31st Century UFP vs. Galactic Empire (A New Hope Era)

[Darth Tedious]

Not to mention the fact that time travel fuckery is generally considered "cheating" in SWvST debates. I believe Darth Wong calls it a tacit admission that the time traveler can't win in a straight-up fight. This is not a point in the UFP's favor, JasonB.

What'a a 'straight-up' fight? What does that even mean? What would each side have to divest themselves of to make it 'straight-up'? Would this at least mean that Wars wankers will stop going on about how jedi/palpatine will always win because of super-precog which is never demonstrated ever?

Isn't Palpy's precog demonstrated by him knowing in advance that the Vong were coming?
In any case, I'd agree it's somewhat silly for people to claim victory in such a manner. Palpy's precog is obviously fallible, as seen at Endor.

Mike's statement is possibly an artifact of classic SW vs ST debating, where many Trek fans would claim guaranteed victory by way of time travel.
This is generally seen as dodgy, because time travel isn't SOP for the Federation (or other factions).

In this particular instance, I would figure time travel would be fair game, as it is part of the 31st Century UFP's MO. It would, however, be important to recognise what its limits are.
As an example, I think JasonB's suggested tactic of simultaneously beaming bombs into the reactors of every ship and installation is somewhat far-fetched.

[Metahive]

Not to mention the fact that time travel fuckery is generally considered "cheating" in SWvST debates. I believe Darth Wong calls it a tacit admission that the time traveler can't win in a straight-up fight. This is not a point in the UFP's favor, JasonB.

It's not the UFP that's being discussed here but whatever has become of it in the 31st century and by that period casual time manipulation has become available and the main method to deal with a crisis, unlike time-travel in the main Trek eras so that objection is irrelevant.

Also, what about "straight-up" fights? If a certain method of warring is blatantly favoring the other side, why should it be considered cheating if one's looking for alternate ways to win? If a bloody war and centuries of oppression could be avoided by strangling baby-Palpatine in his crib, why not go for it? Because it's not playing to the strenghts of the Empire? Boo-hoo.

[Batman]

The problem with time travel isn't that it's cheating (though it is a tacit admission they can't win a straight-up fight-something everybody sane involved in this has known for over a decade), but that it involves time travel, with all the headaches it induces.

You went back in time and strangled Palpy in his crib. No wars, no oppression, no reason for you to travel back in time. Oops.
Since you apparently did not alter your own past, otherwise you would never have bothered to travel back in time to begin with, we're at the branching timelines/parallel universes/whatever you want to call it explanation for time travel. Since you can'tchange your own past (otherwise it would never have happened to begin with), you're essentially running away to another reality. Nifty for you, of absolutely no use (Feds) /concern (Imperials) for the poor sods in the reality the conflict happened in.

[Stofsk]

Not to mention the fact that time travel fuckery is generally considered "cheating" in SWvST debates. I believe Darth Wong calls it a tacit admission that the time traveler can't win in a straight-up fight. This is not a point in the UFP's favor, JasonB.

What'a a 'straight-up' fight? What does that even mean? What would each side have to divest themselves of to make it 'straight-up'? Would this at least mean that Wars wankers will stop going on about how jedi/palpatine will always win because of super-precog which is never demonstrated ever?

Isn't Palpy's precog demonstrated by him knowing in advance that the Vong were coming?

Not to pull a Havokeff but I'd chalk that one up to EU bullshit.

Like you implied, his precognition was so great he didn't foresee his trusted right-hand man turning on him and chucking him down his bottomless pit. Incidentally, even Yoda said that the future was always in motion, meanwhile precognition is mainly used in the super-short term fashion that gives the illusion that Jedi have super fast reflexes. I mean, they do have better-than-baseline reflexes, but that alone can't help them deflect blaster bolts as consistently as they do. That's the real strength of their magic precog. Stuff like Wankatine sensing the Vong decades before they become a threat? Puke.

Is that even in the EU or is that just some fuckwit speculating with fanon garbage?

[Metahive]

The problem with time travel isn't that it's cheating (though it is a tacit admission they can't win a straight-up fight-something everybody sane involved in this has known for over a decade), but that it involves time travel, with all the headaches it induces.

Again, why go for a "straight-up" fight if that's only playing to the strenghts of your opponent? If I were pitted against the Incredible Hulk in a battle for life I'd look for methods to beat him other than fisticuffs and if that means poisoning him in his sleep to win, well, so be it. If it ends with the Hulk dead and me alive I'm the winner.

Of course, we don't even know what the 31sters are capable of besides casual timeline manipulation so we can't say they'd go down as easily as the 24th century UFP in a "straight-up" battle.

You went back in time and strangled Palpy in his crib. No wars, no oppression, no reason for you to travel back in time. Oops.
Since you apparently did not alter your own past, otherwise you would never have bothered to travel back in time to begin with, we're at the branching timelines/parallel universes/whatever you want to call it explanation for time travel. Since you can'tchange your own past (otherwise it would never have happened to begin with), you're essentially running away to another reality. Nifty for you, of absolutely no use (Feds) /concern (Imperials) for the poor sods in the reality the conflict happened in.

31sters are not affected by such paradoxons as shown by episodes like Storm Front (they send Archer back in time to undo the Temporal Cold War before it even starts and yet remember it all when he succeeds) which means they do have some way to keep records of a preferred timeline safe from temporal shifts. They'd shove Ma Palpatine down the stairs to abort Baby Palpatine and be done with it.

But even if we preclude any such timeline manipulations, there's still my other proposal, that they use their time-space displacement device to pick up Palpatine right where he stands and toss him into a black hole. All they need for that to work is knowledge of Palp's exact location at a given moment. They have demonstrated the capability to do such things in ENT after all (Shockwave, Azati Prime, etc.).

[Srelex]

Is that even in the EU or is that just some fuckwit speculating with fanon garbage?

'Outbound Flight' implies he merely had knowledge of their advance scouts or something along that lines.

[Batman]

The problem with time travel isn't that it's cheating (though it is a tacit admission they can't win a straight-up fight-something everybody sane involved in this has known for over a decade), but that it involves time travel, with all the headaches it induces.

Again, why go for a "straight-up" fight if that's only playing to the strenghts of your opponent?

Um-nobody says they should? All the 'straight up fight' argument is about is if the Trek side gets into one, it gets imperially owned. Nobody ever said trying it would be a good idea.

You went back in time and strangled Palpy in his crib. No wars, no oppression, no reason for you to travel back in time. Oops.
Since you apparently did not alter your own past, otherwise you would never have bothered to travel back in time to begin with, we're at the branching timelines/parallel universes/whatever you want to call it explanation for time travel. Since you can'tchange your own past (otherwise it would never have happened to begin with), you're essentially running away to another reality. Nifty for you, of absolutely no use (Feds) /concern (Imperials) for the poor sods in the reality the conflict happened in.

31sters are not affected by such paradoxons as shown by episodes like Storm Front (they send Archer back in time to undo the Temporal Cold War before it even starts and yet remember it all when he succeeds) which means they do have some way to keep records of a preferred timeline safe from temporal shifts. They'd shove Ma Palpatine down the stairs to abort Baby Palpatine and be done with it.

I'm very much afraid that's easily explained by branching timelines.

But even if we preclude any such timeline manipulations, there's still my other proposal, that they use their time-space displacement device to pick up Palpatine right where he stands and toss him into a black hole. All they need for that to work is knowledge of Palp's exact location at a given moment. They have demonstrated the capability to do such things in ENT after all (Shockwave, Azati Prime, etc.).

Except that the very existence of Palpy for them to want to do so means they already failed.

[Batman]

Since you can'tchange your own past (otherwise it would never have happened to begin with), you're essentially running away to another reality. Nifty for you, of absolutely no use (Feds) /concern (Imperials) for the poor sods in the reality the conflict happened in.

I really hate this argument. There's a number of problems.
Most obvious: they do use time travel to fix things a few times throughout the series, and some stories even include angst over ceasing to exist if the timeline changes (Yesterday's Enterprise). You could say it's all an illusion and the characters are stupid, but I don't find this convincing without hard evidence.

I see you don't like logic when it doesn't support your point of view. That'd be the 'you can't change your own past' bit. If that past is there for you to want to change it, you automatically failed to do so! Cue in the alternate universes yadda yadda set of explanations.

Which brings me to: this seems non-falsifiable. What evidence would convince you that the alternate reality explanation is wrong? I don't think I've ever seen a scenario proposed that would prove it's wrong.

You're free to propose a theory superior to that. It fits all available evidence.

And, thirdly, who really cares about those other realities? If the viewpoint characters see the change, isn't that all that matters? "oh, well, some reality exists where things didn't work out"... nifty for you, but of absolutely no use (Imperials) / concern (Feds) for the triumphant characters in the reality the story follows.

Except the Feds in this scenario ran away. Groovy for the people that did, doesn't change the fact that the Empire just ate the Alpha Quadrant. Also presupposes the Fed side is the one the story follows.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Not to pull a Havokeff but I'd chalk that one up to EU bullshit.

Like you implied, his precognition was so great he didn't foresee his trusted right-hand man turning on him and chucking him down his bottomless pit. Incidentally, even Yoda said that the future was always in motion, meanwhile precognition is mainly used in the super-short term fashion that gives the illusion that Jedi have super fast reflexes. I mean, they do have better-than-baseline reflexes, but that alone can't help them deflect blaster bolts as consistently as they do. That's the real strength of their magic precog. Stuff like Wankatine sensing the Vong decades before they become a threat? Puke.

Even beyond that, the wankers who extrapolate 'Can use precog to deflect blaster bolts, sometimes' to 'will never be surprised ever and cannot lose personal combat and will always have the initiative'. Even though Jedi get successfully shot by such elite units as comic-relief droids and gangsters all the time in the movies.

[JasonB]

The Time portal that starfleet were using during 31st century can transport people thought time or can just transport people form A to B or do both. However all 31st century UFP would need to do this technology to send an object form area A to B.

As for just throwing The Emperor and Death Vader into the nearest Black hole that would not be a very effective way of destroying the Empire, because the next highest ranking officer would just take over.
So what the 31st century UFP would have to do is us those time portal to beam bombs over to every starship, military base and docking port that the Empire might use against UFP. After that is likely Emperor would surrender once give offer since he coward anyway.

[Darth Tedious]

For fuck's sake Jason, this is ridiculous even by your standards...

As for just throwing The Emperor and Death Vader into the nearest Black hole that would not be a very effective way of destroying the Empire, because the next highest ranking officer would just take over.

Dipshit, killing Palpatine will effectively defeat the Empire, because there is no next highest ranking officer. With the Emperor gone, the whole Empire fragments and enters a civil war. This is what actually happened in Star Wars.

So what the 31st century UFP would have to do is us those time portal to beam bombs over to every starship, military base and docking port that the Empire might use against UFP.

Really? It would be easier to plant what would be anywhere up to hundreds of thousands of bombs than to just kill Palpatine?

Please explain why killing Palpatine would not work, as it did canonically. I could use a good laugh.

[Stofsk]

Not to pull a Havokeff but I'd chalk that one up to EU bullshit.

Like you implied, his precognition was so great he didn't foresee his trusted right-hand man turning on him and chucking him down his bottomless pit. Incidentally, even Yoda said that the future was always in motion, meanwhile precognition is mainly used in the super-short term fashion that gives the illusion that Jedi have super fast reflexes. I mean, they do have better-than-baseline reflexes, but that alone can't help them deflect blaster bolts as consistently as they do. That's the real strength of their magic precog. Stuff like Wankatine sensing the Vong decades before they become a threat? Puke.

Even beyond that, the wankers who extrapolate 'Can use precog to deflect blaster bolts, sometimes' to 'will never be surprised ever and cannot lose personal combat and will always have the initiative'. Even though Jedi get successfully shot by such elite units as comic-relief droids and gangsters all the time in the movies.

Yes, it's one of those things that irks me too.

Is that even in the EU or is that just some fuckwit speculating with fanon garbage?

'Outbound Flight' implies he merely had knowledge of their advance scouts or something along that lines.

That's fine, I'm more irritated by the argument that Palpatine saw the Vong coming which is why he wanted to build Death Stars and millions of Star Destroyers and shit like that.That's the 'fanon' garbage I'm talking about. I don't know in what context DT's comment has though.

In any case it's been years since I read 'Outbound Flight', and I actually don't remember what you wrote. I do remember Zahn writing about how the 'Hand of Thrawn' kept vigil over threats that nobody in the rest of the galaxy knew about in the Unknown Regions. I just think it's Zahn throwing a bone in his stories, referring to other novels or metaplot developments in an oblique fashion.

[Metahive]

Um-nobody says they should? All the 'straight up fight' argument is about is if the Trek side gets into one, it gets imperially owned. Nobody ever said trying it would be a good idea.

Again, we are talking about the 31sters here whose direct combat capabilities we haven't seen even once so we don't know how they'd fare in a shooting fight with the Empire. All we know is that they have extensive time-space displacement technology at their disposal.

I'm very much afraid that's easily explained by branching timelines.

Less asserting, more explaining, please!

Except that the very existence of Palpy for them to want to do so means they already failed

Nope, that's not true. Vosk existed and ruined their shit until they took action that removed him from the timeline and restored their own to a more favorable state and yet they fully remembered those events. Why should it be different for Palpatine?

ENT delivers multiple examples of the 31sters not being affected by the Grandfather Paradox. In Shockwave Daniels removes Archer from the 22nd century and accidentally causes the ruination of his own, yet he remembers only the events of his original timeline and not those of the new one, enabling him to try and fix it.

[Azron_Stoma]

If we actually saw them go back so we see how that other universe continued on - like DS9 did with the mirror universe - that would prove the other timelines were still around, existing independently. But I can't think of a single time that actually happened. Even the new 2009 movie doesn't show the old timeline continuing. Spock went back in time with Nero, and that erased the events we know and love from the timeline.

Thank God for out of universe VHS!

Except in interviews for the film they've flat out stated that they did NOT erase the events we know and love from the timeline, citing the episode "Parallels". They also refer to it on screen as an "alternate reality".

[Azron_Stoma]

Interviews are non-canon (lol!). Besides, it's obvious that out of universe, it's a parallel thing, since multiple franchises can always exist at the same time. But, there's no evidence for it in universe.

Again they refer to it as an alternate reality on screen.

Again though, if this is the case, can you still enjoy ANY time travel story seen in the show? It's a SoD thing.

No less than I can enjoy the DS1 escape even while knowing they were let go, or knowing that they escaped since I saw it already

It also reminds me of what sfdebris said about Parallels and why we should care about the people in the other universes.

[Danny]

A 31st century UFP?

It would be more logical doing a 24th century UFP vs the Galactic Empire. And on that note- the empire would destroy the UFP.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Why would it be more logical? 24th century Feds versus Empire has been done to death. 31st century is at least different.

[Danny]

Why would it be more logical? 24th century Feds versus Empire has been done to death. 31st century is at least different.

We know NOTHING of the UFP in the 31st century. Only that time travel is common place, thats it. Atleast with the 24 century we have some "facts" over ship design, specification, tactical and etc to at least make a guestimation.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/31st_century ---> not much to go on.

[Eternal_Freedom]

At the very least talking about the 31st century UFP generates some interesting discussion about time travel and how that technology may or may not affect the versus scenario. Like this whole thread in fact.

Whereas the 24th century versus goes like "who wins? Empire. Debate over".

It just isn't interesting.

[Danny]

At the very least talking about the 31st century UFP generates some interesting discussion about time travel and how that technology may or may not affect the versus scenario. Like this whole thread in fact.

Whereas the 24th century versus goes like "who wins? Empire. Debate over".

It just isn't interesting.

And what makes you think time travel in the 31st century is the only thing we need to know about fighting the empire? As i stated- we know NOTHING about the UFP or anything else. Say the Death Star were to hyperdrive to earth and suddenly destroy it- even with time travel the UFP wouldnt know how to destroy the death star anyways. Assuming earth is destroyed- the federation is crippled beyond repair. To launch a counter assault would require information. It isnt about the Empire wins because it does, it wins because of it technology and ships utilized. As i stated before- we know nothing of the UFP, so how do we even know what type of ships would combat the empire?

Say Daniels and a fleet of ships stand ready to combat the death star when it appeared over earth- what happens when the torpedoes hit the death star? Again its pure speculation. We dont know the tactical layout of starfleet or its weaponry.

Time travel would be part of the strategy utilized against the empire, not the only thing. Atleast in 24th centry UFP vs Empire- we can make an educated guess based on techs, storylines, etc.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You miss the point - 24th century versus has a lot more data, but it's been done so many times that it just isn't interesting anymore.

[avatarxprime]

Also you can start laying out ideas on the general power level of 31st Century UFP as I did earlier in the thread using the appearance of the 23rd Century USS Reliant in the 22nd Century and the 29th Century Aeon in the 24th to start establishing the rate at which UFP ships progress in overall power. Then as to combat involving temporal powers we've seen the Krenim from VOY and we know enough about the Temporal Cold War start thinking about what a regular war would look like. It is admittedly a large guessing game, but we can start establishing general points and capabilities that would let us know whether the 31st Century UFP is in the ballpark yet to actually challenge the Empire.

Oh, and something I just remembered was the development of improved armor and weapons brought about by the Voyager crew in Endgame. In just a few decades they had developed ablative armor and transphasic torpedoes. Now the torpedoes could very well function by technobabble to only be effective against Borg, but we know the armor worked against Klingon and Borg weapons (by extension weaponry in general) so that again figures into the development of the Federation over time. Now before you say "alternate timeline," that is true, but the people behind the technology's development still exist in the regular timeline and could likely develop it again. This would mean late 23rd, early 24th Century Fed tech can produce vastly more effective defensive (and possibly offensive) technology than anything we've seen the major AQ powers use before.

[StarSword]

Oh, and something I just remembered was the development of improved armor and weapons brought about by the Voyager crew in Endgame. In just a few decades they had developed ablative armor and transphasic torpedoes. Now the torpedoes could very well function by technobabble to only be effective against Borg, but we know the armor worked against Klingon and Borg weapons (by extension weaponry in general) so that again figures into the development of the Federation over time. Now before you say "alternate timeline," that is true, but the people behind the technology's development still exist in the regular timeline and could likely develop it again. This would mean late 23rd, early 24th Century Fed tech can produce vastly more effective defensive (and possibly offensive) technology than anything we've seen the major AQ powers use before.

Not to quibble, but that should be 24th-25th on the underlined part. 23rd century was Kirk's era.

I would argue that the ablative armor and transphasic torpedoes don't even need to be redeveloped. Even if it's not the same ablative armor that is already present on the Prometheus-class (VOY: "Message in a Bottle"), the Feds could fairly easily reverse-engineer it from Voyager (unless the Temporal Prime Directive forbids this). Same with the torps, though as you said, whether they're of any use against anything except Borg is debatable.

As an aside, I just looked up transphasic torpedoes on Memory Alpha. According to one of the novels (I know, non-canon), they are technobabble incarnate, operating by subspace compression apparently.

[Darth Tedious]

Wasn't there a small number of visuals of a 31st century battle in ENT? I'm sure I recall seeing a scene or two of the Enterprise-J in action...

[StarSword]

Wasn't there a small number of visuals of a 31st century battle in ENT? I'm sure I recall seeing a scene or two of the Enterprise-J in action...

The episode you're thinking of is ENT: "Azati Prime".

But, no, that was the Battle of Procyon V, which took place in the 26th century.