How many SW infantry to clear out a GCS?

[lord Martiya]

I suppose that stormtroopers would reply something like "I dare you!"...

[Darth Onasi]

I'm going to call MAD. Can't some plucky crewman just threaten to destroy the ship by smacking the warp core with a socket wrench if the Warsians don't turn back?

That sounds far too utilitarian for a crewman of a Federation ship. If it doesn't involve at least a paragraph of technobabble they won't even consider it.
Barring a stray shot to the core in a fire fight I doubt it'd happen, and I presume boarders wouldn't be stupid enough to start fighting in an engineering section with the power core exposed for all to see.

[Timotheus]

I'm going to call MAD. Can't some plucky crewman just threaten to destroy the ship by smacking the warp core with a socket wrench if the Warsians don't turn back?

That sounds far too utilitarian for a crewman of a Federation ship. If it doesn't involve at least a paragraph of technobabble they won't even consider it.
Barring a stray shot to the core in a fire fight I doubt it'd happen, and I presume boarders wouldn't be stupid enough to start fighting in an engineering section with the power core exposed for all to see.

It also requires them to be carrying a socket wrench. We all know that a tool like that is far too primative to be useful on a Federation starship.

[Darth Wong]

How many of the following Star Wars infantry would it take to clear out a fully-crewed GCS by either killing everyone aboard or forcing them to abandon ship? Assume standard equipment.

B1 battle droids

Stormtroopers

Yuuzhan Vong warriors

Wookies armed with bowcasters

Jedi

Two scenarios-one where the GCS's internal systems like transporters, holodecks, and security measures are all functioning fully, and another where they've been knocked out of commission, leaving the ship with only barely functioning life support.

If you're only trying to kill them all or force them to abandon ship, you only need massive firepower. This is quite a bit easier than invading a ship intending to capture high-ranking prisoners for interrogation, as they did in ANH. They can simply bring heavy repeater weapons and toss grenades while firing indiscriminately and not worrying about picking targets.

[Darth Wong]

I'm going to call MAD. Can't some plucky crewman just threaten to destroy the ship by smacking the warp core with a socket wrench if the Warsians don't turn back?

Their objective is to kill everyone on board or force them to abandon ship. They would simply continue to advance. Either he gives up or carries through on his threat; either way, it would be considered a success by the odd conditions of this scenario.

[Publius]

Seeing that stormtroopers are used for boarding actions, and are all equipped with sealed suits of armor as a matter of course, there is always the option of simply evacuating the Galaxy class ship's atmosphere. Contrariwise, there is also the option of flooding it with gas (lethal or otherwise) and moving in during or afterward. The Federation's conspicuous lack of PPE and promasks leaves them extremely vulnerable to either tactic, especially if they cannot continue to rely on forcefields.

[Darth Onasi]

Speaking of gas, wasn't there one episode where a hostile ship actually managed to remotely turn the E-D's atmosphere poisonous? (or remove it, I forget exactly).
Not only did they demonstrate any countermeasures, not even on the bridge, but it's disturbing how easily their own systems can be made to work against them.

[Junghalli]

Speaking of gas, wasn't there one episode where a hostile ship actually managed to remotely turn the E-D's atmosphere poisonous? (or remove it, I forget exactly).
Not only did they demonstrate any countermeasures, not even on the bridge, but it's disturbing how easily their own systems can be made to work against them.

These are the same people who beam down to newly discovered planets in nothing but pajamas. They take a benign environment for granted in a way that's just stupid for people who've been in space.

Just look at that idiotic boarding scene in Nemesis. It never occurs to anybody to just trap the Remans in a forcefield, dial the gravity up to a level where they can't stand up (a canon tactic!), and suck out all their air.

[Darth Onasi]

Just look at that idiotic boarding scene in Nemesis. It never occurs to anybody to just trap the Remans in a forcefield, dial the gravity up to a level where they can't stand up (a canon tactic!), and suck out all their air.

Or, as I recall, turn on the damn lights. Letting aliens accustomed to darkness run around dark hallways.

[Peptuck]

Just look at that idiotic boarding scene in Nemesis. It never occurs to anybody to just trap the Remans in a forcefield, dial the gravity up to a level where they can't stand up (a canon tactic!), and suck out all their air.

Or, as I recall, turn on the damn lights. Letting aliens accustomed to darkness run around dark hallways.

Really, why are the hallways so dark in that movie? In the series they've always been brightly lit, even on Voyager.

[Manus Celer Dei]

Just look at that idiotic boarding scene in Nemesis. It never occurs to anybody to just trap the Remans in a forcefield, dial the gravity up to a level where they can't stand up (a canon tactic!), and suck out all their air.

Or, as I recall, turn on the damn lights. Letting aliens accustomed to darkness run around dark hallways.

Really, why are the hallways so dark in that movie? In the series they've always been brightly lit, even on Voyager.

Part of the ship-wide preparations for Red Alert includes dialing the lights down the "Dark and moody" setting. I think it started on Voyager or DS9; whenever the captain declared red alert half the lights on the bridge turned off. Nemesis just shows it applies to the rest of the ship as well

[Peptuck]

Or, as I recall, turn on the damn lights. Letting aliens accustomed to darkness run around dark hallways.

Really, why are the hallways so dark in that movie? In the series they've always been brightly lit, even on Voyager.

Part of the ship-wide preparations for Red Alert includes dialing the lights down the "Dark and moody" setting. I think it started on Voyager or DS9; whenever the captain declared red alert half the lights on the bridge turned off. Nemesis just shows it applies to the rest of the ship as well

Which still makes zero sense. Prepare for battle by.....making it harder to see anything on the ship, including intruders! That might actually be something resembling a decent tactic in a setting where everyone is too stupid to bother boarding ships in pressure suits and with vision enhancing gear, but only if you're prepared to fight in the dark and with zero atmosphere yourself.

[harbringer]

Red alert is supposed to be easier on the eyes for night vision though I am pretty sure a lot of modern ships have blue lighting. Lets be honest as your not going to be suing night vision unless your sensor blind on a space ship and if you arn't it is clearly redundant and in our universe a mood enhancing trick to make it seem more "tense".

[Revy]

Interestingly, in Andromeda they used the high gravity trick several times, to the point that when Tyr leads a squad of fellow ubbermen onboard, all of whom sport breathing gear and AG (artificial or anti gravity) harnesses, so that the ship cannot simply squash them flat or suffocate them.

Trek on the other hand, didn't try this until it's latest (and oddly, prequel) series, although I do recall an episode of Voyager where Tuvok is training some recruits by having them run the decks with heavy packs, and he informs them that he dialed the gravity up to make it harder. So it was technically possible for them, they ... were just too stupid to ever think of trying it.

Really though, there's been occasions when the Enterprise crew couldn't even handle a single rogue intruder on board, let alone a heavily armed and equiped squad. How many to clear a ship? I'd have said an average SW's squad or a single specialised operative. Trek's idea of internal security is a joke.

[Swindle1984]

Red alert is supposed to be easier on the eyes for night vision though I am pretty sure a lot of modern ships have blue lighting. Lets be honest as your not going to be suing night vision unless your sensor blind on a space ship and if you arn't it is clearly redundant and in our universe a mood enhancing trick to make it seem more "tense".

Yup, real life naval ships go from white to red (or, nowadays, blue) lighting so everyone's eyes are easily adjusted for seeing in the darkness or through night vision gear.

On a space ship, it makes zero sense.

[LaCroix]

Let's be honest. There is no reason to put a grav grid capable of tens of g into the ship. 0 ( = off) to , lets say 1.5 or 2 g is enough to make every known humanoid species comfortable. So its save to assume that "dialing up the gravity" was in the margin of 20% or 30%, and not much more is possible.

So theoretically you could slow them down a bit with gravity, but squashing grav plates on a ship would be hell if there is a computer failure (like every second or third episode), making them go crazy. I bet that happened on some ship and that's the reason they removed that feature from all ships.

[Junghalli]

Let's be honest. There is no reason to put a grav grid capable of tens of g into the ship. 0 ( = off) to , lets say 1.5 or 2 g is enough to make every known humanoid species comfortable. So its save to assume that "dialing up the gravity" was in the margin of 20% or 30%, and not much more is possible.

Except that "turn the gravity up to the point where your opponent can't stand up" is a canon tactic: Evil Archer did it to that Gorn in A Mirror Darkly.

Maybe they got rid of the feature by TNG but that still doesn't excuse why they never do any of the other nasty things you can do to mooks fool enough to board an enemy spacecraft with no spacesuits, like suck out their air or pump in knockout/poison gas.

[Imperial Overlord]

There's all sorts of smart intruder control tactics that the Federation does not do. It doesn't use gas, it doesn't use real security doors, it doesn't mess with environmental controls, it doesn't use good computer security (which maybe a reason not to do a lot of this stuff), but it uses force fields that you can disable from within the sealed off section.

[harbringer]

The biggest thing the federation could do for shipboard security is to actually train their security people someone shouldn't wander round a ship unaccounted for. Once the enemy has a foothold it is so much harder to shove them out, so why if trekkies are right (and the enterprise is just a cruiser, which lets face it could only be so big) do they let people just wander round?. Surely someone should have by this point written an automatic sensor sweep every second to track down the signal of someone teleporting aboard so they can isolate the section and flood it with security/gas /whatever

[DrStrangelove]

Meh, it shouldnt take more than 1 company's worth of any of the standard troops. Jedi about 10, less for DJ or Sith

[Terralthra]

Let's be honest. There is no reason to put a grav grid capable of tens of g into the ship. 0 ( = off) to , lets say 1.5 or 2 g is enough to make every known humanoid species comfortable. So its save to assume that "dialing up the gravity" was in the margin of 20% or 30%, and not much more is possible.

So theoretically you could slow them down a bit with gravity, but squashing grav plates on a ship would be hell if there is a computer failure (like every second or third episode), making them go crazy. I bet that happened on some ship and that's the reason they removed that feature from all ships.

It's also possible that the artificial gravity generation is handled by the same system as the intertial dampers, so they might be more capable than you give them credit for.

[Swindle1984]

Meh, it shouldnt take more than 1 company's worth of any of the standard troops. Jedi about 10, less for DJ or Sith

I'd say a platoon of stormtroopers could easily take the Enterprise-D.

As for Jedi, are you insane? The TF guys were shitting their pants about having TWO aboard in Phantom Menace, and the Federation doesn't have anything near the sort of firepower or security measures a Lucrehulk carries.

[Darth Wong]

Let's be honest. There is no reason to put a grav grid capable of tens of g into the ship. 0 ( = off) to , lets say 1.5 or 2 g is enough to make every known humanoid species comfortable. So its save to assume that "dialing up the gravity" was in the margin of 20% or 30%, and not much more is possible.

So theoretically you could slow them down a bit with gravity, but squashing grav plates on a ship would be hell if there is a computer failure (like every second or third episode), making them go crazy. I bet that happened on some ship and that's the reason they removed that feature from all ships.

It's also possible that the artificial gravity generation is handled by the same system as the intertial dampers, so they might be more capable than you give them credit for.

That would be a pretty big safety hazard. If the inertial dampers screw up or get taken off-line, you either lose gravity or squish everyone to paste. It would be safer to have grav plating in the floors which is hard-wired to strict limits in order to prevent mishaps.

[Solauren]

1 Force user

Mind Trick the Captain
Force user; 'The ship is being boarded by enemy troops'
Captain; 'The ship...'
Force user; 'You must shut down and lock out all life support functions'
Captain; 'I must...'
Force user; 'The flood the ship with gas to knock them all out'.
Captain; 'Flood the ship.'

2 minutes later, the Force user is laughing his ass off

[nightmare]

I'd say a platoon of stormtroopers could easily take the Enterprise-D.

Even if just ten troopers could blast their way through the E-D without taking any casualties, it's still a 600 m long ship with 42 decks (not a 100 decks, Shatner. But I'll forgive it due to artistic license) and a thousand crew onboard. You want to bring enough troops to hold captured territory, guard potential prisoners, then finally offence group and casualty replacements.

Because obviously they want to capture the ship relatively intact. Otherwise there wouldn't be any boarding action going on. Assuming that the ship and its particular capabilities aren't known to the boarders, they'll probably won't use gas or high explosives. Force users aside, they will all create enough shrapnel and heat with blasters and their equivalents. There's always a risk of getting your own troops in the way of grenade blasts in CQB, even if they're just non-lethal incapacitators like glop. Flash nades would be incredibly useful, but they won't bring those either because they would expect blast helmets or filtering visors on the defenders.