SW vs ST: Cracked delivers the verdict

[Battlegrinder]

With the ridicuzillions of stars in the universe you'd think there would be enough to both trek to and war over, but no. Star Destroyer versus Enterprise has been the iconic nerd battle since we looked at the Enterprise's wonderful mission to find new life beyond the stars and asked, "Yeah, but how good are you at blowing shit up?"


The Star Destroyer redefined science-fiction cinema. Its first appearance taught us that far above the sky there is the awesomeness of space, and far above that there's an even cooler and larger spaceship.


The Enterprise is the image of advanced technology, humanity's best using its most advanced knowledge to learn even more. The Star Destroyer is the embodiment of irresistible bureaucracy: only an empire could afford to build something so insanely huge, and it's unstoppable despite being staffed with people so eminently replaceable that murdering the captain is how you add exclamation points to internal memos.

The resulting battle isn't just an action scene, it's an ideological debate. People have spent decades working out every possible angle of the conflict, from military tactics to technological interactions to raw energy outputs painstakingly extracted from freeze-frames of the source material.

Easy Answer: Enterprise

If your enemy has transporter technology and you don't, winning isn't one of your options. You get to choose between surrendering, exploding, or choking in space. Darth Vader can asphyxiate someone by raising his arm. Transporter Chief O'Brien can do the same thing by raising a few fingers and beaming them into space.


The Star Wars universe has never even heard of transporter technology, and so wouldn't have any defense against it. The Enterprise doesn't even need to beam photon torpedoes onto the Destroyer -- just remove any one of the million things the Destroyer needs to prevent itself from exploding and you're done. The movies established that Imperial technology is shorter-lived than Stormtrooper armor with a red undershirt.

Narratively, things are even worse for the Empire. The answer is in the "the" (and the italics reserved for proper craft names): the Enterprise is a named hero, while Star Destroyers are nameless minions. Not one in the movies has a title or a victory. Named hero versus minion only ever goes one way.

(Consolation prize: the Star Destroyer hasn't been in nearly as many terrible movies.)

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-classic-g ... z3OvkTAtvh

Wow. At least Gizmodo pretended to do some research beforehand.

[Batman]

I obviously imagined all the problems with beaming through shields or the range limits on transporters. Or them being interfered with by a fuckload of things.

[Elheru Aran]

It's Cracked. About 1 percent of their written articles are actually thought-provoking and well done. The rest range over a spectrum from 'mildly interesting but ultimately lame', to 'thoughtless and silly', winding up in 'what was the bloody point of that?' Their PhotoPlasties are better than the articles some days... when they're not being made by some bot. The only reason this deserves attention is that it reaches a lot of people, but frankly, I don't think anybody gives a shit nowadays. When the new Wars movies come out, then maybe they'll talk about it again, but I doubt a Cracked article is going to be considered a useful reference in the debate...

[Battlegrinder]

It's Cracked. About 1 percent of their written articles are actually thought-provoking and well done. The rest range over a spectrum from 'mildly interesting but ultimately lame', to 'thoughtless and silly', winding up in 'what was the bloody point of that?' Their PhotoPlasties are better than the articles some days... when they're not being made by some bot. The only reason this deserves attention is that it reaches a lot of people, but frankly, I don't think anybody gives a shit nowadays. When the new Wars movies come out, then maybe they'll talk about it again, but I doubt a Cracked article is going to be considered a useful reference in the debate...

Maybe. A lot of their recent interview style articles have been pretty good, and their usual articles show at least some level of research went into it. This one...not so much.

[Adam Reynolds]

I just posted the same thing in testing, having checked here earlier but took over an hour to actually click submit. I suppose I should have rechecked.

Anyway, has there ever actually been a case in Trek of anyone weaponizing transporters? Or using them in combat in any capacity? Especially against something like a completely unknown enemy vessel.

Roga Danar was even able to physically break out of a transporter beam, this doesn't speak well for its potential combat effectiveness.

[Battlegrinder]

Anyway, has there ever actually been a case in Trek of anyone weaponizing transporters? Or using them in combat in any capacity? Especially against something like a completely unknown enemy vessel.

Voyager beamed a torpedo onto a borg ship once. However, it rematerialized in the wrong spot, so its possible that weaponized transporter beams might have accuracy issues (perhaps due to interference trying to beam into the borg ship).

[Lord Revan]

Anyway, has there ever actually been a case in Trek of anyone weaponizing transporters? Or using them in combat in any capacity? Especially against something like a completely unknown enemy vessel.

Voyager beamed a torpedo onto a borg ship once. However, it rematerialized in the wrong spot, so its possible that weaponized transporter beams might have accuracy issues (perhaps due to interference trying to beam into the borg ship).

it was also probe that had it's shields down IIRC.

if we're talking about the same incident it went like this, Voyager encountered a borg probe after some banter Voyager fires 3 times at the borg ship taking out its shields after which they beam in a single photon torp which the borg try to disarm but before they can the torp goes of taking out the probe with presumebly all hands lost.

the thing is that borg probes are weak scout vessels (they're pretty much the weakest ships the borg use in any numbers) and even then Voyager needed to bring down the shields so there's another issue that probable makes offensive use of transporters unlikely.

[Lagmonster]

The fucked-up bit is that the narrative point would probably hold true if there were an official crossover; regardless of the established greater powers of its opponents, the Enterprise wins because it's supposed to, like 99% of all heroes in fantasy and sci-fi.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Anyway, has there ever actually been a case in Trek of anyone weaponizing transporters? Or using them in combat in any capacity? Especially against something like a completely unknown enemy vessel.

Voyager beamed a torpedo onto a borg ship once. However, it rematerialized in the wrong spot, so its possible that weaponized transporter beams might have accuracy issues (perhaps due to interference trying to beam into the borg ship).

it was also probe that had it's shields down IIRC.

if we're talking about the same incident it went like this, Voyager encountered a borg probe after some banter Voyager fires 3 times at the borg ship taking out its shields after which they beam in a single photon torp which the borg try to disarm but before they can the torp goes of taking out the probe with presumebly all hands lost.

the thing is that borg probes are weak scout vessels (they're pretty much the weakest ships the borg use in any numbers) and even then Voyager needed to bring down the shields so there's another issue that probable makes offensive use of transporters unlikely.

So there's no confusion, here's the incident in question: Dark Frontier.

[Baffalo]

Honestly I'm a bit surprised given Cracked's leanings towards Star Wars for a long time now. I mean, hell, they've essentially come out time and again in favor of the franchise over Trek, so why the sudden reversal I wonder?

Unless it's just Luke McKinney's personal opinion, in which case he should take that image of a scientist down. Credible research my ass.

[The Romulan Republic]

The fucked-up bit is that the narrative point would probably hold true if there were an official crossover; regardless of the established greater powers of its opponents, the Enterprise wins because it's supposed to, like 99% of all heroes in fantasy and sci-fi.

Honestly, that's as it should be. Star Trek and Star Wars at their best are both fairly idealistic stories.

[amigocabal]

According to Cracked, Star Wars is 100x Star Trek.