What star wars clips should this guy have used?

[Treknobabble]

The reason I think that Star Trek vs Star Wars is a whole lot closer than most people around here tend to think it is is because observed performance in the movies and shows is about the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWgUSq-8FY4

In just about every category, this (admittedly cherry-picked) video shows Star Trek coming out either comparable to the empire or superior to the empire. Now, we can assume that he picked the best clips he could for Star Trek. So we'll accept the Star Trek clips. We can also presume that he did not pick the best clips he could for Star Wars. Which brings me to the central question of this thread: what clips exactly should he have picked to show the Empire at its best?

As an aside, as an answer to his question, "Seriously, what can a Star Wars fan legitimately brag about?" I will offer three answers.

1) Armored cavalry on the ground. Something we've never seen any Star Trek army field.

2) Strategic FTL. Hyperspace allows for much faster movement than Warp Drive does, and we can assume that Star Trek ships have no way to detect ships in hyperspace.

3) Industrial capacity. This one is the clincher for me. I think that Trek ships have an advantage one-on-one against Star Wars ships, but when it comes to all out war, the Feds own maybe 150 planets, whereas the Emps have more than a thousand times as many. The Empire's industrial capacity is so gigantic that it can build a moon-sized battlestation in secret. Nobody even notices a moon's worth of material going missing. As many advantages as I'm willing to assign to Star Trek, there's no way that the Feds can compete with that kind of industrial disparity.

[Treknobabble]

Here are a few of my own observations.

WEAPONS POWER:
For the Empire, he uses the infamous asteroid blasting scene. Mike Wong claims that this would entail a power of ~20,000 TW, and a bolt energy of ~1500 TJ. As an alternative, I suggest the scene where a turbolaser bolt hits the Millennium Falcon, which entails a power of ~200,000 TW and a bolt energy of ~15,000 TJ.

For the Feds, he uses a scene where the Enterprise fires five photon torpedoes in a burst, which blow up a number of asteroids (far more violently than the turbolaser bolt did, I might add) as well as an enemy vessel (setting off a secondary explosion of maybe 10-30x the magnitude of an individual photon torpedo, based on a comparison of the ship's debris cloud to those of the asteroids. The debris cloud was 2-3 times as wide, giving it 8-27 times the volume).

HAND WEAPONS:
He compares a headshot against an armored storm trooper to a headshot against an unarmored officer. Apples and oranges. Plain and simple.

MENTAL FORCE:
He kinda has a point with this one, but the Star Wars "the Force" is a recurring element, whereas the Star Trek mental force example was a one-episode wonder. This applies to defensive use of mental force later in his comparison.

MARTIAL ARTS:
Again, it seems like he has a point with this one. However, perhaps there's something from the Clone Wars that would level the playing field (in a more figurative sense than an AT-AT walker would level the playing field, of course )

SOLDIERS:
This is one of the ones where it looks like he blatantly cherry-picked. Perhaps a scene from the Battle of Endor would have shown Star Wars ground troops in a better light?

BATTLESTATION DEFENSES:
Seems valid, with a couple of caveats. 1) The death star was designed to repel an attack by capital ships. Those guns would have been far more effective against Neg'Vars and Vorchas than they were against the puny little X-wings. 2) You know what Star Trek calls a ship under 10 meters in length? A shuttlepod. Not one of the ships DS9 was up against would have been under 35 meters in length. This makes targeting a heck of a lot easier for DS9.

WEAPONS ACCURACY:
This is a big advantage for Trek when it comes to observed performance. Most of the TIE shots against the Falcon missed, whereas most of the Defiant's shots against the Lakota hit. The relative size of the Defiant and Lakota are about as good of a match as we're going to get, as is the separation of the ships relative to their sizes.

FIGHTER DURABILITY:
I'd say that he was right on point for this, except for the fact that a Jem-Haddar fighter is around the size of a football field. I'd say that the Falcon displayed much better durability than the puny X-wings and Y-wings.

MANEUVERABILITY:
The 35-115 meter long Birds of Prey move like scaled up X-wings. Seeing as we've never seen a Star Wars capital ship turn at more than a degree or two, Trek wins on this count.

So, who else has a take on this, other than "That dude is full of bullshit, go read Mike Wong's site, he'll set you straight in a jiffy," or "We've all debunked this nonsense a billion times before."?

[Ted C]

Off the cuff...

Weapons: He conveniently cuts the Trek clip before the glare dies and you see that while the derelict ship was destroyed, the asteroids were unaffected.

Hand weapons: A shot through an armored helmet versus a shot at an unprotected head. How is the Trek clip superior?

Mental force: Charlie X is not an example of the Federation's psychic resources any more than Q is.

Martial arts: Armed and armored people struggling in real combat versus two guys sparring. How is the Trek clip superior?

Mental force defense: Again, Charlie X is not an example of the Federation's psychic resources, and Gary Mitchell isn't either.

Soldiers: B1 battle droids are acknowledged in universe to be pretty pathetic. There are plenty of examples of Clone Troopers doing better than Federation security guys.

Battlestation defenses: The Death Star's turrets were designed for shooting at capital ships, not fighters, a limitation that was pointed out in the movie. DS9's weapons had unreliable accuracy against the capital ships they were designed to shoot at (seriously, it looks like more than half of those shots are clean misses).

Weapon accuracy: The TIEs attacking the Falcon? The ones that had orders to allow the Falcon to escape? That's your example of Imperial accuracy? And need I mention all the missed shots from the "Battlestation defenses" clip?

Fighter durability: Proves nothing but that the firepower/shield power ratio for Star Wars fighters is higher than it is for Star Trek "fighters".

Speed and maneuverability: Take some of the earliest FX shots from Star Wars and compare them to some of the latest FX shots from Star Trek. That's fair. (And oh, my... look at all the missed shots.)

What can Star Wars fans brag about? Having a bit more integrity than Idazmi7, for starters.

[Treknobabble]

Off the cuff...

Weapons: He conveniently cuts the Trek clip before the glare dies and you see that while the derelict ship was destroyed, the asteroids were unaffected.

Curious. Where did the material for the giant balls of plasma come from, then? Photon torpedoes aren't particularly large objects, and a multi-megaton bomb won't create a fireball in vacuum unless something gets vaporized, much less a multi-kiloton weapon.

Hand weapons: A shot through an armored helmet versus a shot at an unprotected head. How is the Trek clip superior?

Mental force: Charlie X is not an example of the Federation's psychic resources any more than Q is.

Agreed.

Martial arts: Armed and armored people struggling in real combat versus two guys sparring. How is the Trek clip superior?

Techniques applied, perhaps.

What case of use of martial arts on the field would you recommend for him to use for the Feds?

Mental force defense: Again, Charlie X is not an example of the Federation's psychic resources, and Gary Mitchell isn't either.

Soldiers: B1 battle droids are acknowledged in universe to be pretty pathetic. There are plenty of examples of Clone Troopers doing better than Federation security guys.

Battlestation defenses: The Death Star's turrets were designed for shooting at capital ships, not fighters, a limitation that was pointed out in the movie.

Agreed.

DS9's weapons had unreliable accuracy against the capital ships they were designed to shoot at (seriously, it looks like more than half of those shots are clean misses).

Keep in mind that we never see the whole of the fleet at any given time. Some of the shots may have been aimed at ships outside of our field of view.

Weapon accuracy: The TIEs attacking the Falcon? The ones that had orders to allow the Falcon to escape? That's your example of Imperial accuracy?

The point of this thread is to chose an alternative. Is there any canon example of imperial accuracy that compares to the Defiant's display against the Lakota?

Fighter durability: Proves nothing but that the firepower/shield power ratio for Star Wars fighters is higher than it is for Star Trek "fighters".

Star Trek "fighters" are easily the size of AT-AT walkers. The scare quotes were well placed.

Speed and maneuverability: Take some of the earliest FX shots from Star Wars and compare them to some of the latest FX shots from Star Trek. That's fair. (And oh, my... look at all the missed shots.)

The point is that Star Trek capital ships bank and turn on a regular basis, whereas Star Wars capital ships have rarely been observed doing anything but moving in a straight lines.

Here's something more to the point. Can you come up with an example of canonical observed performance in Star Wars that so exceeds observed performance under comparable circumstances in Star Trek that we would be justified in concluding that the empire would curbstomp the federation in any engagement involving comparable numbers of capital ships?

[Rogue 9]

Note that when the ion cannon on Hoth disables a Star Destroyer to clear the path for the first transport, the ship heels fairly hard to starboard. If it's incapable of such a maneuver while it's functional, faulty engine discharges due to the cannon's interference wouldn't be able to produce superior results. That the Millennium Falcon can outmaneuver Star Destroyers is hardly a surprise.

Of course, his video didn't even look at any of that, instead preferring the 1977 cut of the Battle of Yavin. Idazmi is a goddamned idiot and always has been; I took him to school once and he just kept right on with the broken record, so I gave it up eventually. Not worth the time.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Keep in mind that we never see the whole of the fleet at any given time. Some of the shots may have been aimed at ships outside of our field of view.

Except we see fair number of shots fired from the station's POV, many of which are indeed clean misses heading off into empty space.

Weapon accuracy: The TIEs attacking the Falcon? The ones that had orders to allow the Falcon to escape? That's your example of Imperial accuracy?

The point of this thread is to chose an alternative. Is there any canon example of imperial accuracy that compares to the Defiant's display against the Lakota?

I dunno about comparing to the Defiant/Lakota case, but the Falcon being persued by TIES through the Hoth asteroid field may count, the TIE's kept landing hits and only Han's piloting kept them from getting toasted. Aditionally you could go with clips from Endor, or possibly Coruscant (in ROTS) for examples of SW (rather than just Imperial) accuracy.

Speed and maneuverability: Take some of the earliest FX shots from Star Wars and compare them to some of the latest FX shots from Star Trek. That's fair. (And oh, my... look at all the missed shots.)

The point is that Star Trek capital ships bank and turn on a regular basis, whereas Star Wars capital ships have rarely been observed doing anything but moving in a straight lines.

Here's something more to the point. Can you come up with an example of canonical observed performance in Star Wars that so exceeds observed performance under comparable circumstances in Star Trek that we would be justified in concluding that the empire would curbstomp the federation in any engagement involving comparable numbers of capital ships?

We have the entire Imperial Fleet, Star Dreadnought and all, flying something like a quarter of the way around an orbit of an Earth-sized moon in minutes. We have the DS1 moving halfway around Yavin (a gas giant that is probably Jupiter-sized or better, I can't recall an actual number) to firing position in 30 minutes or less.

This comparison is one I always found kinda silly, since from their very design ISD's are built like old WW1 dreadnoughts, main guns are all turret-mounted with wide firing arcs, so no need for fancy combat moves. Whereas ST ships, whose most powerful weapons are fixed-mount torpedo launches, maneuverability is more important. To use your phrase ont he blaster/phaser example, you're comparing apples and oranges, two completely different design philosphies. It'd be like, I dunno, comparing the CSS Virginia with her fixed-broadside cannons to USS Monitor, with turret-mounted guns, and saying one is better than the other because it's "more maneuverable" (please note I'm not saying either design was actually more maneuverable, I don't know, I'm just using it as an example for trying to compare different design philosophies).

Incidentally, for firepower, why didn't the guy include the Death Star superlaser? That's a big thing for SW fans to hang on to in vs debates. Even when on low-power mode it's vaporising fully-shielded ISD-scale warships in one shot.

[Rogue 9]

Incidentally, for firepower, why didn't the guy include the Death Star superlaser? That's a big thing for SW fans to hang on to in vs debates. Even when on low-power mode it's vaporising fully-shielded ISD-scale warships in one shot.

He claims, quote, "You also don't understand Star Trek: the Death Star is a fucking toy compared to Star Trek super-weapons: not just the Krenim ship, but everything." There is literally nothing you can say to him; he either won't comprehend, pretends he doesn't comprehend, or starts nitpicking. (Just for kicks I pointed out to him that transporters have trouble with granite, electrical transformers, magnetic poles, and thunderstorms, to which he responded that two kilometers of rock aren't typically found on Star Destroyers, completely missing the point.) If you disagree with him, you are either stupid, ignorant, or a liar; he will not consider the possibility that he might be mistaken on any point.

[Lagmonster]

Is this the same Trek-as-religion fanatic on Facebook who thinks he can shut down Mike's board?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Incidentally, for firepower, why didn't the guy include the Death Star superlaser? That's a big thing for SW fans to hang on to in vs debates. Even when on low-power mode it's vaporising fully-shielded ISD-scale warships in one shot.

He claims, quote, "You also don't understand Star Trek: the Death Star is a fucking toy compared to Star Trek super-weapons: not just the Krenim ship, but everything." There is literally nothing you can say to him; he either won't comprehend, pretends he doesn't comprehend, or starts nitpicking. (Just for kicks I pointed out to him that transporters have trouble with granite, electrical transformers, magnetic poles, and thunderstorms, to which he responded that two kilometers of rock aren't typically found on Star Destroyers, completely missing the point.) If you disagree with him, you are either stupid, ignorant, or a liar; he will not consider the possibility that he might be mistaken on any point.

Ooooook...duly noted, thanks. Style over substance indeed.

[Ted C]

Curious. Where did the material for the giant balls of plasma come from, then? Photon torpedoes aren't particularly large objects, and a multi-megaton bomb won't create a fireball in vacuum unless something gets vaporized, much less a multi-kiloton weapon.

Atmosphere and other material released from the Promellian derelict? Seems the most likely source.

Martial arts: Armed and armored people struggling in real combat versus two guys sparring. How is the Trek clip superior?

Techniques applied, perhaps.

What case of use of martial arts on the field would you recommend for him to use for the Feds?

Numerous close combats have erupted in the Star Trek canon. AR-558, for example, or the Klingon boarders in "The Way of the Warrior".

DS9's weapons had unreliable accuracy against the capital ships they were designed to shoot at (seriously, it looks like more than half of those shots are clean misses).

Keep in mind that we never see the whole of the fleet at any given time. Some of the shots may have been aimed at ships outside of our field of view.

Weak apologetics. There were multiple immediate threats to the station in view, and shots from DS9's phasers and photon torpedo launchers were cleanly missing them with no evidence of anything farther down range that they were aimed at.

Weapon accuracy: The TIEs attacking the Falcon? The ones that had orders to allow the Falcon to escape? That's your example of Imperial accuracy?

The point of this thread is to chose an alternative. Is there any canon example of imperial accuracy that compares to the Defiant's display against the Lakota?

For Imperial gunnery, the Battle of Coruscant seems to be a more likely place to look for examples than an engagement in which the Imperial fighter pilots were under orders to lose.

Fighter durability: Proves nothing but that the firepower/shield power ratio for Star Wars fighters is higher than it is for Star Trek "fighters".

Star Trek "fighters" are easily the size of AT-AT walkers. The scare quotes were well placed.

They're not that big, but Federation runabouts are certainly much larger than Imperial starfighters.

Speed and maneuverability: Take some of the earliest FX shots from Star Wars and compare them to some of the latest FX shots from Star Trek. That's fair. (And oh, my... look at all the missed shots.)

The point is that Star Trek capital ships bank and turn on a regular basis, whereas Star Wars capital ships have rarely been observed doing anything but moving in a straight lines.

Imperial capital ships aren't designed to maneuver like starfighters. They form lines and throw out large amounts of firepower, relying on their shields to protect them from return fire.

In a straight line, an ISD can outrun the Millenium Falcon, but they aren't made to turn all that quickly.

Certainly smaller ships like the Falcon and Slave-1 are highly maneuverable, as demonstrated in the asteroid fields of Hoth and Geonosis.

[Treknobabble]

Note that when the ion cannon on Hoth disables a Star Destroyer to clear the path for the first transport, the ship heels fairly hard to starboard. If it's incapable of such a maneuver while it's functional, faulty engine discharges due to the cannon's interference wouldn't be able to produce superior results. That the Millennium Falcon can outmaneuver Star Destroyers is hardly a surprise.

To me, it looked like the ISD was spinning out of control and falling, sluggishly turning as it did so. Perhaps it was a fairly hard heel to starbord by Star Wars standards, but not by the standards of science fiction generally. Though I will admit that this is far better than what Idazmi offered in terms of fairness, I don't think that it helps the Empire's case much.

[Treknobabble]

Curious. Where did the material for the giant balls of plasma come from, then? Photon torpedoes aren't particularly large objects, and a multi-megaton bomb won't create a fireball in vacuum unless something gets vaporized, much less a multi-kiloton weapon.

Atmosphere and other material released from the Promellian derelict? Seems the most likely source.

Atmosphere is pretty thin as it is, by the time it vented into space, it would be even thinner. It might give us a nice glow, but it won't produce a 50 meter wide ball of plasma.

Numerous close combats have erupted in the Star Trek canon. AR-558, for example, or the Klingon boarders in "The Way of the Warrior".

Which evens the playing field quite nicely.

Weak apologetics. There were multiple immediate threats to the station in view, and shots from DS9's phasers and photon torpedo launchers were cleanly missing them with no evidence of anything farther down range that they were aimed at.

With regard to cases where the camera focuses on the station, I'd say that the odds of an enemy ship being behind the little birds of prey are fairly high.

For Imperial gunnery, the Battle of Coruscant seems to be a more likely place to look for examples than an engagement in which the Imperial fighter pilots were under orders to lose.

Fair enough. But the sheer size of the battle of Coruscant prevents us from being able to tell whether any given bolt missed its intended target or hit a target offscreen.

In a couple of dogfights, it looked like the pilots were "walking their shots," which indicates significant reliance on the glow of the bolt in targeting.

They're not that big, but Federation runabouts are certainly much larger than Imperial starfighters.

Actually, the Danube Runabout has a beam of 14 meters, and could plausibly have a length of 23 meters. In other words, if you seated the thing on its butt, it'd be nearly as tall as an AT-AT (my guesstimate for the height of the AT AT is at about 25 meters. Kinda hard to tell anything more accurate than that). A larger ship, like the Defiant, which appears to serve a "fighter-esque" role, is no less than 45 meters in length, and could very easily be some 170 meters in length.

Imperial capital ships aren't designed to maneuver like starfighters. They form lines and throw out large amounts of firepower, relying on their shields to protect them from return fire.

In a straight line, an ISD can outrun the Millenium Falcon, but they aren't made to turn all that quickly.

When facing the firepower of an ISD, the ability to jink around as needed would be very valuable indeed.

[Treknobabble]

Except we see fair number of shots fired from the station's POV, many of which are indeed clean misses heading off into empty space.

Hmmm. Hadn't noticed those before. Point ceded.

Incidentally, for firepower, why didn't the guy include the Death Star superlaser? That's a big thing for SW fans to hang on to in vs debates. Even when on low-power mode it's vaporising fully-shielded ISD-scale warships in one shot.

If you guys bring those up, we Trekkies will meet your death star (which destroys planets) and raise you a trilithium torpedo (which destroys entire star systems). Sure, the latter doesn't use brute force, but the target won't give a damn about that.

[Batman]

Have fun trying to try to shoot down the DS superlaser beam. That stupid torpedo?

[Eternal_Freedom]

We can also add that there were apparently only two built, and that as of the end of Generations, everyone who knows how to build one is dead and the technical details Soren gave to Lursa are also destroyed. It's a one-off wonder-weapon, not a viable thing to use in vs debates.

[Treknobabble]

We can also add that there were apparently only two built, and that as of the end of Generations, everyone who knows how to build one is dead and the technical details Soren gave to Lursa are also destroyed. It's a one-off wonder-weapon, not a viable thing to use in vs debates.

Two trilithium torpedoes were built. Two death stars were built. Seems fairly well balanced to me.

Plus, the imperial wiki seems to indicate that similar weapons are used by the Dominion.

[Batman]

Yeah, right. No? Two Death Stars were built which were perfectly in line with the industrial capacity one would expect from a galaxy-spanning empire and worked on brute force. The trilithium torpedoes relied on technobabble and the ability to produce them died with the creator. But feel free to point out the other incident where trilithium torpedoes blew up a sun, as opposed to make a planet uninhabitable ( DS9's 'For The Uniform').

[Rogue 9]

Note that when the ion cannon on Hoth disables a Star Destroyer to clear the path for the first transport, the ship heels fairly hard to starboard. If it's incapable of such a maneuver while it's functional, faulty engine discharges due to the cannon's interference wouldn't be able to produce superior results. That the Millennium Falcon can outmaneuver Star Destroyers is hardly a surprise.

To me, it looked like the ISD was spinning out of control and falling, sluggishly turning as it did so. Perhaps it was a fairly hard heel to starbord by Star Wars standards, but not by the standards of science fiction generally. Though I will admit that this is far better than what Idazmi offered in terms of fairness, I don't think that it helps the Empire's case much.

It establishes a lower limit. There's no "falling" to do (apart from the fact that an orbit is falling while moving so fast laterally you clear the planet) in space; that was produced by the Star Destroyer's misfiring engines. A controlled turn is therefore equally possible, and probably capable of heeling over harder than that. What they can't do is pull an Immelmann turn and go shooting off in the other direction within a couple of ship lengths like the Falcon, but that's to be expected. Since he chose the X-wings peeling off toward the Death Star as his example, though, it seems he's content to argue about the maneuverability of lighter vessels, so the Falcon is the better example anyway.

Edit: For extra hilarity, he'll go on and on about canon, but when I said that Janeway's failure to beam a timed bomb onto the Caretaker Array and then use it to escape indicates some reason why they couldn't do that unless you want to presume she and her entire command team with her are pants-on-head stupid, he told me Voyager is full of contradictions and to ignore it.

[Treknobabble]

Yeah, right. No? Two Death Stars were built which were perfectly in line with the industrial capacity one would expect from a galaxy-spanning empire and worked on brute force. The trilithium torpedoes relied on technobabble and the ability to produce them died with the creator. But feel free to point out the other incident where trilithium torpedoes blew up a sun, as opposed to make a planet uninhabitable ( DS9's 'For The Uniform').

An attempt was made to use a similar weapon in DS9's "By Inferno's Light." Had the attempt succeeded, it would have resulted in a supernova destroying the entire system.

In both cases, weapons capable of inducing a supernova were produced by men working alone. These weapons could very plausibly be fielded if the conflict descended into guerrilla warfare. Presumably, similar devices could be used if by the Federation itself in retaliatory strikes, if necessary. These devices don't appear to be significantly larger than photon torpedoes, and could probably be delivered by unmanned shuttlecraft if they wouldn't fit in the tubes.

Strategically, watching a guerrilla force do with a shuttlecraft what the mighty empire had to build a small moon to do would deliver a powerful sucker-punch to Imperial morale.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, right. No? Two Death Stars were built which were perfectly in line with the industrial capacity one would expect from a galaxy-spanning empire and worked on brute force. The trilithium torpedoes relied on technobabble and the ability to produce them died with the creator. But feel free to point out the other incident where trilithium torpedoes blew up a sun, as opposed to make a planet uninhabitable ( DS9's 'For The Uniform').

An attempt was made to use a similar weapon in DS9's "By Inferno's Light." Had the attempt succeeded, it would have resulted in a supernova destroying the entire system.

In both cases, weapons capable of inducing a supernova were produced by men working alone. These weapons could very plausibly be fielded if the conflict descended into guerrilla warfare. Presumably, similar devices could be used if by the Federation itself in retaliatory strikes, if necessary. These devices don't appear to be significantly larger than photon torpedoes, and could probably be delivered by unmanned shuttlecraft if they wouldn't fit in the tubes.

Strategically, watching a guerrilla force do with a shuttlecraft what the mighty empire had to build a small moon to do would deliver a powerful sucker-punch to Imperial morale.

One of those two men had decades to work on his plan, and the other was a Changeling with the knowledge of the Dominion available to him, neither of which is useful to the Federation. Additionally, the Changeling bomb also had protomatter in it (whatever the hell that actually is), so it isn't a pure trilithium device.

At any rate, since any hypothetical campaign would be taking place in or near Federation territory (given the limits of warp drive, they can't directly threaten the Empire's core worlds, unless they're willing to go on a 20-year one-way trip), wiping out their own solar systems would be incredibly stupid. Unless you're going to suggest they opt for a total Scorched Earth policy, which is not something I can imagine the Federation doing. Destroying themselves to drive off an enemy that won't be seriously hurt by the effects of the attack is, frankly, laughable.

[seanrobertson]

A quick note:

It looks like the asteroids around that Promellian ship were destroyed, at least to my eye. You can see the clip here, around 3:45ish. Pay special attention to the one at the bottom left of the screen.

That said, I don't know what that Imzadi kid hopes to prove with that scene. Can torpedoes blow up asteroids? Of course they can. We all know a better question is, what are their limits? The well-known stand-bys ...

*"I recommend we destroy the asteroid. It would take most of our photon torpedoes ..."

and

*the asteroid-pulverizing scene in "Cost of Living"

... both show a sufficiently large asteroid, to the tune of several miles in diameter, can't be destroyed with one torpedo.

The yields can still be quite impressive, but in my judgment, anything much beyond double-digit megatons is fantasy. If photons were even very low gigaton-ranged devices, what was the point of the 43 gigaton Cardassian "Dreadnought" missile? It'd be pretty stupid to build a big automated vessel that was barely more powerful than a handful of torpedoes, nevermind just one. It'd be a waste of resources and, sure enough, it's far less reliable than a fully-crewed, torpedo-carrying warship (anyone who doubts that's overlooking how the Maquis kinda, y'know, captured and reprogrammed the thing ).

Anyway, back to the Youtube jester. He likes to edit clips and make brazen lies about what was actually shown. He used the torpedo explosion in "Peak Performance" to demonstrate that the Enterprise can blow the Hathaway to smithereens with one hit I wanted to ask him if he'd ever actually seen that episode He also blatantly lies about the Enterprise "vaporizing an atmosphere" or somesuch hogwash in "A Matter of Time."

Don't even get me started on some of his more bold claims (yes, the imaginary atmosphere vaporizing incident was tame). He insists a Star Destroyer is about a quarter or so of its obvious length. Another Youtuber, Firmus Piett, made a counter-video to that; any reasonably sane or intelligent person would immediately see Piett's scaling is spot-on, but Imzadi decided to stand fast, knee-deep in his own verbal diarrhea. I didn't stick around much after that, but I'm sure he cried about the SD.net meanies, all the while flaming any dissenting voices to a crisp.

[Battlegrinder]

Oh, it's Idazmi7 again. It's kinda said this is the best the pro-ST side can muster.

I'd also point out that he failed to mention SW has, you know, actual combat vehicles, air support, body armor, helmets, etc, all of which are a massive force multiplier over what the UFP brings to the table.

And even if we grant that UFP martial arts are superior....so? How is that going to factor into a war on this scale of an Empire v UFP conflict?

[biostem]

That's the thing about comparing, say, TIEs vs X-Wings - both are purpose-built combat craft. The Runabouts and various shuttlecraft we see are actually utility craft with defensive capabilities. The closest to a purpose-built vessel that we see is the Defiant, and while pretty impressive, it is quite a bit bigger than SW's fighters, and requires a decent sized crew. I wonder how well a "new" Millennium Falcon would function, with a full crew.

As for close-quarters combat - there's a scene in AoTC, where clone troopers actually charge at and jump on top of several of the spider droids to destroy them.


Regarding the asteroid scene for ST - the torps all detonated at the same time - so if they struck the asteroids, then those, when compared to the Promellian vessel, (assuming said vessel is about the size of a typical starship), are pretty small - maybe 10 or so meters...

[biostem]

I also just want to note that most discussions of SW vs ST are Empire vs Federation - thus, things like the CIS B1s or non-Federation or ex-Federation personnel are red herrings. Because, I mean, if we're talking about mental powers, then I'll take Mace Windu from the 1st Clone Wars cartoon series over that ST psychic for both mental powers and martial ability...

[Purple]

And even if we grant that UFP martial arts are superior....so? How is that going to factor into a war on this scale of an Empire v UFP conflict?

Well it is elementary. Superior firepower, technology and support mean nothing when faced with strong martial arts as performed by mean with their bare fists. You need only look at history to find proof of this.

Also, is anyone amused at the prospect of starfleet pijamaguards recreating the Boxer Rebellion against stormtroopers?