANH.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the contest would depend heavily on what the two ships were trying to do.

If the Falcon is trying to run a blockade while Enterprise tries to enforce it, my money's on the Falcon. Because Solo is quite good at running blockades, and his ship is much faster.
_____________________

If we're talking about a duel to the death where running away or negotiation is not allowed, my money's on the Enterprise. The Falcon mounts weapons that are in the same general firepower range as what's mounted on starfighters in its own setting. As evidence for this, they are not powerful enough to obliterate Vader's fighter with one shot, for instance, and TIEs hit by the Falcon's guns don't seem to blow up any more violently than TIEs hit by X-Wing weapons.

So the Falcon punches about as hard as a fighter. And we've got a lot of evidence suggesting that fighter-weight Star Wars beam weapons aren't punching at anything more than the kiloton range. So Enterprise can match the Falcon in firepower, and her shields are going to withstand a lot of beating from the Falcon's guns. Moreover, Enterprise has a much physically larger hull, with many systems (not all) being redundant. She can survive hull breaches that penetrate the shields. The Falcon lacks that kind of durability and bulk, and so would probably lose a beam duel.

Missiles might be more of an issue... but I'm honestly not sure the Falcon always has missiles, either- we don't see them used in A New Hope, even when it would make sense to launch them.

Now, the Falcon's shields are tough enough to withstand multiple hits from the light turbolasers of a star destroyer, so it might actually be maddeningly hard for Enterprise to penetrate those shields. But since TIE fighter weapons are a credible threat to the Falcon, I'm pretty sure capital ship phasers and photon torpedoes would be too.

But Han would be out of his mind to hang around while a much slower and larger ship takes potshots at him, so it's hard to imagine this happening.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If the EU were still canon, then one of the Falcon's later refits replaced the quads with light turbolasers, and those would be enough to hurt the E-D. But that's no longer canon.

In any cae, I seriously doubt Han would ever be dumb enough to try a duel tot he death against what is (in SW terms) a large-ish frigate (about the same size as the EU Dreadnought cruisers IIRC). He would run, and if he absolutely can't run (which I doubt given the Falcon's speed) he'll hide, or he'll call up Picard and try to bluff his way out.

[Darth Nostril]

As evidence for this, they are not powerful enough to obliterate Vader's fighter with one shot

That's because they don't hit Vader's fighter, they take out one of his wingmen.
Vader gets knocked out of the fight by a collision when the other wingman panics.

[applejack]

Hmm..I just had a thought. Aside from the Imperial officer on the DS1 reporting to Vader, does anyone actually use "laser" or "turbolaser" in the OT? As best I can recall hand weapons are just "blasters" and the big guns on capships go unnamed apart from that one "they're so small they're evading our turbolasers" remark.

In TESB when the Falcon enters the asteroid field and one of them hits the ship Han says "That wasn't a laser blast!"

So at the very least, TIE fighter cannons are "laser" cannons. Canonically.