Galactic Empire Vs Imperium of Man (Vs Chaos)

[Connor MacLeod]

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.

?? So your basic argument is the Imperium is just going to set all its vehicles and troops out in the open where enemies can blast them at will - why? Do you think for some reason the concept of "supporting bombardment" is unknown to the Imperium, and if so, why?

I'd also point out that there are cases where SW could have employed this but obviously didn't (Geonosis, Kashyyyk, etc.)

[Pablo Sanchez]

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.

Basically what I said in a previous thread a Star Wars ground campaign. Control of the high ground means that the Empire can observe from orbit and drop turbolaser bolts on anything bigger than a battalion, and once the WH40K troops are dispersed concentrated Imperial troops can mop them up. Space Marines are cool, but concentrated troops can defeat many times their strength in dispersed opponents.

[Connor MacLeod]

Basically what I said in a previous thread a Star Wars ground campaign. Control of the high ground means that the Empire can observe from orbit and drop turbolaser bolts on anything bigger than a battalion, and once the WH40K troops are dispersed concentrated Imperial troops can mop them up. Space Marines are cool, but concentrated troops can defeat many times their strength in dispersed opponents.

The problem with that is that you apparently seem to assume the Imperium would not expect such tactics (when in fact they're quite aware of the advantages of space superiority, its a big part of their tactics when THEY invade.) but that the Imperium's troops will sit out in the open unprotected to be annihilated. Or that the Empire may just decide to indiscriminately blast locations simply because they have troops.

This isn't even factoring in theatre shielding or other defenses (fortresses, or whatnot.)

[Pablo Sanchez]

The problem with that is that you apparently seem to assume the Imperium would not expect such tactics (when in fact they're quite aware of the advantages of space superiority, its a big part of their tactics when THEY invade.)

No, I don't assume that at all, it's just that it doesn't matter whether they see it coming. There is no solution to the problem posed by a force with Star Wars technology, in control of the space over a planet, because it means that the attacker completely controls the strategic dimension of the campaign. With its sensor arrays such a force can easily observe the movement of any significant opposition on the planetary surface (say, anything larger than a battalion), and it has sufficient firepower to immediately annihilate this force. Their are only two ways for the defender to avoid this.

On the one hand, he can disperse his forces into their small elements, so that they will be harder to detect and even when detected will be too small to be an attractive target for bombardment. This guarantees destruction in detail; a single division can defeat an army of a million men, if the said army is forced to fight one battalion at a time.

On the other hand, the defender can concentrate his forces beneath theater shields, in population concentrations, or in bases hidden underground, to make bombardment more difficult (unshielded fortresses are not significant because there is basically no structure that can resist sustained turbolaser bombardment without energy shielding). This is a better option but it still means that the defender's forces are isolated from one another and unable to offer support, and they are also immobile. In either case all initiative lies with the attacker. He is free to seize control of the rest of the planetary surface and then concentrate all his ground troops against each fortress in turn. Because the Empire can draw on resources via hyperspace, and the defender is limited to what is able to fit beneath his theater shield (a sliver of one single planet), he will be overwhelmed.

If you know of some way that the Imperium can get around this conundrum, I'm all ears.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

On the other hand, the defender can concentrate his forces beneath theater shields, in population concentrations, or in bases hidden underground, to make bombardment more difficult (unshielded fortresses are not significant because there is basically no structure that can resist sustained turbolaser bombardment without energy shielding). This is a better option but it still means that the defender's forces are isolated from one another and unable to offer support, and they are also immobile. In either case all initiative lies with the attacker. He is free to seize control of the rest of the planetary surface and then concentrate all his ground troops against each fortress in turn. Because the Empire can draw on resources via hyperspace, and the defender is limited to what is able to fit beneath his theater shield (a sliver of one single planet), he will be overwhelmed.

If you know of some way that the Imperium can get around this conundrum, I'm all ears.

Hives in the Imperium are fairly large and dense and many have theater shields encompassing over a whole city. The book Necropolis has an entire hive, along with 300 Leman Russ tanks and all, along with 500,000 fighting men further augmented by several veteran Imperial Guard regiments in one whole city under a shield, with a wall. They spent weeks holding off a millions strong assault force that fought not just outside but also within (they had to deal with traitors within the Hive.)

And also, where are all the anti-capital ship defenses factored in all this? Most worlds in the Imperium are by no means defenceless without a whole array of anti-ship defences. A planet like Calth has endured the full brunt of an invasion led by the Word Bearers during the Horus Heresy and the battle was won in part because of the formidable defences of the planet.

[Connor MacLeod]

No, I don't assume that at all, it's just that it doesn't matter whether they see it coming. There is no solution to the problem posed by a force with Star Wars technology, in control of the space over a planet, because it means that the attacker completely controls the strategic dimension of the campaign.
With its sensor arrays such a force can easily observe the movement of any significant opposition on the planetary surface (say, anything larger than a battalion), and it has sufficient firepower to immediately annihilate this force. Their are only two ways for the defender to avoid this.

Thats true of ANYONE with an armed warship or warships in orbit. Or hell, even just orbital facilities, satellites, or whatever. I dont see what about that somehow makes Star Wars uniquely placed. As I've said, 40K itself has made ample use of orbital bombardment supportt in ground assaults (before and during) and in varying yields.

The only difference/advantage Star Wars might have there is in accuracy, and I'm not entirely sure how big a disparity between the two sides is.

This also leads to the probellm of GAINING superiority, which is going to depend (as I said) on the planet in question. Not all planets are defended equally (though as a rule, I doubt the Empire would want to bother conquering Feral or feudal planets, would they.) and how many ships they assume the Empire has or decides to throw at the opposition. Defenses could involve naval vessesl of varying kinds, system defense ships of varying types/numbers, orbital defense stations, minefields, and grround defenses, all of which would have to be suppressed before "superiority" is achieved.

On the one hand, he can disperse his forces into their small elements, so that they will be harder to detect and even when detected will be too small to be an attractive target for bombardment. This guarantees destruction in detail; a single division can defeat an army of a million men, if the said army is forced to fight one battalion at a time.

That won't work unless they get under cover, ,because even small formations will be detectable from orbit, so I fail to see how dispersion is an issue. (Hell, forget orbital bombardment, all you need are to deploy some fighters to fuck over small groups.)

On the other hand, the defender can concentrate his forces beneath theater shields, in population concentrations, or in bases hidden underground, to make bombardment more difficult (unshielded fortresses are not significant because there is basically no structure that can resist sustained turbolaser bombardment without energy shielding). This is a better option but it still means that the defender's forces are isolated from one another and unable to offer support, and they are also immobile. In either case all initiative lies with the attacker. He is free to seize control of the rest of the planetary surface and then concentrate all his ground troops against each fortress in turn. Because the Empire can draw on resources via hyperspace, and the defender is limited to what is able to fit beneath his theater shield (a sliver of one single planet), he will be overwhelmed.

If you know of some way that the Imperium can get around this conundrum, I'm all ears.

The fact of the matter is, immobility is the price one pays in these cases if you want to avoid getting fucked over by orbital attacks. THe same is true in Star Wars, in case you forgot. And I wouldn't rule out the "structures that can't resist orbital bombardment" because SW has them (there are some very strong armours they have. One example is Star's End.) And 40K structures do use starship grade (or even Titan grade) armor in defending locales (like fortresses.) - 40K shisp tend to be insanely tough.

Besides which, there's the problem in that the attakcing force cannot merely toss out whatever yield it wants to, because then you start risking all sorts of nasty effects like ecological effects/damage, collateral damage (to cities, industry, etc.) and all other nasty effects, so unless the Empire simply didn't give a fuck about what happened to the populace they'd have to be careful about said bombardments (to which I'll also add the Imperium is known to use orbital bombardment support well into the megaton range, like when Ultramar faced off against the Tyranids.)

And were I the attacker I would not want to deploy out in the open if I can avoid it, because that invites the enemy to bombard you back (Fortresses, ,Hive cities, and such locales in 40K tend to be rather impressively armed, and some planetary defense weapons can be used in a ground attack role even, as I remember.) Hell, that can create all sorts of other problems (long advances/supply lines, which carry dangers of bombardment and sabotage/guerilal attacks, etc.) More likely is that they'd use Venators or Acclamators to deploy forces.

Basically all you're saying is that "If the Empire brings sufficient forces to bear on a planet and can suppress their planetary defenses, they control the situation and there's nothing the Imperium can do about it and will eventually fall." To which I answer you are absolutely right, but it doesn't really address the variables involved in such an activitiy (which as I said will depend on a number of factors.) Unless we're talking about extreme cases like developing colony worlds or low tech worlds (Feral/Feudal) ones, which are bound to fall regardless, or if the Empire somehow breaks out the "automated manufacturing droid army/navy" idea (in which case they just steamroll by sheer numbers), but there are a good many reasons I don't see that as being an immediate concern.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Thats true of ANYONE with an armed warship or warships in orbit. Or hell, even just orbital facilities, satellites, or whatever. I dont see what about that somehow makes Star Wars uniquely placed.

It doesn't, and I never said it did. It just means that, if the Empire wins the naval dimension of the conflict, then it wins the war. Since I don't think anybody in the thread was even contending that the Imperium could win the naval campaign, I think the matter is pretty much decided.

This also leads to the probellm of GAINING superiority, which is going to depend (as I said) on the planet in question.

Yes, it will depend on the planet, but not enough to alter the outcome.

On the one hand, he can disperse his forces into their small elements, so that they will be harder to detect and even when detected will be too small to be an attractive target for bombardment. This guarantees destruction in detail; a single division can defeat an army of a million men, if the said army is forced to fight one battalion at a time.

That won't work unless they get under cover, ,because even small formations will be detectable from orbit, so I fail to see how dispersion is an issue. (Hell, forget orbital bombardment, all you need are to deploy some fighters to fuck over small groups.)

The fact of the matter is, immobility is the price one pays in these cases if you want to avoid getting fucked over by orbital attacks. THe same is true in Star Wars, in case you forgot.

I didn't, but since the Imperial Navy will be the one in control, it doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion.

And I wouldn't rule out the "structures that can't resist orbital bombardment" because SW has them (there are some very strong armours they have. One example is Star's End.) And 40K structures do use starship grade (or even Titan grade) armor in defending locales (like fortresses.) - 40K shisp tend to be insanely tough.

Tough in what absolute terms? What kind of attack are they able to resist?

In any case even if a fortress is built to physically withstand bombardment, it's foundation on the planetary surface is not. Imperial fleets have the firepower to, for example, melt the crust surrounding the installation so that the fortress, being composed of extremely dense materials, would sink into the mantle and the occupants entombed.

Besides which, there's the problem in that the attakcing force cannot merely toss out whatever yield it wants to, because then you start risking all sorts of nasty effects like ecological effects/damage, collateral damage (to cities, industry, etc.) and all other nasty effects, so unless the Empire simply didn't give a fuck about what happened to the populace

Which, in the context of a major war, they probably won't.

And were I the attacker I would not want to deploy out in the open if I can avoid it, because that invites the enemy to bombard you back (Fortresses, ,Hive cities, and such locales in 40K tend to be rather impressively armed, and some planetary defense weapons can be used in a ground attack role even, as I remember.)

This is not a very significant problem, because forces on the surface will have limited range for all direct fire weapons, and indirect fire will be limited because rockets and even very large shells could be intercepted and destroyer.

Basically all you're saying is that "If the Empire brings sufficient forces to bear on a planet and can suppress their planetary defenses, they control the situation and there's nothing the Imperium can do about it and will eventually fall." To which I answer you are absolutely right, but it doesn't really address the variables involved in such an activitiy (which as I said will depend on a number of factors.)

Explain why these variables even matter, because it would be my contention that they aren't significant in the face of the overwhelming strategic deficit facing the Imperium.

[Sidewinder]

One frustrating unknown is what effect the Warp will have on hyperspace travel. It's foolish to simply dismiss this possibility, considering hyperspace is affected by real and simulated gravity (see interdictors), and by the Force, if Palpatine teleporting Luke from Coruscant to a prison ship is any indication. Psykers are probably comparable to Force sensitives, which means in theory, a powerful psyker can influence hyperspace.

The OP states Chaos is still a factor in the Galactic Empire-Imperium of Man conflict. How will the Chaos gods and other Warp entities affect SW warships when they enter hyperspace in the WH40K universe? Will Vader and other Force sensitives feel mildly uncomfortable at most, or is everyone aboard a Star Destroyer in danger of being corrupted by Nurgle and transformed into walking corpses, like the Death Guard?

[Ford Prefect]

One frustrating unknown is what effect the Warp will have on hyperspace travel. It's foolish to simply dismiss this possibility, considering hyperspace is affected by real and simulated gravity (see interdictors), and by the Force, if Palpatine teleporting Luke from Coruscant to a prison ship is any indication. Psykers are probably comparable to Force sensitives, which means in theory, a powerful psyker can influence hyperspace.

This doesn't follow at all. There are parallels, in that the Force is the life force of things across the universe, and Warp sorcery draws from a sea of human thought and emotion, but it does not necessarily mean that Warp-sensitives will be able to interdict hyperdrive using ships. The power of Force storm simply induces a hyperspace wormhole, which is considered a natural occurance, if I recall my Star Wars lore correctly. Force storm the Force power is simply jump-starting the creation of the wormhole, which barely controllable (Palpatine admits as much in The Book of Anger). The Force and the Warp are only very broadly similar, much as they are both very broadly similar to the Void Which Binds from the Hyperion Cantos; they could never be considered directly comprable or connected.

or is everyone aboard a Star Destroyer in danger of being corrupted by Nurgle and transformed into walking corpses, like the Death Guard?

No. Nurgle unleashing Destroyer on Typhon/Typhus' Battle Barge is an outlier when it comes to conversion, not the norm. Besides, the only reason it 'worked' was because the Space Marines actually survived Destroyer more or less intact; Typhus actually survived it, despite it being considered the single most powerful in Nurgle's arsenal of plagues.

[NecronLord]

Overthrowing the Galactic Empire is a completely different beast from overthrowing the Imperium of Man.

Yes. The Imperium of Man has always been based on force. The Galactic Empire actually has a (fairly) free press and has to at least pander to the idea of being a people's government.

fact is it hasn't got much the Imperium doesn't

Pardon?

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.

All this would be true of the Tau, too. And yet, worlds, starships and army units do defect to the Tau. Are you telling me that the Empire couldn't produce equal agitprop to convert people? I rather think you're underestimating them. Especially given the WD piece depicting typical Tau propaganda directed at humans.

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.

A rebellion smaller than one sector fleet. That was lucky. If he's fighting an external war, Palpatine will probably be too busy to directly use himself as bait in dealing with the rebels.

And hell, when 'barbarian galactic invaders' claims turn out to be true; there really is an emergency going on - people are rather more likely to rally around the Imperial flag, than the rebel.

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?

Does it matter? The CIS had potentially limitless military power, and it didn't seem to tax anyone.

The Imperials already deem it necessary to rule by fear and maintain a fleet of 25, 000 Star Destroyers, without an obvious external threat,

They did use an external threat to justify it.

Incidentally, a few years before Yavin, the Imperial navy came up against hundreds of thousands of fifty kilometer vessels (seemingly deployed at the drop of a hat) capable of one-shotting star cruisers. While this isn't publicised, and encounters with the Silentium are supposedly viewed as equivalent to sighting UFOs in our world, they do exist, and certainly constitute an external threat, especially to a machine-life fearing society, given that they're supposedly self-aware extragalactic droids whose creators perished long ago.

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?

They already have nationalised megacorps. That's how the CLone Wars ended.

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.

Palpatine is immortal. While he may not be by the time of ANH or whenever, eventually, he does achieve immortality.

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.

The abities are everywhere precisely to stop Imperial Commanders going rogue. They have a tendancy to do this. The most extreme example would be Herman Von Strab, who actually sold out to Orks. He was already discraced, but still, there's not that much loyalty on the part of planetary leaders - it is in fact, a 40k cliché. If the Empire can get rid of the Arbities, and 'liberate' them, they'll jump into bed by droves.

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.)

Some of those things are disingenous; there are probably less Space Marine capital ships than there are sectors. Less Inquisition ships, or dedicated Ad-mech warships, and so on. Imperial sublight ships are as good as useless, given that a GE fleet could plop into the outer fringes of the system, draw them off, and then just jump into hyperspace to get past them... (Actually, this applies to all of the Imperium's warships...) their tactical manouverability is grossly inferior.

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)

How many do you think "craploads" is exactly?

The CIS at least had "millions" of warships. The Republic fleet, which had vague parity, has been expanded since that time. Most of these were produced in a few years of the Clone Wars. An invasion force of similar size (with similar support apparatus) could be quite easily produced. The main difficulty is in finding all the Imperium's worlds. Unfortunately, no complete navigational record exists.

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),

What? The Imperium's ships cannot safely engage their FTL inside the orbit of most systems' outer planets. The Galactic Empire... can.

and they're considerably tougher (SW ships will last minutes or seconds in a flat out battle, 40K ships take minutes or hours typically.)

Most of that is manouvering, though, not continuous fire. Star Wars vessels seem to have a habit of flying up to one another and letting rip continously until one explodes.

The Imperium's vessels' biggest advantage is that their ranges are always depicted as very long. In comparison, Star Wars ships have a tendancy to fly muzzle-to-muzzle in a lot of sources.

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.

To my knowledge 'a million worlds' is used to describe the Imperium, with 'milllions' being used in a much vaguer sence.

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.)

There are also concrete higher examples of SW, though Such as the 'tens of thousands of settled dependancies' per sector from the AotC ICS. There are no concrete examples of higher numbers for 40k.

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.

In all instances it's still far better than warp drive. The most I recall for a core to rim journey is a few weeks.

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.

Well, C'tan can certainly travel FTL on their own (see Nightbringer) though whether they require a body prepared for them at their destination is unknown. As for foresight, "True," agreed Eldrad "but the Jackal God's foresight stretches from the dawn of time and eclipses even mine. He isolated the Gothic sector and we had not the strength to stop him" Certainly he has experience of dealing with enemies who have foresight abilities far greater than Palpatine's, and apparently, has his own.

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.)

Quite. But I've no doubt that it could be provided for a galactic invasion. It's not like the technology has been forgotten, after all. I'm operating under the assumption here that this invasion is something the Empire has prepared for in advance, rather than Palpatine getting drunk and saying 'let's fly a fleet through that wormhole and see what happens.' Presumably they would build new vehicles and ships, and decant new stormtroopers, to whatever degree they expected to need. Conversely, building large scale war materiel is much harder for the Imperium.

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.)

To be fair, it seems that 'this is a super-weapon that will win the war' is a pitch that Palpatine is particularly receptive to.

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.

Whatever makes you think every planet has these? There's relatively few written examples of extensive defences. While they do exist, they're not ubiquitous. More to the point, without large scale planetary shields, they could happily sit off a few light minutes (hitting a moving target, that's hard, hitting a planet, that's easy) and start bombardment. Conversely, they could just bring a thousand ships into the relevant system and destroy such defences (it's finding the Imperium's planets that'll be the hard part) the hard way. Their soldiers are very much expendable, and can be recruited from captive populations (the 'doctrination tanks' of the Eye of Palpatine spring to mind)

if Palpatine teleporting Luke from Coruscant to a prison ship is any indication.

Which it may not be. Luke is actually depicted flying up past starship debris. For all we know, the dungeon ship was waiting there, locked a tractor beam on him, and yanked him into a landing bay.

[Darth Hoth]

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

They had only limited control over it, and could not conjure it themselves; I think the book said he was himself better at it. I suppose they would handle it if he was required to do something else, or perhaps throw around another one, in a battle situation.

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.

Sounds interesting enough to read up on; what book was it?

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

Well, but would it not be a reasonable assumption that Palpatine had mastered it, with his vast knowledge of Dark Side lore and metaphysical expertise that allowed him to design new powers at will?

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.'

Thank you; I went back to check this last night, but then I had no access to a working Internet.

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...

Yes, there is such a passage in that book, and it would indicate such a thing. However, it does not appear to be on par with most actual depictions of Jedi/Sith strength; the high-end directly stated number for any such group that I can recall would be Jedi Knight's 20,000 for the Brotherhood of Darkness at its peak. Being the maximalist I am, I of course like the idea of a truly massive Dark Side theocracy on Byss, but it appears to be based on conjecture in this case and not too firmly grounded in the canon.

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

Well, but Anakin was canonically a moron . . . And Vader, while smarter, did have his moments.

[Darth Hoth]

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.

And the Empire actually has somewhat competent domestic security services that can cooperate and function as coherent entities over galactic ranges. 40k's security complex is a disorganised mess at best; does even the Inquisition have a working central organisation to speak of, as opposed to individual crusading Witch Finder Generals and fliegende Standsgerichte? Chaos warlords can rise and conquer large swathes of space in the Imperium's midst before anyone even notices! That does not happen often (at all) in the Empire. The sheer advantage of having central archives, threat analysis and information processing abilities alone grants the Empire a large boon. And Palpatine is paranoid enough to fit into the Imperium apparatus; for one example, he built in master control codes in all Navy computer mainframes as backdoors that only he and his Hands could manipulate, in order to be able to pre-empt any rebellion in the fleet. Moreover, the Imperial Navy is monitored by two separate corps of political commissars (Political Reliability Observers of the DESB and CompForce's "Observer" branch from the Imperial Sourcebook), in addition to ISB "sleeper agents" and spooks from Intelligence (e.g., Special Agent Kirtan Loor's function in the Corellian Security Force) and the Secret Order of the Emperor (TIE Fighter). For Chaos to corrupt its way through all these layers of multiple-redundant security throughout the Imperial security-military complex - under the OP, without most of its magical power to boot - is pure wishful thinking.

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.

Anakin != Vader. And while Vader is one of Palpatine's more weak-willed tools, there is certainly no shortage of other Dark Side masters to replace him if he goes out of line. The one man whom the Empire cannot do without is Palpatine himself. . . and unless the Imperium uses a Death Star equivalent on Byss, he is for all intents and purposes immortal.

[Darth Hoth]

Overthrowing the Galactic Empire is a completely different beast from overthrowing the Imperium of Man.

Because the Imperium of Man has no central authority to overthrow; their government is quasi-feudal. Destroying Terra would, however, shatter what precious little coherency there is to the feuding sub-governments. Mankind sees its Man-God slagged to sub-atomic particles and what little there is of an administration is wiped out? Every Governor and other official who does not die from grief (I do think there are a few honest fanatics who would) will strike out for himself.

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.

For me to conquer Earth, all I need to do is defeat the military of our combined nation-states and suppress any rebellions . . .

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.

Loyal to Palpatine, who would soon be resurrected. And it is not as though Palpatine did not surround himself with cultists/loyalists who would do their best to beat down Vader and establish a provisional government while waiting for his return. You are aware that Operation SHADOWHAND allowed Palpatine to re-establish control over the galaxy virtually instantly, without significant friction, after six years of civil war when he had been believed dead? This at a point when rogue Imperials controlled only a fifth of former Imperial space at the operation's outset, with the anti-Palpatinian New Republic ruling the rest?

If Vader is granted the power of Chaos, well, it'd be an interesting fight between him and Palpatine, I'll say that.

Unless Chaos wanks him to truly ridiculous levels (beyond Horus), Palpatine crushes him like a bug.

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.

The Ecclesiarchy? The AdMech? Holy Terra? The God-Emperor of Man? And "robust" is a curious word to use; the Imperial State and its central authority is not so much durable as non-existent.

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.

And yet, at times it seems every third Governor is a secret agent of Chaos. The Imperium security apparatus, like the Imperium itself, is disorganised with a weak central authority and little cooperation between its branches; it is enormously sub-optimised overall. This is not a strength in this case, because even though parts of it will continue to function after central authority is gone, it will fracture beyond repair and quickly digest itself down to manageable chunks that the Empire can destroy at its leisure.

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.

. . .

You are surely jesting, I presume? A command economy with positively mediaeval standards of living that makes Nineteen Eighty-Four look like a nice European social democracy will not be tempted by the Empire's political and religious freedoms and vast material wealth? This argument requires no refutation on my part. It is very likely that Guardsmen will have better food and accomodations as Imperial prisoners of war than they have as the God-Emperor's soldiers; unless Palpatine goes National Socialist on them I cannot see why they would not surrender in droves. "Imperator kaputt! Urra Palpatinski!" Once the people are convinced that the threat of Imperium retaliation is gone, they will greet the Stormtroopers with bread and salt; the women will throw themselves at Joe Average Imperial for an electric toothbrush.

For the Ecclesiarchy, I am not convinced that the majority employed are even believers, let alone fanatics, as opposed to simple careerists who think preaching is nicer than toiling on the latifundia (as was the case with the mediaeval Roman Catholic church); the Empire should have no problem finding people to preach it is the God-Emperor's will that everyone be diligent, honest and obedient to the Galactic Empire.

In the AdMech, the prospect of Imperial technology should throw over some, though there the problems will likely be greater, since Imperial technology will ruin their power base. However, their support would not be essential to conquest in any way.

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

Pocket Death Stars can be built by gangsters, and the real deal did not even show up in the Imperial budget . . .

while at the same time fighting loyalist resistances,

Which will be about as popular with the locals as Werwolf was in East Germany.

the bulk of the Imperium's armies

Which are atomised from orbit, unless they hide in deep bunkers to be starved out at leisure. Imperial orbit-to-ground accuracy is rather impressive.

and it's vast Naval power,

The propulsion of which is age-of-sail compared to the Empire's FTL; they decide when and where to fight, in what numbers. Strategic initiative is all, and has always been so, in war.

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.

Does the Imperium have forces to rescue every conquered planet? And again, speed; the Empire can literally call for reinforcements when the Imperium ships materialise outside the system and they will stand a fair chance of getting there before they reach the planet.

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.

A sizable and well-equipped Rebellion numbering in the millions at most, according to the G-canon RotJ novelisation. On a Galactic scale, that is many orders of magnitude less than the amount of domestic terrorists the United States of America has in terms of percentage of the population. These people declared their war on the New Order, embraced by billions of worlds, on the nominal behalf of a dozen or so planets, most of which were backwaters, and at least one that was in reality pro-Imperial at the time (Corellia; TC Pilot likes to bring this up). They set up their provisional capital on such a metropolis as Endor, what amounts to a nature preserve in the middle of an undeveloped jungle. I am fairly certain the Imperium of Man has much more serious internal opposition than that.

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?

I could rant about automated factories, but I doubt they need even that. If every planet in the Empire only supported one division of 20,000 troops and one ISD, that is billions of ships and trillions of soldiers already, and that is by no means any serious drain on the Imperial economy (where a private citizen like Luke Skywalker, on what passes for a dirt-poor planet, can scrounge up the capital to buy an interstellar craft if he borrows from his relatives, and where single planets can house hundreds of trillions without being exceptional) whatsoever. The numbers listed for the Armageddon campaign, which was supposedly absolutely crucial to the survival of hundreds of Imperial worlds, does not speak much for the scale of movable Imperium assets.

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.

25,000 ships, assuming that such minimalist numbers are to be taken at face value (and the general consensus around here is that they are not), is an infinitesimally small number on a galactic scale, when tasked with policing billions of inhabited worlds. The Empire is, if anything, horribly undermilitarised. They do not rule by fear, despite what Tarkinist ideologues might say; the Empire consists of a loose federation of worlds where central authority has little impact on the daily life of Joe Average. See the DESB and the Imperial Sourcebook, or Publius's essays for the short and easily available version.

(Considering how rapidly the Empire came apart after the Battle of Endor, this fear is well-placed)

Those circumstances were highly exceptional; for one thing, Palpatine, a secular god of Hitler-like charisma and popularity, was gone, and the state was torn up by ideological nutters and military dictators. You will not see anything like it with him at the helm. Also, the reborn Palpatine deliberately sabotaged the Empire from Byss in preparation for his return. . . at which, as noted above, he retook it all with little trouble. The Empire is as durable as Palpatine; with him it stands, without him it falters.

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?

Your argument does not convince me that the money will run out. But even assuming that you are right, what can the corporations do? It is not like they will start a new Clone War.

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.

Purely military conquest will probably take years or low decades for general control, then decades more for mop-up; a true incorporation, with Imperial institutions and the Imperial mindset all prevailing, might well take centuries to be completed, though I would be rather more conservative in my estimates (it did not take nearly so long to, for example, integrate West Germany or the South after the American Civil War). However, one thing you can be certain of is that Palpatine will be around to see the end of it; he is effectively immortal, after all.

[Darth Hoth]

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.

Do tell how these uber defence batteries that can destroy any force closing in for orbital bombardment with impunity somehow cannot manage to shoot down landing craft; putting shit down on the ground leaves them exposed for much longer, and closer, than simple hit-and-run bombardment with an ISD does it.

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,

You must have missed all the posts mentioning strategic speed, then. In firepower the consensus is that they are about even, with 40k ships probably being more durable and Wars ships more accurate.

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.

How do they know their troops do not end up in trash compactors, fuel tanks or inside a wall instead of where they want them? They have no schematics of Imperial ships. And Imperial warships carry substantial MARDETs for exactly such reasons (though teleporting is rare in Wars, more conventional boarding does happen). Defending key posts and destroying invading forces piecemeal will not be terribly difficult,and onboard security systems can identify and isolate boarding parties. It will be an inconvenience, but hardly a war-winning tactic, especially once the Empire gets used to it. In addition, although I am no Trektard reverse engineering wanker, I do believe the Empire will copy anti-teleportation shields eventually, though it might well take years.

Also, I seem to recall some point about 40k teleportation being disrupted by large masses; that would include neutronium-laced Star Destroyer hulls, I presume?

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.

40k canon policy is a mess; how often are such speeds described, and in what sources? The general policy, I believe, is that the claim in the majority of the sources is true, if there are contradictions that cannot be harmonised. It is accepted as common fact in-universe that manoeuvering past-Warp takes days.

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.

None of which grants them any decisive advantage; the Empire can outproduce them like there is no tomorrow, teleports are just another funky gizmo and planetary defences are radically inferior to active orbital supremacy.

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.

This consigns them to fighting a defensive, reactive war, as well as leaving many, if not most, of their assets undefended (bigger formations means fewer). Not only that, but they simply do not have the strategic speed to even react to the Empire's attacks in any meaningful way; the Empire can smash these "fortress worlds" one at a time no matter how big you beef them up (and with every scale-up, more lesser worlds go undefended). They are outmanoeuvred badly enough that it is no contest; the Empire can and will always achieve crushing local superiority in any given battle. There is no defence against that.

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.

Jumping into the system, a day's travel from the siege? And if they do, they make the Empire's day; in-system they cannot warp out, but the Empire can and will call in reinforcements and use those, together with the siege force, to surround them and blast them to scrap till they either surrender or are all dead. They will not flee, just bait a trap.

Strategic movement again. Any trap the Imperium tries will fail, simply because while Imperial forces are days away at most (hours or minutes, more likely), the Imperium must rely only on the forces it initially committed. Anything the Imperium sends out is downright lost if it is caught in a situation from which it cannot flee; anything they keep, they keep only till the Empire shows up. There just is nothing they can do; they are an armed vet in a wheelchair trying to defend his twenty-room villa from a platoon of trained soldiers. His gun is as good as theirs, as is his training, but they have numbers, mobility and surprise, even if he knows the local environment better.

(The Empire fighting the Necrons would have the same problems, unless they could reverse-engineer Aing-Tii tech on a massive scale, but that is a matter aside.)

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!

Unqualified and unquantified. Did the Wehrmacht win trhe Second World War because their martial tradition was longer and prouder than that of the RKKA?

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.)

Not strictly true; in one case, yes, it took him months/years to recover, but in another, he was up to fighting strength within minutes at most. We do not have enough data to judge which case was typical.

[NecronLord]

Also, I seem to recall some point about 40k teleportation being disrupted by large masses; that would include neutronium-laced Star Destroyer hulls, I presume?

Offhand, I don't recall that. I can recall at least one instance of a warp-space cutter type vessel, one of the smallest available, belonging to the Officio Assassinorum, operated by a Callidus Assassin (though this might actually be better than a tech-priest, Callidus takes only the most intelligent recruits it can find) teleporting a falling marine from a chasm deep into an imploding planet, though.

40k canon policy is a mess; how often are such speeds described, and in what sources?

Very infrequently. Some, however, are actually the result of ships passing one another when they're already manouvering. Certainly, .6 c can't be normal, or the Bombardment Cannon would be useless; the relative velocity of the vessels involved already likely to be high portions of C.

Jumping into the system, a day's travel from the siege?

It is actually possible to jump into firing range almost directly (Cain's Last Stand), but it's very infrequently done, and they were baffled by the mad chaos forces' decision to risk it.

[Darth Hoth]

Offhand, I don't recall that. I can recall at least one instance of a warp-space cutter type vessel, one of the smallest available, belonging to the Officio Assassinorum, operated by a Callidus Assassin (though this might actually be better than a tech-priest, Callidus takes only the most intelligent recruits it can find) teleporting a falling marine from a chasm deep into an imploding planet, though.

Assassinorum equipment is not exactly comparable to the standard materiel of the Guard or Holy Fleet (or even Astartes, for the most part); they receive the best of the best, including alien technology if I recall correctly. But since I cannot remember the source, I shall defer to your judgment till I find it; I am hardly the resident 40k expert.

Very infrequently. Some, however, are actually the result of ships passing one another when they're already manouvering. Certainly, .6 c can't be normal, or the Bombardment Cannon would be useless; the relative velocity of the vessels involved already likely to be high portions of C.

So on the whole, it can be disregarded at least for the bog-standard battleships? I have read nothing mentioning it.

It is actually possible to jump into firing range almost directly (Cain's Last Stand), but it's very infrequently done, and they were baffled by the mad chaos forces' decision to risk it.

If they do it very seldom, there is a reason for it, and as noted they consider it dangerous and insane. Such instances are outliers; they may be able to do it at a stretch, but it is clearly unsafe, and most Holy Fleet commanders would not risk it. I was under the distinct impression that the poster I was quoting intended for them to adopt it as standard procedure in response to Imperial tactics and technology, which would be most unrealistic (and, depending on the dangers, may serve the Empire better if it causes them to loose substantial assets while "speeding").

[Thanas]

With regards to the undermilitarisation of the Empire - if GADM Thrawn is to be believed, the vast majority of the galactic population has never even seen a stormtrooper or TIE fighter up close and personal.

[Ford Prefect]

Also, I seem to recall some point about 40k teleportation being disrupted by large masses; that would include neutronium-laced Star Destroyer hulls, I presume?

Disrupted by large masses? That would be totally retarded, given if they were, they would find it infinitely difficult to teleport onto planets. Also, the ramming spikes on some Imperial ships are supposed to be neutronium; but of course it is not likely to be actual neutronium (much like how the neutronium in Star Wars or Star Gate is also not actually neutronium). If it was, those ramming spikes would outmass the moon. Additionally, though Ork teleportation is actually better in regards to range, the fact remains that it is based on identical principles to Imperial technology, and if it were routinely disrupted by large masses, then Warlord Thraka would have found it impossible to perform some of the raids he did, which described as being from across an entire system. That could imply a relatively close pass to a system's star.

[Samuel]

Maybe it is dense masses that blocks teleporters?

As for slagging the crust and having the defenses sink, wasn't that tried on Terra? Didn't they turn all but the Imperial palace molten?

[Ford Prefect]

Maybe it is dense masses that blocks teleporters?

I see no reason to even speculate without actual evidence in regard to this. Again, planetary masses have no effect on teleportation. It's not exactly like adamantium isn't dense itself, though as far as I am aware, no calculations exist regarding its density.

As for slagging the crust and having the defenses sink, wasn't that tried on Terra? Didn't they turn all but the Imperial palace molten?

No, it was not. Holy Terra was a grinder of urban combat; undoubtedly orbital strikes were used, but it wasn't like they turned the cities into seas of molten metal.

[K. A. Pital]

The hyperdrive speed is the ultimate win for the Empire. What is the range of planetary defenses of the IoM? If they are merely orbital, the Empire can make an example of a few worlds by blasting the shit out of them from beyond even entering the system, it doesn't need to be that precise.

After that, some will capitulate. Some will not. But the key is the Empire's ability to travel much, much faster - and the IoM defenses' range beind lesser than the Empire's bombardment range. If both are equal, or the IoM defenses have greater range, it becomes harder for the Empire but not impossible to overwhelm IoM worlds.

[Darth Hoth]

I think there are sources (New Jedi Order?) that indicate light-minute range at least for capital ship-grade weapons.

[Ford Prefect]

I think there are sources (New Jedi Order?) that indicate light-minute range at least for capital ship-grade weapons.

The Revenge of the Sith ICS outright states that the main guns on a Venator class have a range of ten lightminutes.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The hyperdrive speed is the ultimate win for the Empire. What is the range of planetary defenses of the IoM? If they are merely orbital, the Empire can make an example of a few worlds by blasting the shit out of them from beyond even entering the system, it doesn't need to be that precise.

After that, some will capitulate. Some will not. But the key is the Empire's ability to travel much, much faster - and the IoM defenses' range beind lesser than the Empire's bombardment range. If both are equal, or the IoM defenses have greater range, it becomes harder for the Empire but not impossible to overwhelm IoM worlds.

Assuming the Empire wants to go bomb every world to dust, of course. Otherwise, all that range will count for nothing.

[Teleros]

If both are equal, or the IoM defenses have greater range, it becomes harder for the Empire but not impossible to overwhelm IoM worlds.

Not really - a GE fleet can jump in, fire at the position the planet will be in X minutes / hours, and jump out again, before any return fire can even reach them. And plotting the location of the planet is trivially easy for the same reason.

Assuming the Empire wants to go bomb every world to dust, of course. Otherwise, all that range will count for nothing.

It only needs to have a few examples, and then make sure the word gets around.