Explaination of Borg Shield adaptation.

[Crateria]

As pro-trek as he is, even Adam would readily concede that the Empire would win a war against the Federation simply because the former has an overwhelming advantage in numbers and industrial capacity.

If the ST folks can find it though, they might be able to turn the tables. In Deep Space Nine, when facing an imminent invasion through a wormhole from a force with superior numbers.... the Federation planned and attempted to technobabble the wormhole out of existence.

It was only the efforts of an enemy spy sabotaging the plan that stopped it.


Then, though, when they had a second chance, they mined it. When that failed, they prayed to god to keep the enemy out.

And since Sisko and these gods had a rapport going; the prophets had helped him in the past, they decided to take that help to the next level. (BTW, a lot of people call this a deus ex machina, but I don't really agree, because the prophet arc had been built up slowly since the show's first episode. The "Sacrifice of Angels" action is a logical progression in that storyline.)


A lot of vs threads assume the assistance of gods is right out, but that's ignoring that Federation folks have canonically asked for and received assistance from them in the past, more than once! Indeed, they've gotten help from them arguably once without asking too, in Q Who?.

Star Wars has their magic Force powers. Star Trek has friends in high places.

And there lies your problem. The Q and the Prophets are essentially deus ex machinas who can solve any problem much of the time. If we allowed them to intervene there would no way to win for the Empire because all Q would have to do is push the Imp fleet into a huge sun or a black hole or something. The Force has been shown to have limits on its users abilities.

[Crateria]

They can't be terrified of being the recipients of a Imperial Smackdown if Wong and the others' reasoning is BS.

Being right doesn't mean you can't have fear, or other reasons to remain silent.

You might not want to antagonize people you generally like.

You might fear losing. (A skilled debater can win from an inferior position; I've seen creationists wipe the floor with people in debates.)

You might fear the other guy pulling an appeal to force on you.

You might just not want to waste the time on this. A lot of posts take me hours to write up, especially if I want to fact check it.

You might not be completely convinced of your ability to defend it; you can believe in an argument without knowing how to articulate why.

You might simply feel that you have nothing constructive to add; that other posters have already covered the points.


And I'm sure there's more. In general, you shouldn't attribute anything to someone remaining silent. It's not an admission of guilt.

There are far too many threads in SW VS ST to read. I simply don't have all the time in the world.

I just wish there was some big thread that showed the reasons why people believe that the fight would be more even rather than the Fedstomp that the main site says it would be.

[Cesario]

As pro-trek as he is, even Adam would readily concede that the Empire would win a war against the Federation simply because the former has an overwhelming advantage in numbers and industrial capacity.

If the ST folks can find it though, they might be able to turn the tables. In Deep Space Nine, when facing an imminent invasion through a wormhole from a force with superior numbers.... the Federation planned and attempted to technobabble the wormhole out of existence.

It was only the efforts of an enemy spy sabotaging the plan that stopped it.


Then, though, when they had a second chance, they mined it. When that failed, they prayed to god to keep the enemy out.

And since Sisko and these gods had a rapport going; the prophets had helped him in the past, they decided to take that help to the next level. (BTW, a lot of people call this a deus ex machina, but I don't really agree, because the prophet arc had been built up slowly since the show's first episode. The "Sacrifice of Angels" action is a logical progression in that storyline.)


A lot of vs threads assume the assistance of gods is right out, but that's ignoring that Federation folks have canonically asked for and received assistance from them in the past, more than once! Indeed, they've gotten help from them arguably once without asking too, in Q Who?.

Star Wars has their magic Force powers. Star Trek has friends in high places.

And there lies your problem. The Q and the Prophets are essentially deus ex machinas who can solve any problem much of the time. If we allowed them to intervene there would no way to win for the Empire because all Q would have to do is push the Imp fleet into a huge sun or a black hole or something. The Force has been shown to have limits on its users abilities.

Eh, I'm personally more annoyed by the Empire's fiat immunity to the terrain threat of godlike aliens possibly living on planets they decide to BDZ.

That's a major issue of the Milky Way terrain, and the Empire's military doctrine is custom designed to piss them off. It's also a terrain feature that the Federation has successfully navigated and is possibly their single greatest advantage when fighting on their home field.

(Not to mention, it's a feature that they had to keep in mind when designing their own military doctrine, and thus made trade-offs to deal with, which by fiat the Empire won't have to make.)

Forget Q and the Prophets intervening. It's the Dowd and the Organians you really need to concern yourself with.

[Bakustra]

We really don't have much of a clue as to how the Empire might act when conquering regions of the Milky Way. The majority of their military strength was devoted to suppression efforts. Canvassing the entire EU gives only a handful of instances where they set out on missions of conquest, all of which were based around areas already known to the galaxy at large. So their behavior would be hard to predict- they simply may not end up doing anything much to annoy most superbeings beyond losing the odd Star Destroyer to Q tests and the like. On the other hand, they may seek to subjugate everybody. It's hard to predict that sort of thing, which is why people like to pretend it doesn't exist.

[Cesario]

We really don't have much of a clue as to how the Empire might act when conquering regions of the Milky Way. The majority of their military strength was devoted to suppression efforts. Canvassing the entire EU gives only a handful of instances where they set out on missions of conquest, all of which were based around areas already known to the galaxy at large. So their behavior would be hard to predict- they simply may not end up doing anything much to annoy most superbeings beyond losing the odd Star Destroyer to Q tests and the like. On the other hand, they may seek to subjugate everybody. It's hard to predict that sort of thing, which is why people like to pretend it doesn't exist.

Trouble is, we know that for a while there were Q living on Earth. Q who, as Q noted, were unable to resist the temptation to use their powers.

The Dowd who wiped out the Husnok was living on an earth colony.

You don't have to blow up worlds completely at random to catch an omnipotent in the crossfire.

Also, you did notice that those Q tests were explicitly stated as being about the fate of the entire human race, right? You fail one of those, it isn't just your ship you lose.

[Stofsk]

Something that always bothered me about those Q Tests or Trial By Omnipotent Beings is why aren't the klingons or romulans ever put on trial either?

The organians being the only exception. Also, something must have happened to the organians after TOS because they were never mentioned again and they never intervened in any interstellar conflict - which, aside from them, the metrons, and MAYBE Q who only intervened when Picard asked him to, few of these godbeings really tend to get involved. The metrons for example only got involved when the Enterprise and the gorn ship it was pursuing passed close to their home system. The thasians only intervened when they realised Charlie wasn't among them and was causing havoc on the Enterprise. The Prophets only got involved when Sisko made his plea to them (in a really contrived manner it must be said).

I'm not saying any one of these godbeings couldn't get involved, but I am saying there's a good argumentative reason why they wouldn't. Hell the organians themselves expressed their own disgust at themselves for intervening. It was implied that they had their own version of the Prime Directive they were following. Since they never intervened much later, either something must have happened to them or they decided they were done sticking their noses into other people's business.

[Crateria]

Something that always bothered me about those Q Tests or Trial By Omnipotent Beings is why aren't the klingons or romulans ever put on trial either?

The organians being the only exception. Also, something must have happened to the organians after TOS because they were never mentioned again and they never intervened in any interstellar conflict - which, aside from them, the metrons, and MAYBE Q who only intervened when Picard asked him to, few of these godbeings really tend to get involved. The metrons for example only got involved when the Enterprise and the gorn ship it was pursuing passed close to their home system. The thasians only intervened when they realised Charlie wasn't among them and was causing havoc on the Enterprise. The Prophets only got involved when Sisko made his plea to them (in a really contrived manner it must be said).

I'm not saying any one of these godbeings couldn't get involved, but I am saying there's a good argumentative reason why they wouldn't. Hell the organians themselves expressed their own disgust at themselves for intervening. It was implied that they had their own version of the Prime Directive they were following. Since they never intervened much later, either something must have happened to them or they decided they were done sticking their noses into other people's business.

Becuz the Romulans and Klingons are all evil and can never evolve to the stars like HUMANITY FOR TEH WINNORZ. Therefore they don't even try.

But seriously IDK.

[Cesario]

My assumption is that the Romulans and Klingons are being tested. It's just happening offscreen, and their equivalent of the Enterprise is doing a bang-up job keeping their asses out of a fire. After all, the Romulans and Klingons aren't evil. They're just different. They're similar enough to the Federation to have enemy-mine moments and even alliances going.

Alternately, the Romulans and Klingons aren't getting explicitly tested because they're lower tech than the Federation, and thus are further away from potentially being groomed to join the omnipotents' club. After all, Starfleet is able to fight off the Romulan and Klingon dedicated warships using their astrological survey/cruise ships.

[Bakustra]

We really don't have much of a clue as to how the Empire might act when conquering regions of the Milky Way. The majority of their military strength was devoted to suppression efforts. Canvassing the entire EU gives only a handful of instances where they set out on missions of conquest, all of which were based around areas already known to the galaxy at large. So their behavior would be hard to predict- they simply may not end up doing anything much to annoy most superbeings beyond losing the odd Star Destroyer to Q tests and the like. On the other hand, they may seek to subjugate everybody. It's hard to predict that sort of thing, which is why people like to pretend it doesn't exist.

Trouble is, we know that for a while there were Q living on Earth. Q who, as Q noted, were unable to resist the temptation to use their powers.

The Dowd who wiped out the Husnok was living on an earth colony.

You don't have to blow up worlds completely at random to catch an omnipotent in the crossfire.

Also, you did notice that those Q tests were explicitly stated as being about the fate of the entire human race, right? You fail one of those, it isn't just your ship you lose.

That's what Q says, but then again, he also claims to be omnipotent too, and that's pretty clearly not the case unless we borrow heavily from Saint Augustine to explain him.

In general, though, we don't really know enough about how the Empire would react to a new galaxy to predict whether they would even try to conquer by violence, let alone act brutally enough to end up killing or hurting superbeings by accident! In the films, they blew up Alderaan, but they didn't bother to do anything about the Ewoks building siege engines and traps outside their back door and in their patrol regions.

[Cesario]

We have Q statements that they aren't omnipotent. The problem is that "not omnipotent" can actually still be pretty damn powerful. From the prospective of you, or I, or Emperor Palpetine, there's no meaningful difference between actual omnipotence and what Q has going on.

As to the Empire's likely behavior, it seems to me that if they're in the habit of ignoring primitive savages and leaving themselves vulnerable due to overconfidence, then if the power gap really is half as significant as is suggested by the 200 GW TURBOLASERS!!! crowd, then they might just do the exact same thing to the Federation. Ignore them and leave themselves vulnerable.

[Crateria]

As to the Empire's likely behavior, it seems to me that if they're in the habit of ignoring primitive savages and leaving themselves vulnerable due to overconfidence, then if the power gap really is half as significant as is suggested by the 200 GW TURBOLASERS!!! crowd, then they might just do the exact same thing to the Federation. Ignore them and leave themselves vulnerable.

I don't think they knew about the Ewoks. Even if they did, the Ewoks didn't have stuff like phasers or ships of their own. They would see the Feds as a bigger threat than a band of primitives like the Ewoks who were militarily behind almost everyone in the Galaxy.

Who do you see as a bigger threat: A bunch of stick wielding teddy bears or guys who at least have a more threating apperance, imitating your empire in a small but noticeable way?

[Bakustra]

We have Q statements that they aren't omnipotent. The problem is that "not omnipotent" can actually still be pretty damn powerful. From the prospective of you, or I, or Emperor Palpetine, there's no meaningful difference between actual omnipotence and what Q has going on.

As to the Empire's likely behavior, it seems to me that if they're in the habit of ignoring primitive savages and leaving themselves vulnerable due to overconfidence, then if the power gap really is half as significant as is suggested by the 200 GW TURBOLASERS!!! crowd, then they might just do the exact same thing to the Federation. Ignore them and leave themselves vulnerable.

But that raises the question of why the Federation would make the first move towards hostilities then. That doesn't seem like a very intelligent move. And if they're more on par (or if the gap is more in industry than in weapons power), then there's a real question as to whether the Empire would invade at all, since it would cost them much more than it would gain them.

[Cesario]

Crateria:

Ah, but per your side's consistent arguments, the Federation is also nothing more than a band of primitives who are militarily behind almost everyone in the Star Wars galaxy.

Also, it's hard to see the threat in a group who's opening hail, prior to even establishing that you can understand the words they are saying, are "Would you be interested in a treaty of mutual nonagression?" (TNG: Darmok)

Bakustra:

I imagine it might have something to do with the despirate pleas for aid coming from the opressed masses within the Empire's borders. That ragtag group of heroes and terrorists who've been trying to free themselves from Palpetine's iron grasp.

But of course, the Federation would never sell weapons to freedom fighters in another empire. Officially.

[Crateria]

1) No gods. The reason you gave is that it means you can't possibly win. You could apply that rule to anything in the debate. I sympathize with that - curbstomps are boring to talk about - but it's often not applied for to that end. It's more often used to make the curbstomp wider; to stack the deck against one side, not to even things out.

Possible, but if one guy can end each side before the fight even begins, then there's no point in discussing this stuff. The Death Star cannot conquer ST alone. It would need stuff like paths set for it by probes, presumably.

OK, so at least the Force has limits on what it does. I'd argue that on factual grounds; the writers just make shit up for the Force on a regular basis. But the meta-argument still shows a lack of fairness: we could argue about Q's limits without saying he's right out. Is he willing to help? Can he be stopped? Can he actually make such a big difference?

If they can make shit up about the Force, then why haven't they done stuff like make it enough to destroy a galaxy? Or a universe? Surely it's possible that they could do that. The Force is also apparently not as intervening as Q is.

Time travel is generally under this same category, though Mr. Wong on the main site goes so far as to say it cannot possibly help anyway, which some bullshit about multiple universes, which invalidates the time it is used in a story, has very poor support, and is just irrational in the first place - it's saying we can't trust our senses, since just because you see an effect doesn't mean it's really there because ~another universe~. It also seems to be non-falsifiable; I've asked people before what experiment would prove to them that the multiple universe interpretation is wrong, and never got a solid answer.

What about Parallels? All those EDs popping out of nowhere were from alternate dimensions. At least one of those dimensions could have been created from time travel. It's been done already. Haven't there been studies about how E-Nil by going back into time (as well as stuff like Yesterday's Ent) creating alternate dimensions? Otherwise how would Sela exist?

McCoy created a universe where there was no Feds because of Edith. Yet the Trio still were living. Surely they would have been eliminated unless the Guardian of Forever had an effect. Which was the canon explanation, right?

If you're altered with the universe then you might not be able test it. You might never even know anything changed.

But, let's go back to fairness. The rule is it has to appear more than once, or something. They say Genesis is out because it doesn't (ignoring "Second Sight" DS9, and I'm told there's Genesis plans visible on one of the TNG computer graphics, but I haven't confirmed that myself. appear again.

But the Death Star is in, not only because we see DS2 (which never destroys a planet BTW), but because the industry and knowledge to build it wouldn't have happened alone.

Check this out: http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/My ... Technology

Mr. Wong argues that the Death Star couldn't have existed on it's own; building it happens because society is at that point.

But you can't apply that same logic to Genesis or anything else in ST for that matter, no sir.

In which part was the Genesis device used again? Unless the Fed niceness is so strong in moral character that they wouldn't dare use their powerful weapons against their enemies like the Borg who show no mercy. (while admittedly they might adapt to it) As much as the Feds might not want to do genocide, they run the risk of losing a shitload of guys (and the Federation's existence anyway) if they don't do their best. You know, threat of the week style.


The Empire slipping in through the wormhole first benefits SW, but there's no discussion on how that'd happen. Unlike Starfleet, they don't have people specifically looking for weird shit out there; SW uses hyperspace routes more often than not. Why is the wormhole where they can find it? [/quote] It would make sense to give Trek the home advantage most of the time. The SW Galaxy is a comparatively heavily armed place to the Trek Galaxy.

The Empire is always assumed to know just where to strike, so they hyperspeed advantage can be biggest, but there's very little discussion on just how this happens. "probe droids" sure, but the galaxy is a really big place. Mathematically, the odds of them hitting the heart of the Federation is quite low, and finding routes to move around freely is going to be very time consuming.

The same applies for Trek. They won't have a clear path to the Galaxy Far Far Away. And from what I've read about they do have ships that patrol for weird shit, just not as intensely as the Feds due to them having explored a lot. Also they don't have as many threats.

As for how they discover it, you have to take into account that most readers want more or less action rather than both sides spending years or decades clumsily going around each others universe and walking into some random shit that pwns their fleets. While it might be interesting to do a realistic (by this site's standards) exploration into the others' realms, this would be particularly difficult.

Now, a setup doesn't have to be fair, and it doesn't have to be justified. It's a story, and things move at the speed of plot. But, we should recognize this - is the setup biased? Is that the only possible setup? Do these advantages apply to all setups?

Asking these questions isn't admitting your side is weaker. It's just realizing there's more to conflict and debate than pew pews.

Nobody said anything about pew pews being the truly deciding factor. The EU has a bunch of explanations and extrapolations about the Empire and Star Wars that are canon, no? They help turn the Empire canonically up into an even more force to reckon with.

[Bakustra]

Sure, and that seems far more likely than spontaneously declaring a war that they have little hope to win.

[Crateria]

Sure, and that seems far more likely than spontaneously declaring a war that they have little hope to win.

Are you talking to me?

[Cesario]

Crateria:

Paralells had NOTHING to do with time travel. Not only did the episode not say a damn thing about time travel, but they explicitly scanned for matter from a different "Quantum Reality", and noted that Worf was the only one who was like that. If the Quantum Reality thing had jack shit to do with time travel, they would have also detected everyone who'd ever gone through a time travel event with that scan.

Wong is just wrong about this. *gasp*

As to the Genesis device, when have they had call to use it that they haven't?

The movies explore the political fallout with the Klingons from the Federation demonstrating that capability, and we're dealing with a cold-war metaphore universe. Of course they aren't throwing around doomsday devices in their general wars.

As to the Borg, when have they been in orbit of Borg controlled worlds where detonating the thing would make any sense at all?



Destructionator XIII:

It's also possible that the Federation as a whole might stick with that "internal politics" aspect, while individual members might behave differently. That leads to a "Picard breaks up arms smuggling ring supporting the Maquis to avoid a war with the Cardasians" plot.

[Stofsk]

The Prophets only got involved when Sisko made his plea to them (in a really contrived manner it must be said).

This is a big tangent, but is it really that bad? I watched the episode a couple months ago, and it didn't really bug me. Like I said, if he didn't ask them, that would have bugged me, since it's worth a try given the emissary arc.

In the very first episode we saw that the Prophets could seal the wormhole from passage by anyone, so it's not their capability that bugs me. But why didn't Sisko go into the wormhole from the start and just tell them that 'the Dominion were a bunch of jerks and so can you please kindly deny them passage kthx bye.' It was used as a last-resort, desperation tactic, when really it should have been on the top of his list of things to try.

I'm not saying any one of these godbeings couldn't get involved, but I am saying there's a good argumentative reason why they wouldn't.

Yeah. All I'm getting at here is that it's something that can (and should) be tackled in debate, not rules or assumptions.

I agree. Also, time-travel as well. I mean, it's not like we've NEVER seen the heroes use time-travel to get out of a sticky situation, right? That rule bothers me, because it's one of the biggest advantages Trek has and it's 'invalidated' or whatever just so the other side can perpetuate the whole Wars>Trek aspect of the debate.

My assumption is that the Romulans and Klingons are being tested. It's just happening offscreen, and their equivalent of the Enterprise is doing a bang-up job keeping their asses out of a fire. After all, the Romulans and Klingons aren't evil. They're just different. They're similar enough to the Federation to have enemy-mine moments and even alliances going.

Alternately, the Romulans and Klingons aren't getting explicitly tested because they're lower tech than the Federation, and thus are further away from potentially being groomed to join the omnipotents' club. After all, Starfleet is able to fight off the Romulan and Klingon dedicated warships using their astrological survey/cruise ships.

I agree with the first option, but not the second. The klingons and romulans are generally on par with the Federation and Starfleet. A D'Deridex Warbird is more or less explicitly said to be so with slight variances (like the Enterprise has better engines and I think may have better computers, but firepower is more spread out in arcs while the Warbird has more situated in the front arc). The romulans and klingons also have cloaking technology, something which the Federation doesn't develop and this was remarked by Picard at some stage as being a huge advantage ('The Defector').

Of course the Federation adapts, which is why they developed the tachyon detection grid and graviton sensors seem to vaguely track cloaked vessels according to that romulan commander in 'Face of the Enemy'. Also it's a bit disingenuous to claim that the Federation's survey ships can wtfpwn their adversaries. The Enterprise is the most powerful vessel in Starfleet. It's multirole too, unlike say the Oberth class survey ships, which can get one-shotted by a Bird-of-Prey.

[Crateria]

Crateria:

Ah, but per your side's consistent arguments, the Federation is also nothing more than a band of primitives who are militarily behind almost everyone in the Star Wars galaxy.

Also, it's hard to see the threat in a group who's opening hail, prior to even establishing that you can understand the words they are saying, are "Would you be interested in a treaty of mutual nonagression?" (TNG: Darmok)

This depends on the Empire being intent on killfucking everybody.

The Feds at least possess some threat to the Imps that the Ewoks did not appear to at first.

IMHO, the Feds and the Imps without divine intervention would likely never show up in precise places and the whole war would likely be a farce anyway as the opposing fleets would do shit like crash into suns and stuff.

Bakustra:

I imagine it might have something to do with the despirate pleas for aid coming from the opressed masses within the Empire's borders. That ragtag group of heroes and terrorists who've been trying to free themselves from Palpetine's iron grasp.

But of course, the Federation would never sell weapons to freedom fighters in another empire. Officially.

This depends on the Feds even getting past Imp forces who will be doing major cracking down on suppliers of insurgent aid.

Besides, Imps take a good look at how weird the weapons they'll be selling to the Rebs and a "OPERATION SMACKDOWN" on the Feds is imminent. If the weapons even work in the first place. There's no guarantee that the Fed weapons will work on planets where the Rebs are.(and converesely Imp weapons on fed planets)

[Bakustra]

Also, something that is essentially a genocidal weapon when used against a civilian planet is something that the Federation is probably very loath to use even if they could somehow get away with it- and unlike biological weapons, incredibly hard to cover up or use as a rogue operation by the worse elements of the Federation. They may well use applications of it for civilian purposes- replicators themselves could easily derive from a scaled-down version of it, since they do largely the same thing- rearranging matter to produce highly complex structures- and the replicator's inability to produce multicellular life may be a consequence of scaling the process down or not using protomatter or whatever [TECH] reason.

This depends on the Feds even getting past Imp forces who will be doing major cracking down on suppliers of insurgent aid.

Besides, Imps take a good look at how weird the weapons they'll be selling to the Rebs and a "OPERATION SMACKDOWN" on the Feds is imminent. If the weapons even work in the first place. There's no guarantee that the Fed weapons will work on planets where the Rebs are.(and converesely Imp weapons on fed planets)

This a) stinks of desperation and b) is really very stupid. If Imperial stuff blows up or fails to work in the Milky Way, they can't interact at all, not even to perform OPERATION: THIS WAS NAMED BY A CHILD or whatever. Also, the Federation doesn't have to sell them phasers or photon torpedoes or anything that's an obvious link. Just providing them with ready access to Federation resources in trade would help them while allowing them to maintain plausible deniability and avoid being traced. They're not especially likely to risk it on the macros scale, but still.

[Crateria]

This depends on the Feds even getting past Imp forces who will be doing major cracking down on suppliers of insurgent aid.

Besides, Imps take a good look at how weird the weapons they'll be selling to the Rebs and a "OPERATION SMACKDOWN" on the Feds is imminent. If the weapons even work in the first place. There's no guarantee that the Fed weapons will work on planets where the Rebs are.(and converesely Imp weapons on fed planets)

This a) stinks of desperation and b) is really very stupid. If Imperial stuff blows up or fails to work in the Milky Way, they can't interact at all, not even to perform OPERATION: THIS WAS NAMED BY A CHILD or whatever. Also, the Federation doesn't have to sell them phasers or photon torpedoes or anything that's an obvious link. Just providing them with ready access to Federation resources in trade would help them while allowing them to maintain plausible deniability and avoid being traced. They're not especially likely to risk it on the macros scale, but still.

It's a point worth mentioning, dumbshit. If the Fed and Imp ground weaponry given to insurgents doesn't operate as well as they're supposed to on planets where the atmosphere works differently and corrodes weapons given or something then some of their insurgent supplying efforts won't work. Weapons don't always work in different climates- a lot of NATO equipment in Astan tends to need to cooled or else it stops operating.

Are you certain that Feds can build a blaster? Maybe the tech levels in making one are larger. Maybe the Feds don't have the technique and the Rebels can't meet up with them.

OPERATION: THIS WAS NAMED BY A CHILD

Oh, you're so clever in this retort. Oh, whatever shall I do to counter this? How about pointing out something actually worthwhile, asshole? You forget the Imperial Smackdown. Clearly invented by a child, I bet.

[Bakustra]

Aww shit, you got me good! Cleverly referencing the owner of the website in the hope that I back down and stop making fun of you. I guess it's time to pack it all up. Got my last will and testament here just in case you bust out another quality zinger and my heart stops.

Okay, see, the basic problem here is that the majority of planets are parsimoniously Earthlike in the ways that matter. The Empire and Federation don't seem to use volcanic, reducing-atmosphere, or otherwise horribly inhospitable worlds for much, and those that they do use generally have dedicated equipment of some kind. So your objection is really just "well what if some bullshit I just made up for no reason understandable by humans? What then, huh?" Which is, I have to say, pretty damn weak. But a hint: the Federation can literally just sell them raw materials and light consumer goods, and fulfill much the same role that the US did with the Lend-Lease Acts to the USSR in World War II while skirting a delicate line between making war and remaining at peace. Which if the Empire overlooks them- the central conceit being suggested- is actually a broad line, something of a rope-bridge.

[Crateria]

Aww shit, you got me good! Cleverly referencing the owner of the website in the hope that I back down and stop making fun of you. I guess it's time to pack it all up. Got my last will and testament here just in case you bust out another quality zinger and my heart stops.

Your point was irrelevant. It was worthy of pointed out on how stupid it was.

Okay, see, the basic problem here is that the majority of planets are parsimoniously Earthlike in the ways that matter. The Empire and Federation don't seem to use volcanic, reducing-atmosphere, or otherwise horribly inhospitable worlds for much, and those that they do use generally have dedicated equipment of some kind. So your objection is really just "well what if some bullshit I just made up for no reason understandable by humans? What then, huh?" Which is, I have to say, pretty damn weak. But a hint: the Federation can literally just sell them raw materials and light consumer goods, and fulfill much the same role that the US did with the Lend-Lease Acts to the USSR in World War II while skirting a delicate line between making war and remaining at peace. Which if the Empire overlooks them- the central conceit being suggested- is actually a broad line, something of a rope-bridge.[/quote]

The Feds and Empire CAN sell weapons to the resistance groups. It depends however if the atmospheres will allow the weapons to work. They may have a lot of Earth-like planets in their respective galaxies as well as the technology but if some electric storm or some shit happens (cause that happens in SW you know. Read the holo news or whatever and they point out how weird ass space storms happen) then they MIGHT NOT work. They still could, but it is a valid point.

This situation assumes however that the arms dealers from both sides actually have contact with the resistances. This is NOT a given.

If the Empire becomes aware of or is already at war with the Feds then they are going to attack the Federation even more since they are provoking instability in their territory. Even raw materials could be enough to support the Rebels. More weapons, ammo and ships for them. Palps hears about this and doesn't want those damn rebels to win. And he's in a position to do something about it.

[Cesario]

On priviledged observers to time travel events:

The Enterprise-C incident is actually a very good illustration of the timeline altering instead of characters shifting to paralell universes. Because each and every event in that episode happened in the present, and the timetravelers themselves were not the ones the camera was following. We see the normal Enterprise-D. The time travel event happens, and we see it turn into Grimdark Enterprise-D. Then we see the second time travel event, and when the Enterprise-C is returned to its proper place in history, we see the normal Enterprise-D again.



On the Prophets:

Worth noting that, as far as Sisco was aware, the Prophets were just like all the other godlike aliens Starfleet had ever encountered, and were not going to look kindly on being asked to intervene in a war. Which handily explains why he waited on asking for divine intervention until it was absolutely clear that they needed it.

[Stofsk]

What would have aided that better though is if he actually tried contacting them prior to setting up the mine field. Maybe they just ignored him or if he did talk to them they might say something like 'what is this conflict to us? why should we care?' That way when Sisko tries his gambit at the end of SoA by putting his life on the line it's something the Prophets can't ignore.