Sci Fi power ranking

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2005-04-11 03:45pm

Skelron wrote: well we all saw what happened to one Craftworld when a Nid splinter group found them.

I didn't. What happened?

What book did this happen in?

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-11 03:46pm

Grasscutter wrote:On a related note, why is the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi so high? I didn't realize their weapons and FTL were so much stronger than the Trek ships. Not disputing it, just asking for more info.

This bit was inherited from the previous ranking. Don't take the non boldfaced items in white too seriously. The list is progressing in an evolutionary way, not a revolutionary one (i.e. gradual modification of older forms).

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-04-11 03:53pm

I believe the bit about Confed/Kilrathi ships being up there was that they have UFP-like numbers of capital ships, but their fighter guns have yields in the high kilotons, planet-killing weaponry and pretty well developed colony worlds.

Glimmervoid · Post by **Glimmervoid** » 2005-04-11 03:56pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:
Skelron wrote: well we all saw what happened to one Craftworld when a Nid splinter group found them.

I didn't. What happened?

What book did this happen in?

A White dwarf artical.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-11 04:18pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:
Skelron wrote: well we all saw what happened to one Craftworld when a Nid splinter group found them.

I didn't. What happened?

What book did this happen in?

The "splinter group" of the hive fleet Kraken attacked and reduced Craftworld Iyanden to a shadow of it's former self. This is why they are forced to rely on the Wraithguard so much.

I put splinter group in inverted commas since it was still fucking enormous, and anyway it was the Eldar who helped the IoM to reduce it to splinters in the first place.

Glimmervoid · Post by **Glimmervoid** » 2005-04-11 04:26pm

Interesting idea could a golden age human empire (40k) take down the empire. Remember the imperiam is a shadow of what it was.

The point were would a golden age human 40k go.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-11 04:32pm

Glimmervoid wrote:Interesting idea could a golden age human empire (40k) take down the empire. Remember the imperiam is a shadow of what it was.

The point were would a golden age human 40k go.

"Insufficient data". The so called "Dark Age of Technology" is far more mythical than even the Great Crusade.

starfury · Post by **starfury** » 2005-04-11 07:31pm

where is the bab5 Centuari, they should be clustered close to Earth alliance/Narn and below the minbari and dune presequel powers.

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2005-04-11 08:01pm

Lord Zentei wrote: Sephirotic metaempire (Orion's Arm)
Republic of Man (Resnick's universe)
Tar Aiym (Foster's Commonwealth universe)
Zerg
Borg
Goa'uld
Dominion

There is no way the Tar Aiym are above the Borg. Tar Aiym are Dominion level at the very most. And the Sephirotics should be lower as well (sure they have incredible wank nano, but no FTL).

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2005-04-11 08:17pm

Blasted no edit! I didn't see the revised list!

Lord Zentei wrote:Xeelee & Exession Builders
Xeeleverse humans
the Culture
the Foundation
the Galactic Empire (Foundation)
the Galactic Empire (Star Wars)
Farscape Ancients
SG1 Ancients (at their height)
Imperium of Man (WH40K)
Tyrannids
Orks - maximum(WH40K)

You forgot Necrons. At full power they'd probably be between Foundation and Culture (and unlike Eldar they can get themselves back up to full power if they wanted to). Also the Culture is probably above Xeeleeverse humanity.

. Terran Confederation (Wing Commander)
. Kilrathi
. Hominid Phylum
Imperium (Dune universe)
Eldar - minimum
Vorlons & Shadows

The Phylum is so ridiculously overrated here it aint even funny. The have either no FTL or very slow FTL, basically each world is semi-isolated. The only thing they have going for them are numbers. They'd be below the Dominion. Also I suspect the V&S would be above the Imperium (at least as of Dune).

Protoss & Zerg
Borg

The Protoss are above the Borg?:wtf:

Dark Eldar
. Haloverse humans

I think the DE are too high. They're just a bunch of nomadic raiders (albeit well armed ones by most standards).

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2005-04-11 08:22pm

Dahak wrote: The second species that made up the proto-Xeelee was a species of composite matter, not quantum wave functions.

I can never keep that bit straight.

The Ring strings never exceed c, but some parts reach c.

I was fairly sure there were some chucks which were quoted to have a velocity greater than c relative to other chucks of the ring. But it really isnt important.

That is purely speculation.
The Xeelee know that something that is not to be disturbed is connected with the big black holes in the center of galaxies.
Nothing indicates that they would be "creating" universes on their own.

They would need to know that the creators of their universe were at the bottem of super-massive blackholes, and since the Xeelee are in a continious temporal loop it is a save bet that they know everything they need to know to talk/communicate with these things to achieve some goal.

If you wanted to interact with the entities in the singularity of a blackhole, the event horizon would something which needed working around.

Ultimately; we'll need to wait for Stephan Baxter to write more Xeelee books (which he said he wasnt going todo at some point IIRC).

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2005-04-12 02:21am

Currald wrote:The Enderverse has FTL. Remember, Ender was obsessing about the terribly price they might have to pay for using FTL (reducing the universe's lifespan or something?).

Civilization from the Lensman series should be near Xeelee and Culture. I haven't seen a completely convincing debate about either of these, but my inclination is to tentatively place it just below the Culture. Boskonia from the Lensman series should go directly under Civilization, as they lost, albiet barely. When technology and numbers are equal, philosophy matters!

It sure does; it is a major issue for Night's Dawn-verse humanity, as I'll discuss in a second.

The "terrible price" of Enderverse FTL isn't as grand as ending the universe early; it's also largely a philosophical matter. When they use the instant jump tech, they go to a place outside the physical universe which is filled with (OSC makes this sound better) the spirits which, when they are in the universe proper, hold together all matter and life. The upshot is that, for the instant the jump is happening, stray thoughts can become real; Ender was thinking about his siblings when they jumped the first time, and his essence got split three ways when they came back; into himself and reconstructions of his brother and sister. By the end of the books, they're using the drive pretty freely.

Dahak wrote:
Glimmervoid wrote:They have a weapon that can bow up (or implode) and sun or gas giant. But this is likely lost technology.
The Alchemist isn't really lost technology. Several people still know about it and can speculate what it was. It isn't really all that difficult once you've seen it...

As for another species:
The Kiint of the same universe. They can transport themselves across the universe without the need for ships, and for a home, they arranged planets in a ring in their solar system.
And have nanoreplication technology.

The Kiint would be pretty high up the list, but we don't have many feats to go by; they're just somewhere between humanity and the Deus Ex (which is extremely high), and not particularly inclined to violence. I guess someone more dedicated than I am could assemble a comprehensive list of Kiint engineering and technological feats, but I think there is too much unknown to give them a solid place.
Spoilers ahead (just what the Alchemist is, is a fairly major revelation in book):
.
.
.
.
The Alchemist works from using a marriage of their stasis tech and their wormhole generators used for FTL jumps. When the FTL system is activated, it creates some terribly dense region in space to open the wormhole; the stasis tech freezes this process at a specific point, creating either a black hole or a stable body with the density of neutronium. When the Alchemist in neutronium setting is dropped into a planet, well, we know what happens when a hyper-dense macroscopic mass is dropped into a matter rich environment. There is a largeish bang fairly soon.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-04-12 03:27am

I can handle individual Protoss being better than Borg, since Borg suck, but really. Starcraft races have shit for FTL.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 08:40am

ggs wrote:
The Ring strings never exceed c, but some parts reach c.
I was fairly sure there were some chucks which were quoted to have a velocity greater than c relative to other chucks of the ring. But it really isnt important.

Which would be impossible.

Eh, sci fi. Nevermind-

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 08:42am

Junghalli wrote:
Lord Zentei wrote: Sephirotic metaempire (Orion's Arm)
Republic of Man (Resnick's universe)
Tar Aiym (Foster's Commonwealth universe)
Zerg
Borg
Goa'uld
Dominion
There is no way the Tar Aiym are above the Borg. Tar Aiym are Dominion level at the very most. And the Sephirotics should be lower as well (sure they have incredible wank nano, but no FTL).

Then we'll nerf them. Not that the position of the ones in white were to be taken too seriously, mind.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 08:52am

Junghalli wrote:I think the DE are too high. They're just a bunch of nomadic raiders (albeit well armed ones by most standards).

The Dark Eldar, and all spacefaring 40K verse races have ships with engagement ranges in the thousands of kilometers and gigaton level weaponry. They may be raiders compared with the 40Kverse, but not compared with others.

IIRC, they are not nomadic, they have a city, Commorach in the webway.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 09:09am

* Added Centauri from b5 above the Earth Alliance.
* Added the Arisians, Eddorians, Civilization and Boskone. Nor sure whether the Civilization and Boskone deserve to be above the Foundation or not, we can always move them later.
* Robotech Zentraedi, RDF/REF added above Terran Confederation.
* Marduk, Zentraedi/Meltrandi, UN SPacey between Cardassia and Minbar.
* Book SST and Bugs upgraded to just above Goa'uld levels
* Gundam nerfed.
* Tar Aium boosted above Dominion.
* Xeeleeverse humans nerfed below Culture.
* Skylarkers, Timelords added
* Nerfed L of N and Synchronized worlds to below Narn
* Starcraftverse nerfed below Star Trek.
* Necrons added. I do feel there is a great deal of wankery going on with regards to the Necrons, we can always upgrade them later.

Xeelee & Exession Builders
the Culture
Xeeleverse humans
Arisians
Eddorians
the Foundation
Civilization
Boskone
the Galactic Empire (Foundation)
the Galactic Empire (Star Wars) & Necrons
Farscape Ancients
SG1 Ancients (at their height)
Imperium of Man (WH40K)
Tyrannids
Orks - maximum(WH40K)
. Scarrans
Peacekeepers
. Concordiat
. Sephirotic metaempire (Orion's Arm)
. Republic of Man (Resnick's universe)
. Tar Aiym (Foster's Commonwealth universe)
Zentraedi (Robotech)
RDF/REF (Robotech)
. Terran Confederation (Wing Commander)
. Kilrathi
. Hominid Phylum
Imperium (Dune universe)
Eldar - minimum
Vorlons & Shadows
Orks ?(WH40K)
Tau
Borg
Terran Federation (SST book)
Bugs (SST book)
Goa'uld
Dominion
. Starfire universe
. Humanx Commonwealth (Foster's Commonwealth universe)
. Puppeteers
. Covenant
Dark Eldar
. Haloverse humans
Wraiths (SG:A)
Federation (Trek)
Romulans
Klingons
Protoss & Zerg
Starcraft Terrans
. Known Space humans
. Kziniti (with FTL)
Cardassians
Marduk (Macross)
Zentraedi/Meltrandi (Macross)
UN SPacey (Macross)
Minbari
League of Nobles (Dune prequel novels)
Synchronized Worlds (Dune prequel novels)
. Fifty Spacer Worlds (Foundationverse)
Centauri
Earth Alliance (B5)
Narn
. Terran Federation (SST movie)
Cylons
Twelve Colonies (Galactica)
. The Alien universe
. ID4 aliens
. Gundam
. The Race
. Draka (as of 2004)
. modern Earth

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 09:10am

Shoot. I forgot to nerf the LoN and Synchworlds. Bah.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-04-12 09:39am

Surprised to not see any Fourth Empire mention...I'll have to reread Armageddon Inheritance to get better numbers, of course...picked the 4E as a good high-point combining tech level with numbers and militance. Notable technological feats include Earth's Moon being a disguised planetoid-class warship, which is their primary class of fleet combattant. Missile weaponry capable of breaking an intact planet into 'splinters' which are collected and used in shipyards. Missiles are FTL, appearing in and around the target ship, and employ either antimatter or extremely powerful point-source gravity generators as warheads. Primitive antimatter warheads (Not the 4th Empire's, but another race in the same universe at a far lower general tech level) rated at 10GT, for a minimum estimate. Energy weapons cause fission reactions in expose armor, as well as being hellaciously powerful in general. FTL is inferior to SW, again, I'd need to read up for more precise numbers, but it's far slower in hyper. Enchanach drive, which is alternate FTL, is even slower, BUT is useable over tactical range and is based on expliotation of custom-made black holes. This has been used to cause a star to explode. While not in fleet circulation, the Fourth has another type of gravity-based warheads capable of destroying stars and planets alone. Instant teleportation is a reality, but only between specially-prepared facilities on both ends. Bioweapons program is exceedingly active and deadly.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2005-04-12 09:41am

Lord Zentei wrote:
ggs wrote:
The Ring strings never exceed c, but some parts reach c.
I was fairly sure there were some chucks which were quoted to have a velocity greater than c relative to other chucks of the ring. But it really isnt important.
Which would be impossible.

Eh, sci fi. Nevermind-

It is the centre of mass of the universe, composed out of super-strings.

The Xeelee commonly ignore physical impossibilities, and that in a universe of were designer physics is rampade you can make a square peg fit in a round whole for a given physics tule set.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 10:04am

Forgot these two previously:

* Skylarkers, Timelords added
* Nerfed L of N and Synchronized worlds to below Narn

I'm not really familiar with the Skylarkers.

Xeelee & Exession Builders
Time Lords & Skylarkers
the Culture
Xeeleverse humans
Arisians
Eddorians
the Foundation
Civilization
Boskone
the Galactic Empire (Foundation)
the Galactic Empire (Star Wars) & Necrons
Farscape Ancients
SG1 Ancients (at their height)
Imperium of Man (WH40K)
Tyrannids
Orks - maximum(WH40K)
. Scarrans
Peacekeepers
. Concordiat
. Sephirotic metaempire (Orion's Arm)
. Republic of Man (Resnick's universe)
. Tar Aiym (Foster's Commonwealth universe)
Zentraedi (Robotech)
RDF/REF (Robotech)
. Terran Confederation (Wing Commander)
. Kilrathi
. Hominid Phylum
Imperium (Dune universe)
Eldar - minimum
Vorlons & Shadows
Orks ?(WH40K)
Tau
Borg
Terran Federation (SST book)
Bugs (SST book)
Goa'uld
Dominion
. Starfire universe
. Humanx Commonwealth (Foster's Commonwealth universe)
. Puppeteers
. Covenant
Dark Eldar
. Haloverse humans
Wraiths (SG:A)
Federation (Trek)
Romulans
Klingons
Protoss & Zerg
Starcraft Terrans
. Known Space humans
. Kziniti (with FTL)
Cardassians
Marduk (Macross)
Zentraedi/Meltrandi (Macross)
UN SPacey (Macross)
Minbari
. Fifty Spacer Worlds (Foundationverse)
Centauri
Earth Alliance (B5)
Narn
League of Nobles (Dune prequel novels)
Synchronized Worlds (Dune prequel novels)
. Terran Federation (SST movie)
Cylons
Twelve Colonies (Galactica)
. The Alien universe
. ID4 aliens
. Gundam
. The Race
. Draka (as of 2004)
. modern Earth

ggs wrote:It is the centre of mass of the universe, composed out of super-strings.

The Xeelee commonly ignore physical impossibilities, and that in a universe of were designer physics is rampade you can make a square peg fit in a round whole for a given physics tule set.

Of course; I was just being facetious. (I'ts not as if just about everyone on the list except modern Earth doesn't ignore physics on some level).

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-04-12 10:09am

While we're at it, let's throw in BattleTech. I'd wager the Clans and then the Inner Sphere would rank just above movie SST, haven't read the Dune prequels though so I can't say about that.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2005-04-12 10:15am

I still believe that the civs from the Stryker-verse should be on that list, namely the Illithids somewhere between the Galactic Empire and the IoM, the Alliance of Free Peoples under the Peacekeepers, and the Corthai Combine just under them.

I won't stretch my luck and try to include the Noah-verse or the New World trilogy...

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 10:33am

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:I still believe that the civs from the Stryker-verse should be on that list, namely the Illithids somewhere between the Galactic Empire and the IoM, the Alliance of Free Peoples under the Peacekeepers, and the Corthai Combine just under them.

I won't stretch my luck and try to include the Noah-verse or the New World trilogy...

I have no objection to including any of them; it's just that I haven't read them, and am hoping to go on more than gut feeling. Do you have some data on number of planets, firepower and tactical range of ships and FTL speeds? Any special limitations (like the IoM not really knowing how their tech works or the Zentraedi not being able to build/repair their toys)?

JediNeophyte wrote:While we're at it, let's throw in BattleTech. I'd wager the Clans and then the Inner Sphere would rank just above movie SST, haven't read the Dune prequels though so I can't say about that.

Definately above SST, though their position in relation to the Tau and Borg eludes me (it's my brother who is the BattleTech nut and we are an ocean apart).

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-04-12 10:53am

Lord Zentei wrote:Definately above SST, though their position in relation to the Tau and Borg eludes me (it's my brother who is the BattleTech nut and we are an ocean apart).

BattleTech is low-end scifi. Tau would annihilate them. Borg I'm not sure.