Why do people assume that the Empire has better tech?

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm curious about this. It seems that yes, the ships of the Empire are faster than those of the Federation, but from what we've seen on-screen, that seems to be the only edge that the Empire has.

Well, no, there's that colossal industrial advantage they have demonstrated in the movies. That's rather significant really.

Consider:
-The Federation and its neighbors have demonstrated the ability to reliably engage in time-travel on multiple occasions. This includes an episode of TOS, Star Trek IV, Trials and Tribbleations and Endgame.*

And yet, their society mysteriously can persist even though we've seen that criminals and civilians can engage in time travel, nevermind the alien of the week (like the Krenim) or stuff like that. Saying "Time travel = I win" is patently stupid and comic book fanboyesque because you don't make any effort to analyze or measure the ability, or bother to consider the potential limitations, dangers, or risks inherent in such a technology.

-The Federation has teleportation technology.

Yes, so what? Is this supposed to be a gamewinnner as well?

-The Federation and energy-to-matter conversion technology.

Based on what exactly? And if you say "replicators" I am going to flame you incessantly for not putting any thought into your answer.

-The Federation has cloaking devices and the means to detect cloaked ships. The Empire may have cloaks, as evidenced by Piett's line in ESB about cloaking devices, but it's certainly clear that the Imperial fleet does not use them, or they would have done so before the Battle of Hoth and that if they had the means to detect a cloak then Piett would have ordered them to do so when they lost the Millenium Falcon from view.*

So? Cloaking devices are not be-all, end-all gamewinners either. There are going to be obvious drawbacks and limitations to cloaking devices based on simple logic, nevermind in-universe stufff. And this applies to cloaking technology on both sides, since both (for example) use reaction thrusters, have to dissipate waste heat, etc.

-An episode of The Next Generation showed an engineer who created a ridiculous method of space travel that made a "subspace wave" or whatever that went out of control. It was stated that the wave would have destroyed any planets in its path. The Enterprise came up with a way to dissipate the wave at the end of the episode. Any Starfleet capital ship would be capable of deploying and dissipating the wave as a weapon. That would easily take out or disable a Death Star.*

Again, you make no effort whatsoever at bothering to putting any logic behind this, so you come off as just another fanboy with fanboy tactics. For one thing, what proof is there that they can weaponize it or deploying it as a weapon? Are we just supposed ot take your word on it because you say so?

-The Enterprise from TOS is capable of incinerating the crust of a planet on its own. I believe the name of the episode where this is mentioned is "The Armageddon Factor." The Imperial flagship Executor was incapable of destroying the Hoth Echo Base from orbit. If you are thinking about the Rebel shield, see the next entry.

No math mentality. I could just as easily point out that you can't "incinerate" rock because it can't combust. you could of course incinerate the organic matter above it, but that's not neccesarily impressive on its own. Nevermind that you haven't bothered to address timeframe or anything.

-The Hoth Echo Base shield is able to be penetrated by ground vehicles. Starfleet shields are capable of deflecting incoming attack ships. In the episode Preemptive Strike, the only way a small fighter was able to pierce the shields and get close to the Enterprise was that Enterprise allowed them in.

Oh, and you're so well versed in Star Wars Shield Engineering that you know WHY and what parameters do and don't influence shield penetration? Well damn, I guess I don't have anything to respond ot that.

At this point I'm losing any interest in humoring you, because it seems like you've just amassed alot of "what if" speculation and expect this to somehow change things.

-A point could be made that in regards to the Second Death Star's shield. That shield was delivered by a planet-based facility. If the Empire had the technology to equip the Death Star with its own energy shield then they would have done so, but neither Death Star was so equipped. The conclusion is that Starfleet shields are stronger and more economical.

Uh yes it was. The movies explicitly mention ray shielding and particle shielding. The ANH novelization (which is canonical) also makes mention of shielding.

-The Federation defeated the Dominion in battle. There is no conceivable scenario in which the Federation would fail to demand and receive the Dominion's invasive transporter technology, which is capable of beaming through shields.

Unproven speculation, and therefore meaningless.

-In Endgame, Voyager comes back home with advanced technology that allows them to destroy Borg ships with little effort. Such technology is only 20 years ahead of Voyager's time so there is little doubt that if the crew of Voyager could adapt it to their own ship so quickly, then Starfleet would waste no time in upgrading the fleet.

And what sort of advantage do you suppose this technology brings against the Empire, and what is the proof of those capabilities?

-Yes, the Empire has Death Star technology. However, the Empire only has ever had one Death Star at a time, never a fleet. As the Death Star would be vulnerable to the subspace wave above, the point is moot.

No, its not. They did not build the Death STar like some "to scale model" where the parts come pre-formed and you only have to fit the tabs into the slots or something silly like that. They had to move immense amounts of resources to a specific location, and shape/refine the materials inot an actual structure. That is not a trivial feat. That same amount of mateiral can be applied in quite a few other ways, particularily since the Death STar itself was quite obviously built without any sort of shipyard infrastructure.

*The asterisk-marked entries are all illegal in the Federation. However, Star Trek VI, Star Trek Insurrection and the episodes The Drumhead, Homefront and Paradise lost all show that Starfleet has many people in it's chain of command who are perfectly willing to contravene existing laws for the sake of victory in battle.

And we're just to assume that these "people" somehow have the clout and authority to pull off all the wonder tactics you just claimed they can do? Or that noone is going to oppose them?

I like both Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm simply puzzled over the fact that many people assume that the Empire would destroy the Federation when the Federation clearly has superior technology.

Frankly, I don't care what oyu like. You've assembled a large mass of pointless speculation and "game winning" comic books trategies with zero thought or zero substance behind him. This is the exact sort of BS I saw throughout vs debating on both sides, and its the sort of thing I've come to actually LOATHE about it. And to put it bluntly, you've done absolutely nothing to back up your claims. Frankly, why the hell should anyone believe you?

[Connor MacLeod]

The simplest way of solving Trek vs Wars for new people is in my mind to assume that both sides have equal firepower. At that point you can then point out the Empire's massive advantages in industrial capacity and strategic speed allows them to control when and where they engage and can do so in massively overwhelming force. Compared to that all the wonder weapons on both sides become irrelevant.

The simplest way to handle SW vs ST is simply not to assume that the first fucking thing they'll do is jump into a war of total annihlation. not only is it overly contrived, but its fucking silly. The Empire, large and warlike as it is, does not launch into a war of annihilation at the drop of a hat "just because."

[Darth Tedious]

The movies explicitly mention and particle shielding.

Whenever did the movies mention particle shielding? Also see my example of ray shields stopping people in RotS.

[Disco Soup]

How are replicators not energy-to-matter technology?

[Darth Tedious]

How are replicators not energy-to-matter technology?

They require stock.

[Connor MacLeod]

How are replicators not energy-to-matter technology?

First: If they can convert energy into matter, why the hell can't they make antimatter onboard the ship. My knowlege of Voyager isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure that on more than one occasion they had energy crisis onboard ship.

For that matter, there are any number of things that are difficult or impossible to replicate with replicators that come to mind.

Second: Replicators are, to my knowledge, partly based on transporter tech. Transporters do not reduce objects to pure energy.

Thirdly: If they can convert energy into matter, they should be able to convert matter into energy rather effortlessly, and using something as volatile as antimatter as a power source would be damn stupid.

Seriously. THIS is my problem with your little "list" You've basically assembled alot of "what I think" style arguments, but there's absolutely no thought or substance behind them, nor any attempt at logical consistency. It's all just another attmept to say "TREK HAS A GAME WINNING TRICK!" as if this were some silly video game, which only heightens the cartoonishness of what you are proposing.

[Connor MacLeod]

The movies explicitly mention and particle shielding.

Whenever did the movies mention particle shielding? Also see my example of ray shields stopping people in RotS.

I may have been thinking of the novelization or script. I know the reference predates the EU in any case. The two are generally linked in terms of canon (as ios the script)

[Disco Soup]

Replicators can run indefinitely. Or at least long enough to make the self-replicating minefield from DS9 all but inexhaustible.

[Connor MacLeod]

And how is that proof of "energy ot matter" conversion, pray tell? Nevermind that does NOT address any of my objections in the least.

[Darth Tedious]

Gene never said that the Dominion War was canonical.
If George > Lucasfilm, why is Gene < Paramount?

[bz249]

The movies explicitly mention and particle shielding.

Whenever did the movies mention particle shielding? Also see my example of ray shields stopping people in RotS.

I may have been thinking of the novelization or script. I know the reference predates the EU in any case. The two are generally linked in terms of canon (as ios the script)

Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzTc_MGDC0

At 7:20

"the shaft is ray shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes"

So the statements are: there is a shield system in the SW which is called ray shields, proton torpedoes are unaffected by ray shield or they can punch though ray shields

If we assume they are not complete morons we can add, that the defense against proton torpedoes should be pretty advanced (either point defense, armor or particle shielding) since large warships predominantely use turbolasers, against which ray shields offer an effective defense.

[Darth Tedious]

Whenever did the movies mention particle shielding? Also see my example of ray shields stopping people in RotS.

I may have been thinking of the novelization or script. I know the reference predates the EU in any case. The two are generally linked in terms of canon (as ios the script)

Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzTc_MGDC0

At 7:20

"the shaft is ray shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes"

So the statements are: there is a shield system in the SW which is called ray shields, proton torpedoes are unaffected by ray shield or they can punch though ray shields

If we assume they are not complete morons we can add, that the defense against proton torpedoes should be pretty advanced (either point defense, armor or particle shielding) since large warships predominantely use turbolasers, against which ray shields offer an effective defense.

I could probably recite Dodonna's brief from memory. I was asking when particle shields were mentioned. I'd already mentioned the example of ray shields from RotS.

[bz249]

I could probably recite Dodonna's brief from memory. I was asking when particle shields were mentioned. I'd already mentioned the example of ray shields from RotS.

What is important with the Dodonna statement, that ray shields have no effect on proton torpedoes. The novellization does mention particle shielding also (that it is not possible to use, since it would kill the purpose of the thermal shaft).

[Darth Tedious]

I could probably recite Dodonna's brief from memory. I was asking when particle shields were mentioned. I'd already mentioned the example of ray shields from RotS.

What is important with the Dodonna statement, that ray shields have no effect on proton torpedoes. The novellization does mention particle shielding also (that it is not possible to use, since it would kill the purpose of the thermal shaft).

I would concur that the only definite conclusion we can draw from the scene is that protorps are shield penetrating.

I still find the alleged nature of ray shields very hard to reconcile with what we see in RotS. Given that the movies trump the novelisations, we need some theories on why ray shields should stop people.
Also, I am going along with Disco Soup's request that we only use on-screen evidence (though I'm still waiting to hear why he is willing to use evidence from post-Roddenberry Trek).

[bz249]

I would concur that the only definite conclusion we can draw from the scene is that protorps are shield penetrating.

I still find the alleged nature of ray shields very hard to reconcile with what we see in RotS. Given that the movies trump the novelisations, we need some theories on why ray shields should stop people.
Also, I am going along with Disco Soup's request that we only use on-screen evidence (though I'm still waiting to hear why he is willing to use evidence from post-Roddenberry Trek).

Okay, yes the minimum conclusion is that protorps can penetrate ray shield strong enough to offer full protection against any fighter mountable energy weapons.

Theory why ray shields can trap humans? Well humans are rather fragile: different forms of radiation, small amount of heat, relatively miniscule mechanical force, laughable electric currents... etc can kill or cause serious injury to a standard human. So if a ray shield have any of those side effects on an object in the proximity, then a human would better avoid ray shields. (though I do not remember the RotS screen you mentioned)

[Darth Tedious]

After the fight with Dooku, Ani and Obi-Wan are on their way to leave (with Palpy in tow) and Grievous traps them with ray shields, resulting in the classic Obi-Wan line, "Wait a minute, we're smarter than this!"

It should be noted that protorps being able to penetrate ray shields doesn't necessarily mean they'd penetrate Trek shields.

Just to get back to the tech side of things, lets ignore the industrial feat that is the Death Star's sheer size and focus on that 2.1E32 joules of instakill it hurls. That level of enegy production is quite out of the Federation's league- I doubt all 150 member worlds combined would produce that much power in a year. The original DS could fire once every 24 hours.

[bz249]

After the fight with Dooku, Ani and Obi-Wan are on their way to leave (with Palpy in tow) and Grievous traps them with ray shields, resulting in the classic Obi-Wan line, "Wait a minute, we're smarter than this!"

It should be noted that protorps being able to penetrate ray shields doesn't necessarily mean they'd penetrate Trek shields.

Just to get back to the tech side of things, lets ignore the industrial feat that is the Death Star's sheer size and focus on that 2.1E32 joules of instakill it hurls. That level of enegy production is quite out of the Federation's league- I doubt all 150 member worlds combined would produce that much power in a year. The original DS could fire once every 24 hours.

Yes I watched it via youtube... that scene is perfectly consistent with ray shield are dangerous to living matter (also one can hear some noise which sound like electric discharges), so they may be able to get through the shield, however die in the process.

The 2E32 joule is a very conservative estimate, and even that puts the DS in the same league as large star.

[Darth Tedious]

The 2E32 joule is a very conservative estimate, and even that puts the DS in the same league as large star.

Indeed. I find lower limit estimates are fine, when they're that big. That's the thing- you can put lower limit SW numbers against upper limit ST numbers and Trek are still outmatched.

[Eternal_Freedom]

They don't have to stop the formation of the Empire. I'm simply using this portion to demonstrate superiority of the tech. I'm not taking into consideration the eventual 29th century Federation tech that includes TARDISes and whatever else

I know this is from earlier in the thread, but I just HAVE to call you on this one. At no point did the Federation (future or otherwise) demonstrate TARDIS level technology.

No doubt you are referring to the future timeship from ENT that was bigger on the inside? Whilst that is indeed a feature of a TARDIS it is not the only one, or the defining one.

In the 1996 film, the Doctor states that the Type 40 TARDIS (an old and obsolete model) is capable of taking you to any planet in the universe at any point in that planet's existence.

The Federation has nowhere near this level of technology.

And, of course, if we are only allowing what the original creators declare cannon, none of that technology exists. The best the Federation manage is going from 2286 to the 1980's or so. In other words, 300 years. And that action caused immense strain on the ship and IIRC left it basically crippled.

The Federation, of the present era, DOES NOT HAVE TIME TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY. They know of a method to do it, and again IIRC that was an unkown side-effect of their propulsion technology.

[Whiskey144]

If your position is so strong, why not play by his rules? Surely you can use the mountains of supporting evidence from just the films to make a strong case. Canon ought to be irrelevant.

A victory where you handicap yourself while being generous to the other side would be more convincing imo.

My point in making that comment was that it is a supremely stupid concept to exclude anything SW that's not made by Lucas as being part of a separate but extremely similar setting, based on a stretched interpretation of a non-literal comment made by Lucas.

1. Pretty sure the Gungan shields could also block high velocity projectiles, the droids appeared to slow down as they passed through, which more than slightly suggests a form of surface tension that may increase the more force is applied on it.

That's something I missed, considering that it's likely the TradeFed tanks were firing shells.

Genesis devices are not lost tech. In DS9 "Second Sight", we see that not only has the tech survived, but it has actually been further advanced. A Federation scientist, Professor Seyetik, has build a new device based on Genesis technology. At the end of the episode, this new device successfully reignites a dead star.

Wrap your head around those power calcs!

Then I concede that Genesis devices are extant usable devices for the Federation; I wasn't aware of that episode. WRT the "reignite dead star", quite frankly I'm pretty sure that that's unquantifiable unless we make a metric shitton of assumptions.

It should be noted that the whole ray shields/particle shields thing was a brain bug that, while popular in the EU, has been overridden by G-level canon. In RotS, during the Battle of Coruscant, Grievous uses ray shields on board the Invisble Hand to trap Ani, Obi-Wan and Palpy.
If ray shields don't stop particles, they shouldn't be effective in trapping people.
Furthermore, blasters, turbolasers and laser cannons must be particle weapons- if they were firing an beam of energy, it would propagate at the speed of light. Which also shows that ray shields do indeed stop particles.

I was not aware of this. Since that's the case, then I naturally retract the ray/particle shield bit, though the point still stands that the DS1 was equipped with onboard shield generators.

As for the suggestion that the DS's shields are "so weak fighters can pass through them"- watch ANH again. It was interaction between the shields of the fighters and the DS's shield that allowed them to pass through, which is why all fighters had to modify their shields as they approached.

I haven't seen ANH in a long time, didn't remember that bit. I'd supposed that (working with the faulty ray/particle shielding stuff) DS1 was only ray shielded.

The idea of the DSII having shields throughout its superstructure to defend against attack during construction is preposterous. At the rate it was being built, doing so would necessitate the installation, removal and re-installation of shield generators on a daily, if not hourly basis just to keep up with the construction.

Too true; it would have been a massive waste, and when you've got a project the size of DS2, then that massive waste just went up by at least one or two orders of magnitude.

As for double-blind cloaks- They appeared in the Thrawn trilogy, which aren't being included in the agreed canon for this thread. Hibridium-based cloaks are double blind, while stygium-based cloaks are not. In TCW:'Cat and Mouse', we see on-screen evidence of an operational, one-way cloaking device.

I remembered reading about double-blind cloaks on the main site, but I haven't seen any TCW, so chalk another one up to my ignorance of newer EU sources it seems.

How are replicators not energy-to-matter technology?

They require stock.

Replicators can run indefinitely. Or at least long enough to make the self-replicating minefield from DS9 all but inexhaustible.

Aside from the fact that this doesn't answer shit, and also doesn't address Connor's objections, it's also patently daft. If it was long enough to make the DS9 minefield inexhaustible, then how is it that blowing up enough mines could neutralize (or at least negate the effectiveness significantly) the minefield?

It should be noted that protorps being able to penetrate ray shields doesn't necessarily mean they'd penetrate Trek shields.

I don't think any sensible members of this board would make that mistake. But then again, Einstein himself considered human stupidity to be infinite, so it's probably a good idea just for caution.

The thing that annoys me about this particular item though is the "lost tech" claim. It's not exactly a well known episode* (I only know it because I've been rewatching DS9 over the last several months, and made of note of it when I saw it) but it does exist.

Yeah, I probably should have done my research on that, or at the very least checked Memory Alpha on it. In any case, as I said earlier in this post, I'm retracting that particular claim.

The Federation, of the present era, DOES NOT HAVE TIME TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY. They know of a method to do it, and again IIRC that was an unkown side-effect of their propulsion technology.

How very interesting. Definitely going to weaken Disco Soup's case.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's a fallacy I see from time to time:

Known method != Technology.

If we include everything ST, then in ENT we see that int he 31st century, the Federation do indeed have "time portals" and so forth. And that (interestingly) it is possible-ish to build with WW2 level technology, if you have the right know-how.

There is an episode where Daniels shows Archer a "temporal observatory" and pints out an observation team at the building othe Great Pyramid at Giza, built around 2560 BC. This is I thinkt he longest "range" we see of Trek time travel, giving them a known upper limit of 5500 years. Which is nothing to sneeze at, but utterly falls short of TARDIS level abilities, which is what I was taking issue with.

Disco Soup's only saving grace here is that he did at least say that such time portals were off-limits as they are from the future.

[Rommel123]

I'm curious about this. It seems that yes, the ships of the Empire are faster than those of the Federation, but from what we've seen on-screen, that seems to be the only edge that the Empire has.

The thing that stands out most in this statement is that you're cherry-picking the canon of SW. Which happens to include a number of techbooks that describe SW firepower as being many orders of magnitude greater than anything ever described for ST.

If I'm not wrong, G-canon overrides everything else, which would make techbooks invalid if contradicted by it. I watched movies and I never saw some big displays of firepower. As for Star Trek firepower, it is all over the place, except maybe in movies, so I don't know what to think about it either...

[Agent Sorchus]

Rommel, you don't need big displays the way that SW canon works. It is only when it is explicitly contradicted rather than implicitly not visible that G-canon overrides the other levels. ie: since we don't see any Grand Admirals in the movies, there cannot be any Grand Admirals in any Canon. Same argument and still fully fallacious. Just because something isn't seen in the movies doesn't mean it isn't there in canon. In fact the single greatest gesture of firepower is seen in the movies, or are you forgetting the Death star?

[Metahive]

I watched movies and I never saw some big displays of firepower.

ETA:

Damn, too late.

[Connor MacLeod]

You could. It's all completely absurd.

The most sense for the star thing is that the fuel was already there, but the reaction was poisoned or something. The genesis effect completely magically transformed the blocker stuff thus allowing the natural reaction to resume.

That makes me think of the star as a clogged drain, and the Enterprise dropping cannisters of Drain-o into the sun. I havent' watched the episode in ages. Was it directly stated to be related to "Genesis" technology?

While magically transforming the blocking stuff has some ridiculous power calcs too, it's almost workable and is fairly consistent with how the device is said to operate.

Regardless, I wouldn't place a number on it. Then again, I wouldn't place a number on most things. It'd hurt my ass too much to pull such big shit out of it.

How ridiculous? I really don't care about how big the number is or not, but rathre how easily it is to reconcile with existing stuff. Considering all the myriad ways of time travel, blowing up planets/stars, rendering them uninhabitable, or other "dooms of the week" they've come up with, its probably no worse than what already has to be dealt with.

The thing that annoys me about this particular item though is the "lost tech" claim. It's not exactly a well known episode* (I only know it because I've been rewatching DS9 over the last several months, and made of note of it when I saw it) but it does exist.

"lost tech" is an argument leftover from those "GREAT OLD" days of vs debate. Much of the arguments of one side or another were spent in trying to deny or toss out specific quotes, capabilities or whatever, and for whatever reason. Trekkies tried to dismiss stuff like Base Delta Zero, or the Death STar, Warsies tried to throw out all those random superewapons and super-technologies by declaring them lost tech.

It pretty much went along the questionable "leap in logic" type claims of capability. you know "TREK WOULD USE TIME TRAVEL TO DEFEAT THE EMPIRE" or "BUILD A MASSIVE ARMY OF DROID WARSHIPS AND TROOPS AND CHOKE THE SW GALAXY WITH THEIR DEBRIS."

(That wasn't true of EVERYONE involved, mind. Not everyone was mindlessly fanatical about it, some just were casual debators or were just limited in knowledge. And others just got tired of the fanboyism on both sides and played by those rules. In any event it tended to fuck things up royally.)

Most Treknology is fairly similar - the Star Trek writers didn't do huge arcs, but they did reference previous episodes somewhat regularly. Over 600 hours of material, they'd probably hit most things at least twice out of pure coincidence!

I don't object to the idea that the suppsoed "lost tech" isn't lost, since its fairly silly to assume they just "forgot" it. I would assume it most likely was not reliable or easily replicable in the way we SAW it use, so the more (how shall we say) "commerical" version would probably be less powerful, but also easier to use, more reliable, and more easily produced. Star Wars EU had something like that called Quantum-Crystalline armor. The prototype was insanely durable (stood up to captial ship weapons fire) but the "commercial" versions, while still tremendously powerufl, were much less durable. But at the same time, it was cheap enough for civilians to have access to. (not to mention you dont typically want civvies to have military tech eaisly available, just in case your Space Terrorists get ahold of it.)

I *do* object, however, to the idea that potentially dangerous (to the universe itself, nevermind other universes) super tech like that is easily and effortlessly mass produced and weaponzied on a large scale, both because it ignores considerations like logistics and because it breaks my own suspension of disbelief, (I have a hard time believing SW has multi gigaton/TT weapons and powerlevels just casually available to the civilian populace - how hard do you think I find it to believe that random people can mess around with time travel or planet/star destroying weaponry?)