Who would win Star Wars or Warhammer40k

[internaty]

That's my point - if it's not fair, it's not Plot Armor. At best, it's the Plot Mobile and only The Hero and/or his Five Man Band get the keys. Fueled by Plot, and only gives protection when you're behind the wheel.

 

What's that, Shaggy? You want to drive? Back of the van, hippy.

 

Banking your only chance for survival on plot armor is a poor way to actually have an objective discussion. :/

 

yah while it is not like anyone else is defend sw on a sw forum:P

[Foxfirega]

yah while it is not like anyone else is defend sw on a sw forum:P

 

I dunno, the consensus seems to be that even though people like the SW universe, 40k is going to stomp it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Star Wars to death. I also love 40k to death. I can be fair and honest without going off the deep end and white knighting it up.

[internaty]

I dunno, the consensus seems to be that even though people like the SW universe, 40k is going to stomp it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Star Wars to death. I also love 40k to death. I can be fair and honest without going off the deep end and white knighting it up.

 

yes but without me trying to make sw able to fight back there wouldnt be a disucssion and that would be so dull...

 

I mean i am 100% sure that even if a single sw trooper was worth a 100 space marines(witch they arent) they still lose by numbers alone.

[Bele]

Well as warhammer 40k is unlikely to build giant weapons with extremely convenient flaws, I think warhammer would win.

 

You mean like big holes that are perfect for proton torpedos or a ship that can fly in to the core and blast it to oblivion?

 

I wish i could say Star wars, but my bet is on 40k. Story is better in Star Wars, but when it comes to war i have to side with W40k

[LoneRebel]

My two cents.

 

I do not know why the majority seem to believe that SW would lose to Warhammer. With respect, I believe that some of you are exaggerating the Warhammer universe's capabilities, and underestimating those of the SW universe.

 

First, ship size. Some posts seem to claim that Warhammer ships are much larger than SW ships. I see no evidence for this. The Imperial Navy article on the Warhammer wikia (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy) says that average ship lengths in the Imperial Navy are as follows: 750m to 3km for escorts, 5 to 6km for cruisers, and 6 to 8 km for battleships. The same article says that one source gives an upper limit of 30 km for Imperium escorts, but this is likely a gross exaggeration.

 

In the SW universe, Imperial-class Star Destroyers are 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long. Venator-class Star Destroyers are 1,137 meters long. Three thousand years before those ships existed, Inexpugnable-class command ships are three kilometers in diameter, while Centurion-class Battlecruisers are 1,200 meters long. And of course, Super Star Destroyers by the time of the Galactic Empire reached lengths of up to 19 kilometers.

 

So it seems that Imperium ships may be larger on average, but certainly not much larger.

 

Let's not forget that the first Death Star was 160km in diameter, while the second was greater than 900km in diameter. What does this say about the construction capabilities of the SW universe? I am not aware of any artificial construct this large in the Warhammer universe.

 

Second, armament and armor on those ships. Foxfirega gave some statistics on the range of Warhammer ships' weaponry being greater than that of SW ships, and also for Warhammer ships being more heavily armored. I cannot find these statistics anywhere, so I cannot comment. One thing I did find is that the Venator-class can hit targets ten light minutes away. That's 18 million kilometers.

 

Regarding power output, I read somewhere that by the Clone Wars, the power output of the hypermatter reactor on an average capital ship in Star Wars was roughly equal to the power output of a medium-sized star. The Venator-class's reactor annihilated 40,000 tons of hypermatter every second, generating 3.6 yottawatts of power every second. This is about equal to the peak power output of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device ever detonated. Every second.

 

Third, resources and population. Many people seem to think that Warhammer has an advantage over SW here. Why? The galaxies in both universes are the same - large spiral galaxies. In Warhammer the galaxy is our own Milky Way, while in SW it's a galaxy far, far away which is nevertheless quite similar in terms of size to the Milky Way.

 

I put the diameter of both galaxies at around 100,000 light years. Frequency of stars and planets is probably the same for both galaxies. Both galaxies have companion galaxies (Magellanic Clouds for the Milky Way, Companions Aurek onwards for the Galaxy Far, Far Away, etc.) Let's also assume that the answer to the Drake Equation (i.e. the probability of sentient life evolving in any given system) is the same for both galaxies.

 

Now, given this, why exactly would Warhammer have any advantage in manpower or resources over Star Wars? Both galaxies are about the same size and must have around the same population and resources. SW even has more sentient species (although it's possible that the Imperium just wiped out most sentient species in the Warhammer universe).

 

When it comes to the principal power in both galaxies (Galactic Empire/Republic for SW, Imperium of Man for Warhammer), looking at galactic maps shows that both powers are about the same size. Around half the galaxy more or less. Why again, exactly, would the Imperium have magnitudes more manpower and resources than the Star Wars universe? Both galaxies are around the same size!

 

To further illustrate this point, it is said that the Yuuzhan Vong War resulted in 365 trillion sentient casualties. Trillion. Ten years after that devastating war, life was pretty much back to normal for most of the galaxy. This shows that the SW universe can, and has, endured casualties of that magnitude and recovered. It also shows that population wise, Star Wars is not at a disadvantage to Warhammer.

 

I could go on, but I'll stop with those three points for now. This post is getting rather long.

Edited February 2, 2012 by LoneRebel

[firequill]

I'm going to dodge the whole issue and just space out for a bit..

 

Imagine if you will, a movie with..

 

Ewoks...

 

Being blasted apart by...

 

Noise marines...

 

 

 

Now imagine slaanesh breaking in to the SW universe and discovering the pious and repressed jedi order.....

Obi-wan would be making crazy perverted monkey-love to everything with a pulse so quick it would make your head spin. (and some things with no pulse as well)

In a skin-tight spandex suit..

Insisting that anakin should refer to him as "captain chaos" from now on.

 

 

Best. movie. ever.

 

 

"And there was much rejoicing"

[Foxfirega]

My two cents.

 

I do not know why the majority seem to believe that SW would lose to Warhammer. With respect, I believe that some of you are exaggerating the Warhammer universe's capabilities, and underestimating those of the SW universe.

 

First, ship size. Some posts seem to claim that Warhammer ships are much larger than SW ships. I see no evidence for this. The Imperial Navy article on the Warhammer wikia (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy) says that average ship lengths in the Imperial Navy are as follows: 750m to 3km for escorts, 5 to 6km for cruisers, and 6 to 8 km for battleships. The same article says that one source gives an upper limit of 30 km for Imperium escorts, but this is likely a gross exaggeration.

 

In the SW universe, Imperial-class Star Destroyers are 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long. Venator-class Star Destroyers are 1,137 meters long. Three thousand years before those ships existed, Inexpugnable-class command ships are three kilometers in diameter, while Centurion-class Battlecruisers are 1,200 meters long. And of course, Super Star Destroyers by the time of the Galactic Empire reached lengths of up to 19 kilometers.

 

So it seems that Imperium ships may be larger on average, but certainly not much larger.

 

A fact I haven't disputed, personally, because I mostly agree. However, it's worth noting that the number of Super Star Destroyers produced was extremely low, and the number of Imperial Battleships in the 7-9km range was substantially greater. Nevermind things like the Arks Mechanicus or Battle Barges which are never given explicit dimensions (that I can find - I'd love the information on that if you can track it down).

 

Let's not forget that the first Death Star was 160km in diameter, while the second was greater than 900km in diameter. What does this say about the construction capabilities of the SW universe?

 

That they spent far too much, and even went on to state that fact, on something that was unrealistic. It's also worth noting that the Executor took the same amount of resources to build as the first Death Star did itself. Where is the efficiency with this?

 

I'll get to the Imperium bit a little further down where it's more relevant. I'm also going to start snipping (and I sincerely apologize for that - if I don't, this post is going to be ridiculously huge! If I cut anything important out, my bad).

 

Second, armament and armor on those ships.

 

I'm going to have to ask for a verifable source for this, as it's never shown anywhere (games, comic books, movies) in any visual capacity to suggest the range is anywhere approaching that.

 

Writer embellishment - if I'm not going to allow it for 40k (I have not seen an Imperial Battleship statistic to suggest that it was even remotely standard to make a 20km long ship, or to suggest that their 'effective' range was anything greater then ~60,000km in hard fact outside of novels. Even the Black Library will tell you anything written in a rulebook [in this case, Battlefleet Gothic] trumps novels).

 

As for the armament/armor - Imperium Battleships are designed to go into broadside slugfests with other battleships and survive, for extended periods of time. This is up to and including Lance weaponary (that is stated to almost flat out ignore ship armor through incineration, and in the case of Apocalypse-class Battleships is onboard for no other purpose then to break Void Shields - the real workhorse of that particular class of vessel being a giant railgun that fires an implosion-charge at near light-speed) and other batteries of more conventional weapons. For extended periods (noting that the Apocalypse-class is a dedicated capital-ship killer and also the second-heaviest armed of the four Imperium battleship classes. I'm pretty sure the Retribution beats it).

 

Lance weaponary is standard issue on a great deal of attack craft. There's also far more use of capital-ship size torpedoes (the first ever frigate-class vessel to ever do so in Star Wars didn't happen until the Rise of the Empire era), and other kinetic/ballistc weapons that necessitate better armor plating in order to resist.

 

And then there's Void Shields, which do one of a few things (it's never explicitly stated): Outright neutralize projectiles (not just deflect), transport things hitting it into the Warp, or some other effect. They are, however, directly channeling The Warp itself to displace attacks on the ships themselves. The only known way of breaching them is to overload the capacity and collapse the entire shield array itself.

 

Regarding power output,

 

Power generators are one thing. Weaponary output is another. We don't have hard information on the output of Imperium of Man ships (to my knowledge), mostly because it was a technical detail that not a lot of people seriously cared about. I'm going to have to say this factoid is somewhat hard to actually compare, period, due to lack of documentation. :U

 

Third, resources and population. Many people seem to think that Warhammer has an advantage over SW here. Why?

 

Now, given this, why exactly would Warhammer have any advantage in manpower or resources over Star Wars? Both galaxies are about the same size and must have around the same population and resources. SW even has more sentient species (although it's possible that the Imperium just wiped out most sentient species in the Warhammer universe).

 

Now see, this is a question I'd have loved in one of the other threads. Because I actually do have an answer for this one.

 

There's a vast gulf of difference between habitation in the Star Wars and the 40k universes. We're going to start with the simplistic one:

 

In Star Wars, there are planets that are just considered 'inhabitable' (Taris post-bombardment being one, Telos being another, Malachor V, etc.) due to a lack of long-term or even short-term terraforming capability. Planets tend to evolve 'naturally' and are generally expected to be self-sufficient in some fashion (ref: Telos) or they're abandoned and left to die.

 

In 40k, they have extensive terraforming technology that makes any planet habitable to some degree (Death Worlds are about as loose as we get with the term 'habitable', but even on these worlds, millions of humans live - Catachan is the poster child of this, with an entire ecosystem that is cunning, lethal, and out to get you, and it's a prime recruiting ground for entire legions of the Imperial Army). That's at the core of the Imperium philosophy - every planet is colonized, and shoved as full of people as they can be.

 

They also tend to dedicate entire planets to one task. Forge Worlds, for example, are planets devoted to doing NOTHING but creating items of some variety (most often for the Imperial Navy or Army, or the Space Marine chapters) with billions of beings devoted to doing nothing but that task or quickly shipped off to other planets. Hive Worlds devoted to entire cities. To give some concept of rough numbers, there are approximately (numbers vary) 32,380 Hive Worlds in the Imperium that have many billions of people on them (varying from 25 billion to 500 billion). If we assume the smallest number on record (25), that's an estimated 809,500 billion people (or 809.5 trillion) just on Hive Worlds, at a ballpark low figure. And they're devoted to doing nothing but housing people.

 

There are at least one million planets under the direct control of the Imperium, and possibly more as it's hard to estimate the exact number. And there are at least a few hundred billion beyond that (low estimate) of people living in space itself as well.

 

How dense is the galactic population in Star Wars?

 

EDIT: It looks like Coruscant itself has 1 trillion people on it at various times (depending on when the last time it got bombarded). Ichar IV is noted as being a reasonably standard Hive World and has a population of 500 billion by itself. It's never stated what the population of Terra is (or I'd have used that) or whether the population on either planet I have used for this metric are in any way exceptional.

 

Other 'major' hub citites that have suggested large populations are Nar Shadda (95 billion), Taris (6 billion pre-bombardment), and Lianna (6 billion) suggest that Ecumenopoli in Star Wars (cities that have their entire surface as city) don't compare at all well to Hive Worlds (who as indicated are at 25 billion people at their recorded lowest).

Edited February 2, 2012 by Foxfirega

[Foxfirega]

Yanno, I'm just going to make a new post for the logistics of this as the previous one was getting kind of unwieldy.

 

It's suggested that there are ~100 quadrillion life forms in the Star Wars galaxy without any indication on the sentience of those species and their direct affiliation, and only 1.75 million worlds were full 'member' worlds of the Galactic Empire itself. However, the standard population throughout the galaxy was approximately 1 to 10 million, with the majority of the galaxy being under 500 million people in habitation*.

 

This means that your average Star Wars planet has a population on par with an Imperial Death World. Your average 'feudal' world had ~10 to 500 million people, with a 'civilized' world being closer to 15 million to 10 billion. Even a 'feral' world with pre-space technology in the Imperium has a population greater then the average population (4.5 to 15 million) then the Star Wars universe.

 

Both avoid hard numbers on this, and I'm pretty sure that's by design. :U We can deduce, however, that worlds in the 40k universe are far more densely populated. 'Civilized' worlds make up the bulk of the Imperium of Man's planets.

 

*EDIT: Derp. That's per habited planet and per member world. My bad, that's a huge distinction to make. I need more coffee. Or a nap.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Foxfirega

[Yfelsung]

An Alpha Plus level psyker is, effectively, a god.

 

Few have existed, because they're dangerous and the Imperium often destroys psykers before they reach that level, but ONE Alpha Plus psyker could take on the Star Wars universe.

 

We're talking about a dude so powerful he could snap his fingers and crush an entire fleet of star ships with a thought.

 

That's not even bringing actual gods into the fight, something Star Wars is lacking.

 

What do they have that can go up against Gork and Mork?

 

We're talking two entities so powerful that the Chaos Gods run in terror when Gork and Mork fly through the warp.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Yfelsung

[KingKolKappi]

To be honest the tyranids alone can take out the SW universe I mean a death leaper lictor is far more scary than some killik

[Foxfirega]

To be honest the tyranids alone can take out the SW universe I mean a death leaper lictor is far more scary than some killik

 

We already have a textbook example - the Yuuzhan Vong.

 

They diplomacy'd out of destroying the galaxy. A Hive Fleet wouldn't. Mostly because there isn't a single entity in control of it (or, there is, but it's the Tyranid Hive Mind), and they generally aren't stopped until the entire Hive Fleet (or a greatly significant portion of it) is pounded into a thin paste. Behemoth, for example, laid siege to one of the fortresses of the Space Marines (the Ultramarines), and was only stopped when the entire Hive Fleet was sucked into a rift and the ground forces on Macragge were all summarily defeated (taking the Hive Fleet down to a man).

 

Orks would likely have the same general effect. Hitting hard, fast, brutal, and uncompromising. Except that there's generally a 'head' one can remove to stop the advance (but not really stop the WAAAAGH! in progress on captured planets. Good luck getting them off).

[LoneRebel]

Foxfirega, where did you find that info on the total number of member worlds in the Galactic Empire, as well as the average population of a inhabited world in Star Wars? That's very useful info that I've been searching for for a while.

 

I've read your post and you make some very important points. Yes, it's true that population density tends to be higher in Warhammer than in SW, so even with the same number of planets, the Imperium could support a larger population (to say nothing of Orks or Tyranids).

 

Ecumenopolis planets in Star Wars don't appear to be as common as Hive Worlds in Warhammer. We have Coruscant of course, which I've read has a permanent population of at least a trillion, and, when including tourists, offworlders on business trips, etc, more than three trillion.

 

Other ecumenopoleis in SW are Metellos (900 billion), Rendili (600 billion), Alsakan (1 trillion), Skako (around a trillion?), Karideph (100 billion), Christophsis (35 billion), etc. My problem with SW here is that even planets that should have much larger populations are stated to have rather low populations.

 

Case in point: Taris. A planet with all landmasses completely urbanized and built over, and it had a pre-bombardment population of 6 billion? What the... This is a pet peeve for me because I feel that SW writers often don't give planets in Star Wars anywhere near the population they should have...

 

In response to your question about Terra's population, I checked the Warhammer wikia and it says Holy Terra, Warhammer's Coruscant analogue, has a population of around 100 trillion. Can that many people even fit on Earth?

 

It's commonly said that the Imperium of Man has a million inhabited worlds; you said that the Galactic Empire had 1.7 million member worlds, so it seems to actually exceed Warhammer in that respect...

 

With regard to industrial output: Just as SW ecumenopoleis are their equivalent to Warhammer Hive Worlds, SW's counterpart to Warhammer Forge Worlds are industrial/shipyard worlds such as Pammant, Fondor, Kuat, Corellia (partly), Humbarine, etc. I think we can't really compare the two for productivity because of a lack of data...

 

I'm going to have to ask for a verifable source for this, as it's never shown anywhere (games, comic books, movies) in any visual capacity to suggest the range is anywhere approaching that.

 

That figure for a Venator-class's weapon range came from the Wookieepedia article, found here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Venator-class. I believe it only refers to hitting a completely stationary target, or one moving at a constant speed. As I remember reading in "The Lost Fleet" sci-fi series (good series of novels), it's extremely easy to hit something at long range in space, because remember - projectiles lose very little energy in transit through space, and targets such as planets move in orbits which makes plotting a firing solution to hit them very easy even at vast distances.

 

However, it's worth noting that the number of Super Star Destroyers produced was extremely low, and the number of Imperial Battleships in the 7-9km range was substantially greater. Nevermind things like the Arks Mechanicus or Battle Barges which are never given explicit dimensions (that I can find - I'd love the information on that if you can track it down).

 

Do you have figures for fleet sizes in the Warhammer universe? That info would be quite helpful for this comparison.

 

Going back again to the Imperial Navy article on the Warhammer wiki, I found this. Imperial Battlefleets are usually assigned at the Sector level, with Battlefleet Armageddon being an exception. In Imperium classifications: Segmentum > Sector > Sub-sector > Star System. An exception is Battlefleet Armageddon, which assigned to the Armageddon Sub-sector, and it was made up of 4 Battleships, 27 Cruisers and 36 squadrons of Escorts.

 

That's the only info on Warhammer fleet sizes I could find, and it seems more or less comparable to SW fleet sizes. Large battles in SW have had hundreds or even thousands of ships participating. For example, in the Second Battle of Coruscant, which ended the Yuuzhan Vong War, the New Republic alone sustained five million dead, more than 300 capital ships destroyed, and more than eleven thousand starfighters lost. Vong casualties were even higher.

 

And, nope, I haven't been able to find any info on the dimensions of, say, Battle Barges. It'd be nice if you could find any. I'm also interested to know, what was the basis of your statement earlier in this thread that Imperial ships tend to be more heavily armored than SW ships? I haven't been able to find any info on that, or about weapon ranges on Imperial ships.

 

I have to say, it's nice to have such a spirited discussion on this topic; I'm enjoying it immensely.

 

EDIT: I accidentally typed Taris's population as "6 trillion." It's supposed to be "6 billion." Considering that our present-day Earth's population has just reached 7 billion by some accounts, this seems too low for a planet that is "one big city."

Edited February 2, 2012 by LoneRebel
Changed "trillion" to "billion"

[LoneRebel]

I'm going to dodge the whole issue and just space out for a bit..

 

Imagine if you will, a movie with..

 

Ewoks...

 

Being blasted apart by...

 

Noise marines...

 

 

 

Now imagine slaanesh breaking in to the SW universe and discovering the pious and repressed jedi order.....

Obi-wan would be making crazy perverted monkey-love to everything with a pulse so quick it would make your head spin. (and some things with no pulse as well)

In a skin-tight spandex suit..

Insisting that anakin should refer to him as "captain chaos" from now on.

 

 

Best. movie. ever.

 

 

"And there was much rejoicing"

 

All I can say is:

 

"...I have a bad feeling about this..."

[kiddeth]

JUst so long as the same formula that was use to make warhammer fantasy is not used in 40k Ill play both. WHF was fundamentally flawed from the start as it was based off the table top version of the game and not the PNP RPG version. in warhammer online all you are given is a setting in witch to fight with no real rhyme nor reason to do so, it would have been much better if they based the game off the RPG as it was steeped in story and lore and the reason you were fighting was made quite clear, Mythic really dropped the ball there.

[Foxfirega]

Foxfirega, where did you find that info on the total number of member worlds in the Galactic Empire, as well as the average population of a inhabited world in Star Wars? That's very useful info that I've been searching for for a while.

 

Third paragraph at top. So much text on that page, it's hard to really glean too much (or it is for me - I really should stop futzing around and get more coffee I suppose). It came up in one of my random net-fu shots while researching stuff for that post.

 

 

I've read your post and you make some very important points. Yes, it's true that population density tends to be higher in Warhammer than in SW, so even with the same number of planets, the Imperium could support a larger population (to say nothing of Orks or Tyranids).

 

Ecumenopolis planets in Star Wars don't appear to be as common as Hive Worlds in Warhammer. We have Coruscant of course, which I've read has a permanent population of at least a trillion, and, when including tourists, offworlders on business trips, etc, more than three trillion.

 

Other ecumenopoleis in SW are Metellos (900 billion), Rendili (600 billion), Alsakan (1 trillion), Skako (around a trillion?), Karideph (100 billion), Christophsis (35 billion), etc. My problem with SW here is that even planets that should have much larger populations are stated to have rather low populations.

 

Case in point: Taris. A planet with all landmasses completely urbanized and built over, and it had a pre-bombardment population of 6 trillion? What the... This is a pet peeve for me because I feel that SW writers often don't give planets in Star Wars anywhere near the population they should have...

 

I agree, honestly. I'm not really sure what speculation I could possibly come up with to explain it logically other then people generally low-balling the numbers out of habit (or likely based on projected Earth populations at the time, maybe? I imagine some of those numbers were astounding back in the day).

 

In response to your question about Terra's population, I checked the Warhammer wikia and it says Holy Terra, Warhammer's Coruscant analogue, has a population of around 100 trillion. Can that many people even fit on Earth?

 

Certainly. Though you may have to fit some of those in the Earth (subsurface dwellings), and some of the buildings would be Lovecraftian in scale (a lot of Hive Worlds are implied to have titanic buildings that reach up well into the cloud layer and beyond; Necromunda is the best example of this, as there are mountain ranges smaller then the 'main' city on Necromunda itself). Likely less squamous things, however...

 

It's commonly said that the Imperium of Man has a million inhabited worlds; you said that the Galactic Empire had 1.7 million member worlds, so it seems to actually exceed Warhammer in that respect...

 

I think it's kind of moot there, given how sparsely populated the Galactic Empire was and the caveat that the Imperium is made up entirely and completely of humans alone. I think some of the issue comes up with things like the Void Born as well (those born in space who've never even set foot on a planet before). That will tend to mess with the numbers on both ends of the scales, because not only do we have to account for military vessels, but civilians, merchants, pirates, nomads, etc. as well.

 

I'm starting to see why they don't bother giving exact numbers. I fear for the sanity of the Imperial Census Bureau (both of them) at this point.

 

With regard to industrial output: Just as SW ecumenopoleis are their equivalent to Warhammer Hive Worlds, SW's counterpart to Warhammer Forge Worlds are industrial/shipyard worlds such as Pammant, Fondor, Kuat, Corellia (partly), Humbarine, etc. I think we can't really compare the two for productivity because of a lack of data...

 

We can and can't. We've seen examples of the Orbital Arrays that Kuat Drive Yards uses, for example, and we've also seen the Forge World operations run in the Imperium. KDY tends to use only orbital arrays, whereas a Forge World producing ships uses the entire planet's surface in addition to any orbital stations that make sense. We also know that Agripinaa has a population of only 80,000,000 people (or thereabouts) and can still supply arms and armor to the entire Cadian Gate region (which is under heavy raiding and assault by the Chaos forces in the Eye of Terror). This implies that any of the Cadian regiments in existance (something close to 840+ infantry regiments, 210+ armored, and 10+ super-heavy tank regiments) are supplied almost entirely by this one planet for the majority of their equipment. That's staggering.

 

However, the lack of objective data does make it hard to make a serious comparison, though we can get an idea of the scales we're dealing with here (Fondor was the third largest shipyard in the galaxy, and had enough resources to create the Executor, though the project all but shut down the entire planet until it was finished. Still impressive!). We just have no data points to start connecting things together and seeing where that takes us. :/ Mostly because there's no hard data on how long it takes to build, say, an Imperial Battleship, or whether any one factory planet ever produced enough weaponary to keep a front-line series of regiments hitting the 8-15 million mark (roughly - it depends on the average size of the regiment and how often they recruited; Imperial Guard regiments go from a few hundred to tens of thousands of men in size) and over what time periods, etc.

 

 

 

That figure for a Venator-class's weapon range came from the Wookieepedia article, found here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Venator-class. I believe it only refers to hitting a completely stationary target, or one moving at a constant speed. As I remember reading in "The Lost Fleet" sci-fi series (good series of novels), it's extremely easy to hit something at long range in space, because remember - projectiles lose very little energy in transit through space, and targets such as planets move in orbits which makes plotting a firing solution to hit them very easy even at vast distances.

 

I'd count that far below 'effective' range, then. I do know that the Imperial II class Star Destroyer had a special series of 'long range' turbolasers, but they were an immense power drain to fire (while still being some of the longest range turbolasers in-universe). I'd still give the Nova Cannon the nod for range, though - a near lightspeed rail shot is going to cover some tremendous distance, and while not really effective for short-range engagements, it's going to go for a real long time (likely until it hits something and implodes).

 

 

 

Do you have figures for fleet sizes in the Warhammer universe? That info would be quite helpful for this comparison.

 

I wish. :/ I've been hunting concrete information for a while - it really depends on what the response is for, I think. As such, however, I have no data to discount the information you provided and will accept it as sound until such time as it is disproven. Snipped section ahead, apologies.

 

For example, in the Second Battle of Coruscant, which ended the Yuuzhan Vong War, the New Republic alone sustained five million dead, more than 300 capital ships destroyed, and more than eleven thousand starfighters lost. Vong casualties were even higher.

 

I think the biggest Fleet action I can think of off-hand outside of the Horus Heresy (which was so far beyond exceptional it's not even funny - the second the Imperium knew what Horus was doing, an action-call went out that basically said "If you're hearing this, drop whatever you're doing and get to Terra now" and as a result had a ridiculous amount of ships dropping into Sol system, nevermind the fleets and space stations already in place over Terra itself) is at the Battle of Macragge during the first Tyrannic War, and they were absurdly limited in how much information they had on actual fleet sizes. All we know for sure is that every Ultramarine Battle Barge was present, as were an unspecified number of heavy cruisers from the Ultramar Defense Force, a dozen other warships, and any other spaceworthy vessel they could rig out for combat (including a further unspecified number of merchant and privateer vessels). Which is a distinct lack of any solid information. :|

 

And, nope, I haven't been able to find any info on the dimensions of, say, Battle Barges. It'd be nice if you could find any. I'm also interested to know, what was the basis of your statement earlier in this thread that Imperial ships tend to be more heavily armored than SW ships? I haven't been able to find any info on that, or about weapon ranges on Imperial ships.

 

Mostly extrapolation based off of Imperium design philosophy and the kind of weaponary they had to face on a regular basis, and loose descriptions of hull design in a number of novels that tend to suggest that the Imperium focus on a two-fold defense system (technically three if we count anti-boarding action design): Void Shields and extremely thick armor plating. Again, not a lot of real solid information - however, we have a metric for 'scale' of this if we could get an idea of the displacement value or mass of a Star Destroyer. For example, an Imperial I Star Destroyer and a Sword Escort Frigate are the same approximate length; We know the Sword has a mass of ~6 megatonnes, and is specifically noted as having extra reinforcement. All pulled from Battlefleet Gothic's main rules.

 

In contrast, judging by the designs we see and how they react both on-camera and in narrative, it's heavily implied that Star Wars ships rely significantly on their deflector shields to absorb damage (in direct contrast to Imperium ships, where as indicated, their armor is a significant factor in most of their defense). I don't think I've actually come across anything that specifically mentions any naval armoring going on, or in any real significant fashion. Once the deflectors are down, it seems to go straight to hull/structural damage on further volleys and most ships fold quickly under such pressure, or immediate surrender. In 40k, collapsing the void shields on a target does nothing more then let you use more dedicated anti-armor weaponary with impunity.

 

There's also the aforementioned prevalence of kinetic/ballistic/plasmatic based torpedoes and the like that suggest that, due to how common these were, that most ships would be designed to take such punishment regularly (and they generally were). Also factoring in numerous space battle descriptions that have extended periods of broadsides and sustained punishment when void shields go down and the like, plus the kind of weaponary shown (incredibly high-focus plasma and laser based weaponary, fusion cannons, rail guns, missle tubes, gravity pulsars) both with and without void shields up, and the notation that Imperium ships are built to handle centuries or milennia of service in constant combat all suggest that they're capable of taking more punishment.

 

A lot of that could just be the materials that go into the construction. Most Imperium ships are made out of a mixture of adamantium (nearly impervious to most weapons), ceramite (a hyper-advanced ceramic that doesn't conduct heat and is therefore exceptionally useful against energy weapons - which is the majority of weaponary available in Star Wars), and plasteel bracings (another advanced material of unspecified nature) all tend to suggest a more 'solid' construction overall then the durasteel structures put up by Star Wars (not to knock durasteel - it was an incredibly tough material, but tended to be used in smaller amounts to make things lighter).

 

Mostly just theory based on relevant data. In the Imperium, when the shields go down, the fight just started in earnest. In Star Wars, once the shields go down it's almost always game over.

[LoneRebel]

Third paragraph at top. So much text on that page, it's hard to really glean too much (or it is for me - I really should stop futzing around and get more coffee I suppose). It came up in one of my random net-fu shots while researching stuff for that post.

 

Oh, that! I'd read that article some time ago, and forgot that it might be useful here. So the Drake Equation does have an answer, as far as the SW universe is the same. I can't find similar info for Warhammer's Milky Way, so I'll assume the percentages are about the same. I'll be snipping some parts up ahead, too, since I generally agree with what you've said.

 

I agree, honestly. I'm not really sure what speculation I could possibly come up with to explain it logically other then people generally low-balling the numbers out of habit (or likely based on projected Earth populations at the time, maybe? I imagine some of those numbers were astounding back in the day).

 

I made a mistake there - spelled billion as trillion by mistake. Taris certainly did not have a population of 6 trillion! It had a population of 6 billion, which is ridiculously low when you consider that it's an ecumenopolis, even if one that still had its oceans. That's more like present-day Earth's population. That's where the problem is - it's not like all of Taris's inhabitants had their own mansion or something, is it?

 

 

Certainly. Though you may have to fit some of those in the Earth (subsurface dwellings), and some of the buildings would be Lovecraftian in scale (a lot of Hive Worlds are implied to have titanic buildings that reach up well into the cloud layer and beyond; Necromunda is the best example of this, as there are mountain ranges smaller then the 'main' city on Necromunda itself). Likely less squamous things, however...

 

The entire description of Holy Terra in the Warhammer wiki is Lovecraftian. The entire planet is one big hive, with layer after layer of buildings built on top of each other, going down for miles and thousands of years into the past. Entire generations living and dying without ever seeing the sun. I read that there might even be entirely distinct civilizations in the lowest levels of "Hive Terra" which have no knowledge of the Imperium, or the Emperor. Wow.

 

 

I'd count that far below 'effective' range, then. I do know that the Imperial II class Star Destroyer had a special series of 'long range' turbolasers, but they were an immense power drain to fire (while still being some of the longest range turbolasers in-universe). I'd still give the Nova Cannon the nod for range, though - a near lightspeed rail shot is going to cover some tremendous distance, and while not really effective for short-range engagements, it's going to go for a real long time (likely until it hits something and implodes).

 

That's inertia in action. I'm not sure how quickly energy bolts lose power traveling through space, that would determine their range. Although as you said, maximum range of a weapon has very little to do with its effective range, or the range at which it can reliably hit enemies in a battle situation and do real damage.

 

Mostly extrapolation based off of Imperium design philosophy and the kind of weaponary they had to face on a regular basis, and loose descriptions of hull design in a number of novels that tend to suggest that the Imperium focus on a two-fold defense system (technically three if we count anti-boarding action design): Void Shields and extremely thick armor plating. Again, not a lot of real solid information - however, we have a metric for 'scale' of this if we could get an idea of the displacement value or mass of a Star Destroyer. For example, an Imperial I Star Destroyer and a Sword Escort Frigate are the same approximate length; We know the Sword has a mass of ~6 megatonnes, and is specifically noted as having extra reinforcement. All pulled from Battlefleet Gothic's main rules.

 

In contrast, judging by the designs we see and how they react both on-camera and in narrative, it's heavily implied that Star Wars ships rely significantly on their deflector shields to absorb damage (in direct contrast to Imperium ships, where as indicated, their armor is a significant factor in most of their defense). I don't think I've actually come across anything that specifically mentions any naval armoring going on, or in any real significant fashion. Once the deflectors are down, it seems to go straight to hull/structural damage on further volleys and most ships fold quickly under such pressure, or immediate surrender. In 40k, collapsing the void shields on a target does nothing more then let you use more dedicated anti-armor weaponary with impunity.

 

There's also the aforementioned prevalence of kinetic/ballistic/plasmatic based torpedoes and the like that suggest that, due to how common these were, that most ships would be designed to take such punishment regularly (and they generally were). Also factoring in numerous space battle descriptions that have extended periods of broadsides and sustained punishment when void shields go down and the like, plus the kind of weaponary shown (incredibly high-focus plasma and laser based weaponary, fusion cannons, rail guns, missle tubes, gravity pulsars) both with and without void shields up, and the notation that Imperium ships are built to handle centuries or milennia of service in constant combat all suggest that they're capable of taking more punishment.

 

A lot of that could just be the materials that go into the construction. Most Imperium ships are made out of a mixture of adamantium (nearly impervious to most weapons), ceramite (a hyper-advanced ceramic that doesn't conduct heat and is therefore exceptionally useful against energy weapons - which is the majority of weaponary available in Star Wars), and plasteel bracings (another advanced material of unspecified nature) all tend to suggest a more 'solid' construction overall then the durasteel structures put up by Star Wars (not to knock durasteel - it was an incredibly tough material, but tended to be used in smaller amounts to make things lighter).

 

Mostly circumstantial rather than numerical evidence, so to speak, but of course this is necessary due to the lack of information. Pretty solid analysis.

 

As far as armoring goes, SW ships don't have much info on that. When it comes to shielding, the SW universe has the SBD scale for measuring shielding, but it's not very useful since the values given that I can see have no basis for comparison (as in, no "1 SBD = how many watts" or so on...) It's like the "megalight" unit of speed measurement in Star Wars, which we can't use since we don't know exactly how fast a megalight is.

[Foxfirega]

Oh, that! I'd read that article some time ago, and forgot that it might be useful here. So the Drake Equation does have an answer, as far as the SW universe is the same. I can't find similar info for Warhammer's Milky Way, so I'll assume the percentages are about the same. I'll be snipping some parts up ahead, too, since I generally agree with what you've said.

 

S'all good - I realized just before checking the thread again that I forgot to link the estimated population distribution map on the same page. D: I should probably just go to bed soon at this rate... brain isn't firing on all cylinders.

 

 

I made a mistake there - spelled billion as trillion by mistake. Taris certainly did not have a population of 6 trillion! It had a population of 6 billion, which is ridiculously low when you consider that it's an ecumenopolis, even if one that still had its oceans. That's more like present-day Earth's population. That's where the problem is - it's not like all of Taris's inhabitants had their own mansion or something, is it?

 

Well, judging by KotOR1's intro to the planet, I would say that a lot of it was probably tied up in industries or some such. That, and it could very well be that it's not an Earth-sized planet and is just plain smaller. A size difference (and thus a difference in available space) would make a lot of impact on how much population it could sustain. Or it's just bad estimation - one of those. There's also things like support structures and the like that could be taking up a lot of space (waste management, power generation, climate control, etc.). SW had some terraforming available, but generally not to any real big scale (or at least none that was easily accessible).

 

 

 

 

The entire description of Holy Terra in the Warhammer wiki is Lovecraftian. The entire planet is one big hive, with layer after layer of buildings built on top of each other, going down for miles and thousands of years into the past. Entire generations living and dying without ever seeing the sun. I read that there might even be entirely distinct civilizations in the lowest levels of "Hive Terra" which have no knowledge of the Imperium, or the Emperor. Wow.

 

I almost think those parts are intentional by some of the writers... and it works very well, if you ask me. It's about what one can expect when population grows to a certain size. I imagine if we ever hit that point on Earth, we'll end up like the Fifth Element version at some point along the line (miles and miles of towers and blocks going into the sky). I'd rather avoid ending up like Holy Terra, though... lots of scarier implications there.

 

 

 

 

That's inertia in action. I'm not sure how quickly energy bolts lose power traveling through space, that would determine their range. Although as you said, maximum range of a weapon has very little to do with its effective range, or the range at which it can reliably hit enemies in a battle situation and do real damage.

 

Indeed. That, and the real big reason is that if they fought at such ranges regularly, it would be both hard to do seriously in an abstract format (for 40k) and hard to see on-screen (for Star Wars) or in-panel (or what have you). Which is, I'm sure, the primary reason on both counts.

 

 

 

Mostly circumstantial rather than numerical evidence, so to speak, but of course this is necessary due to the lack of information. Pretty solid analysis.

 

Most of the data is built off abstraction and description. :/ Like a lot of stuff in 40k is, come to think of it. If I had actual real, solid data on anything to get further confirmation, I would be in a nerd-frenzy over running the numbers a bit more. Still, I imagine that would remove a bit of the mysticism at the same time.

 

As far as armoring goes, SW ships don't have much info on that. When it comes to shielding, the SW universe has the SBD scale for measuring shielding, but it's not very useful since the values given that I can see have no basis for comparison (as in, no "1 SBD = how many watts" or so on...) It's like the "megalight" unit of speed measurement in Star Wars, which we can't use since we don't know exactly how fast a megalight is.

 

I know under the starship entry on Wikipedia, it suggests that most ships don't have any real armoring at all, which makes a bit of sense when you stop and think about it. For the most part, there's almost entirely only energy based weaponary and deflector shield technology is so high that trying to rely on mass drivers or even kinetic missles (though they DO have them - the A-wing in particular was equipped with concussion missles off the top of my head) wasn't as sure of a shot. Relying on materials that dispersed heat in some fashion (durasteel) and shields that could do the same would be far more effective in that environment, allowing less material to be dedicated to the ships themselves (making them lighter and less expensive).

 

Conversely, the Imperium has to deal with a far wider range of weaponary, and the very likely event that it's Void Shields will go down in an actual fleet engagement. Because they have to worry about so many more threats, they have to include a mix of ship armor (and generally a lot of it, if they want to ensure that they can survive the combat with any assurance) and defense types in order to get by. It's a logic that we use today in most modern militaries - tanks, planes, and ships all get by with as much armor as they can and still provide their functions, while having a mix of armor for various types of assaults. Expense is also not an issue - they don't care how much it costs, so long as it gets the job it's designed for done effectively and can do that job for as long as possible. They save value in the end by not having to make as many (or just simply having that many more to throw at people should they need to). There are a number of ships (both individual and patterns of those ships) that have been around since the Horus Heresy. One of my bigger examples of broadside punishment even involved a pair of battleships (one Imperium and one Chaos) that were both present at the assault on Terra finally running into each other again (both knowing full well the reputation of the other and just how much punishment they were going to have to dish out - the fight ended when the Chaos battleship crippled the other's engines and broke off into the Warp, fully aware that it wasn't going to be able to take it out; The reverse was also true).

 

Both very logical setups, given the environments they're in, and the types of weaponary they have to deal with on a regular basis. However, this also gives the Imperium that much more of an advantage: They know they can take a beating from darn near anything and have a good chance of limping home.

 

Still, you don't design your ships to deal with things that it'll never see for the most part. That's inefficient, and more space you could be using on blackjack tables, bars, and high-class escorts. Or I suppose if the suits are watching, for stupid stuff like 'food' and 'cargo' and 'support craft'.

[Kekkles]

I love both Star Wars and Warhammer 40k (Even if I dislike GW after they fired me for no good reason... I MADE YOU GOOD MONEY GW! > )

 

Star Wars has little chance, however, simply because of sheer manpower in the 40k Universe.

 

There are millions of planets and trillions upon trillions of citizens in the Imperium of Man alone. Some of those trillions? Soldiers of the Imperial Guard. Millions of them? Princeps of the Titan Legions. Hundreds of Thousands (if not again, millions) of cruisers for space combat.

 

And that is just the Imperium of Man vs the ENTIRE STAR WARS UNIVERSE (And extrauniversal beings, like the Vong).

 

Key fundamental differences exist in mindset here.

 

One, every planet is an easily made sacrifice to the Imperium. You land on their world and they cant take it back? They will just make everything (including their own citizens) on it die. They don't care - you're replaceable. Your whole planet is replaceable.

 

We don't even have to INCLUDE Space Marines and the like in this discussion - the overwhelming numbers of everything else in the Imperium will do the job without 'em.

[Fyurii]

One, every planet is an easily made sacrifice to the Imperium. You land on their world and they cant take it back? They will just make everything (including their own citizens) on it die. They don't care - you're replaceable. Your whole planet is replaceable.

 

To be fair though, planets of extreme importance won't be victim to exterminatus. The only exception to this would be if an entire sector had fallen and efforts to retake it had failed, utterly.

[sevenex]

I think in the last thread I said something to the effect of, "define your terms." Making blanket statements about the entire sw universe vs the entire 40k universe, is boring. (plus star wars wouldn't stand a chance)

 

Since this is all for fun, however, we can have some fun with it. If you do Sidious vs your average space marine, then yea, he would absolutely fry them. If, however, you put Sidious up against Magnus or a Keeper, then he might be able to banish them, it would certainly be a fun fight to watch.

 

Or you can break it down to basics and have your run of the mill jedi knight vs a run of the mill tactical marine. Would be a good fight that would probably go to the marine, but some fun intangibles that the force provides would come into play.

 

Sith marauder vs Khorne berserker

 

Bounty hunter vs Howling banshee

 

These would be more fun to discuss/debate.

[billyboyjennings]

First, ship size. Some posts seem to claim that Warhammer ships are much larger than SW ships. I see no evidence for this. The Imperial Navy article on the Warhammer wikia (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy) says that average ship lengths in the Imperial Navy are as follows: 750m to 3km for escorts, 5 to 6km for cruisers, and 6 to 8 km for battleships. The same article says that one source gives an upper limit of 30 km for Imperium escorts, but this is likely a gross exaggeration.

 

Note: A Wiki is not canon source of information. That 40k wiki you're using is full of inaccuracies and fan fiction.

 

 

Imperium ship's size:

 

"The void-faring vessels of the Imperium are far more than simple vehicles. With the smallest more than a kilometre in length, a void-ship bears a striking resemblance to an Imperial hive in minature, with a population to match." - Rogue Trader Core Rulebook, Pg. 188

 

 

"Engines and reactors of a warship occupy a third of its mass; gun decks usually constitute three quarters of what remains. Even individual macroweapons are giant, house-sized affairs covered with gantries, cranes, power lines and pipes with a crew hundreds strong. Lance turrets are even bigger - the size of a city block with a crew numbering in the thousands." - Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus, Pg. 48

 

 

Basically, the Imperium's smallest frigates/escorts are around the size of the Empire's cruisers.

 

Comparison below created using canon numbers. Just to give a better idea of cruiser vs cruiser sizes:

 

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5787/scifiscalecomparison.jpg

 

The Imperium ships are definitively larger on average.

 

 

 

Regarding power output, I read somewhere that by the Clone Wars, the power output of the hypermatter reactor on an average capital ship in Star Wars was roughly equal to the power output of a medium-sized star. The Venator-class's reactor annihilated 40,000 tons of hypermatter every second, generating 3.6 yottawatts of power every second. This is about equal to the peak power output of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device ever detonated. Every second.

 

 

There aren't exact numbers for Imperium ships regarding power output, but there is evidence that they too have stellar level energy outputs.

 

"At the magos's command, the truly stellar levels of energy contained within the ship's cruiser plasma reactors were released into the warp engines, ripping a hole in the fabric of space and pushing the cruiser forward into the immaterium." - Excecution Hour, Pg. 18

 

 

"Outside the station the macro cannon and lances of the Aethon began to rotate. Plasma flushed into reactors and energy wells, the fury of suns snarling in its shackles." - Fateweaver, Pg. 100

 

 

"Plasma drives are used to move through star systems at sub-light speeds. They burn with the fierce energy of a star, converting their fuel into a super-heated gas plasma to create the immense thrust needed to propel these gargantuan craft through space." - White Dwarf Magazine #140

 

 

 

To further illustrate this point, it is said that the Yuuzhan Vong War resulted in 365 trillion sentient casualties. Trillion. Ten years after that devastating war, life was pretty much back to normal for most of the galaxy. This shows that the SW universe can, and has, endured casualties of that magnitude and recovered. It also shows that population wise, Star Wars is not at a disadvantage to Warhammer.

 

 

Which really isn't that impressive considering the Imperium has been fighting galaxy spanning wars on all fronts for thousands upon thousands of years without rest. It's not uncommon for the Imperium to lose dozens of sub-sectors and hundreds of planets to alien/Chaos invasions. A Sub-sector (typically contains 2-8 star systems) can have trillions of inhabitants.

 

 

"It was from the daunting heights of the Palace Euphorica that the Ecclesiarchy provided spiritual guidance for the billions of pious St. Ethalbergers below and for trillions more beyond the cardinal world and across the subsector." - Legion of the Damned, Pg. 225

 

 

 

Writer embellishment - if I'm not going to allow it for 40k (I have not seen an Imperial Battleship statistic to suggest that it was even remotely standard to make a 20km long ship, or to suggest that their 'effective' range was anything greater then ~60,000km in hard fact outside of novels. Even the Black Library will tell you anything written in a rulebook [in this case, Battlefleet Gothic] trumps novels).

 

 

Black Library is a division of Games Workshop. The novels are directly published by Games Workshop. Those numbers are canon.

Is a 20km ship standard? Probably not. But they do field them.

 

 

And then there's Void Shields, which do one of a few things (it's never explicitly stated): Outright neutralize projectiles (not just deflect), transport things hitting it into the Warp, or some other effect.

 

 

It has been stated. Void shields shunt attacks into the Warp.

 

 

"The eldar ships glimmered with holofields, appearing as shimmering ghosts to open fire before disappearing against the star-filled backdrop. Human void shields sputtered with blue and purple flares as they unleashed bursts of energy to shunt the attacks of the eldar into warp space." - Path of the Warrior, Pg. 346

 

 

 

To give some concept of rough numbers, there are approximately (numbers vary) 32,380 Hive Worlds in the Imperium that have many billions of people on them (varying from 25 billion to 500 billion). If we assume the smallest number on record (25), that's an estimated 809,500 billion people (or 809.5 trillion) just on Hive Worlds, at a ballpark low figure. And they're devoted to doing nothing but housing people.

 

 

"[Hive Worlds] Population: ≤ 500,000,000,000 ≥ 100,000,000,000" - 3rd Edition Rulebook, Page 114

 

 

"Approx. number of hive worlds in the Imperium: 3.238 × 10^4" - 5th Edition Rulebook, Pg. 115

 

 

A typical Hive world has a population between 100 to 500 billion people. There are approximately 32,380 Hive worlds in the Imperium.

100 billion x 32,380 would give it over 3 quadrillion (3,238,000,000,000,0000) people by counting only the populations of these Hive worlds.

There are 967,620+ planets left uncounted. The Imperium undoubtedly has many quadrillions of citizens.

 

 

 

It's commonly said that the Imperium of Man has a million inhabited worlds; you said that the Galactic Empire had 1.7 million member worlds, so it seems to actually exceed Warhammer in that respect...

 

 

The Imperium has at least a million worlds at any given time.

Millions of worlds are mentioned in some sources. The total number is unknown. The Imperium has been constantly gaining and losing planets due to war, natural (or unnatural aka Warp storms) disasters, etc for the past 10,000 years, so it just lost track after a while.

 

 

 

Do you have figures for fleet sizes in the Warhammer universe? That info would be quite helpful for this comparison.

 

 

Again, no official total exists.

We know that the Imperium's total ship count was in the hundreds of thousands at its very beginning, before it conquered most of the galaxy:

 

"When the time came to leave Terra, it was a great moment. Not even the triumph at Ullanor can compare with the moment of grief as an entire world wept to see the architect of Unification depart. The alliance of Terra and Mars was complete, and the Mechanicum had outdone itself, building fleets of ships to allow the Emperor to take to the stars and complete his Great Crusade of Unity. The skies over Terra were thick with starships, hundreds of thousands of them organised into more than seven thousand fleets, reserve groups and secondary, follow-on forces. It was an armada designed to conquer the galaxy and that was exactly what we set out to do.”

- A Thousand Sons, Pg. 383

 

Keep in mind that a single, isolated Imperium star system was capable of this.

 

 

Fast forward to modern 40k and there are millions of ships:

 

"Few can cross stars as readily as humanity, with its millions of ships scattered across the Imperium. The projected power of the Imperial Navy alone is sufficient to keep threats at bay light years away from the industrious citizenry. When the actual big guns are required, the Imperial Navy can pull together whole armadas of city-sized warships to pound the enemy into oblivion." - Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus, Pg. 44

 

 

In fact, the Imperium can lose "millions upon millons" of warp-capable starships and not collapse. The worst that happened was some sub-sectors fell apart.

 

“401.M34 THE HOWLING

Black Templar Space Marines end the Catelexis Heresy by executing the Cacodominus, an alien cyborg whose formidable psychic presence allowed it to control the populace of thirteen hundred planetary systems. Alas, the Cacodominus’ death scream echoes and amplifies through the Warp, burning out the minds of a billion astropaths and distorting the signal of the Astronomicon. Millions upon millions of ships are lost in the resulting upheaval and entire sub-sectors slide into barbarism without the dictats of the Adeptus Terra to guide them.” – 5th Edition Rulebook, Pg. 124

 

 

 

Individual Battlefleets can have thousands of warships.

 

Here, an Imperium fleet of 2,216 capital ships (with more on the way) arrives to aid a single system. Also, note that the Ork fleet consists of thousands of ships as well:

 

"Hololithic green triangles appeared above her cloud-masked surface. These were the orks’ ships at anchor in high orbit. There were still thousands of them. Deguerro directed Kantor’s attention to the orbital plane of the Rynnstar system’s outermost planet, Phraecos, a barren, moonless world with a surface of frozen methane. Just within the hololithic ring of the planet’s orbital path, a formation of glowing blue triangles flickered into existence, attendant streams of digital data spooling through the air beside them. 'Two thousand two hundred and sixteen warp-capable ships,' said Deguerro, 'and nothing smaller than a Dauntless-class light cruiser. There are several Space Marine battle-barges, but the main bulk of the fleet’s firepower is comprised of that aboard the Imperial Navy’s Emperor and Retribution class battleships. There are four each of these, a significant commitment from Segmentum Headquarters.' Kantor looked again at the swarm of triangles representing the orks fleet around Rynn’s World. He thought for a moment, then said, “This Imperial force is enough to break through and land troops, but it is not enough to eliminate the enemy fleet outright.”

“True,” said Deguerro. 'But we have been assured that further support is on the way.'" - Rynn's World, Pg. 198-199

 

 

A fleet consisting of 10,000 ships is sent to aid a Hive world under siege. This happens while several major offensives in other parts of the sector were underway:

 

"The hazy sky was full of metal and looked like it should fall. The awesome power of the Imperium was there for every Verghastite to see: ten thousand ships, some the size of cities, some bloated like ornate oceanic turtles, some slender and serrated like airborne cathedrals. Macaroth unleashed his might on the planet below: six million Guardsmen, half a million tanks, squads drawn from three chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, two Titan Legions. Troop dropships, bulk machine-lifters and shuttles dropped in a swarm on the Hass valley. For awhile, the sky did fall." - Necropolis, Pg. 309

Edited February 3, 2012 by billyboyjennings

[BrandonSM]

Its like the Movies.

 

 

First SW is winning then suddenly Revenge of Warhammer! And then they are in control for 20 years.

 

Then SW's writers who pull things out of thin air, create a Galaxy Ending Machine and then there is SW's New Hope.

 

But then Warhammer pulls out its Space Marine. Warhammer Strikes Back!

 

And then GL decides he has had enough and just buys Warhammer and its the Return of SW!

[Foxfirega]

Black Library is a division of Games Workshop. The novels are directly published by Games Workshop. Those numbers are canon.

 

Until a rulebook or sourcebook contradicts them, as that's Games Workshop policy with that information, from rulings to lore. Black Library will admit that fact straight up. It's like G-canon - anything goes until the home office tells you 'no' or one of their writers takes it upon themselves to state it clearly.

 

 

Is a 20km ship standard? Probably not. But they do field them.

 

I'm not disagreeing that they were fielded on occasion - I am arguing that it's not the standard fleet response, whereas the Super Star Destroyer class did become a standard (if rare) ship size and therefore one we can reasonably reference. It doesn't really hope to compare otherwise, though. Size isn't everything, after all (unless you're using a Space Hulk, in which case, raw bulk is one of the only things keeping that thing up in fights).

 

 

 

It has been stated. Void shields shunt attacks into the Warp.

 

 

"The eldar ships glimmered with holofields, appearing as shimmering ghosts to open fire before disappearing against the star-filled backdrop. Human void shields sputtered with blue and purple flares as they unleashed bursts of energy to shunt the attacks of the eldar into warp space." - Path of the Warrior, Pg. 346

 

And been stated differently in other sources as well, hence the ambiguity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"[Hive Worlds] Population: ≤ 500,000,000,000 ≥ 100,000,000,000" - 3rd Edition Rulebook, Page 114

 

 

"Approx. number of hive worlds in the Imperium: 3.238 × 10^4" - 5th Edition Rulebook, Pg. 115

 

 

A typical Hive world has a population between 100 to 500 billion people. There are approximately 32,380 Hive worlds in the Imperium.

100 billion x 32,380 would give it over 3 quadrillion (3,238,000,000,000,0000) people by counting only the populations of these Hive worlds.

There are 967,620+ planets left uncounted. The Imperium undoubtedly has many quadrillions of citizens.

 

Directly contradicted by both the Dark Heresy rulebook (Scintilla - population 25 billion) and the Blood Ravens material (Meridian - 32 billion). We can freely say they're not the standard, but they do exist as a non-unique precedent that there are smaller Hive worlds out there and therefore it's disingenuous to take the 'average' at face value.

 

Not sure why you posted the bolded bit - that's still 32,380 in scientific notation and AFAIK that was not a number that was disputed at all. :/ The approximation of numbers I posted (809 trillion) was also an example of the lowest possible Hive World approximate population if we assumed that they were all populated similarly to Scintilla. The fact it's a lowball estimate is of no surprise to me at all.

 

The other estimates of population size seem fair, however. That's at least, what... assuming an average population of ~5 billion people per planet (extreme lowball estimate) something like 4.8 quadrillion on the lowest end of the spectrum on just planetary surfaces alone? Not counting any population that are entirely void-faring in nature, and not accounting for the fact that many planets have populations well in excess of 5 billion by themselves.. I'd say the numbers could easily inflate to 10 to 50 times that. With higher being theoretically plausible.

 

 

Again, no official total exists.

Individual Battlefleets can have thousands of warships.<snip supporting info>

 

I don't think there was a doubt that the Imperium had millions of ships at it's beck and call, so while the supporting information of the Imperial Navy was interesting, I think it was a bit more information then was necessary when we're talking about individual fleet sizes. Everything after that was fine, though, but also worth mentioning that those were 'non-standard' battle response situations (and corroborates my statement that it probably depends on what kind of action is necessary). We don't know off-hand what an average fleet size would be, in a non-dedicated situation (which can often be important information in a 'first brush' scenario).

 

Still, it does give a great indication of the battle response the Imperium is likely to respond with, and that's some good, solid information.

 

(SIDENOTE: Sorry about all the snipping. D: Trying to save space here, and gosh we're some chatty cathies..)

[LoneRebel]

S'all good - I realized just before checking the thread again that I forgot to link the estimated population distribution map on the same page. D: I should probably just go to bed soon at this rate... brain isn't firing on all cylinders.

 

Well, we can't be at out best all the time.

 

 

Well, judging by KotOR1's intro to the planet, I would say that a lot of it was probably tied up in industries or some such. That, and it could very well be that it's not an Earth-sized planet and is just plain smaller. A size difference (and thus a difference in available space) would make a lot of impact on how much population it could sustain. Or it's just bad estimation - one of those. There's also things like support structures and the like that could be taking up a lot of space (waste management, power generation, climate control, etc.). SW had some terraforming available, but generally not to any real big scale (or at least none that was easily accessible).

 

The first explanation - that Taris was mostly industrial - would help explain it. Taris being smaller than Earth would also explain it, but the wiki says that Taris's diameter is 12,200km, only a little smaller than Earth's. A second possible explanation is that Taris is a "low-density ecumenopolis" (i.e. a green-friendly city with lots of parkland and such), but this hardly seems likely considering the description of Taris and its Undercity that we're given. I really think that the populations of Taris and other SW ecumenopoleis such as Lianna should be retconned upwards - or Taris made smaller.

 

Regarding terraforming technology in SW vis-a-vis Warhammer, terraforming has been done in SW on occasion. The Ithorians in particular are supposed to be masters at it. In Warhammer, it's said that Tallarn was a verdant world before the forces of Chaos virus-bombed it into a desert. It hasn't been terraformed back to its former glory yet. I wonder why?

 

I almost think those parts are intentional by some of the writers... and it works very well, if you ask me. It's about what one can expect when population grows to a certain size. I imagine if we ever hit that point on Earth, we'll end up like the Fifth Element version at some point along the line (miles and miles of towers and blocks going into the sky). I'd rather avoid ending up like Holy Terra, though... lots of scarier implications there.

 

There's something so wonderfully fascinating and riveting (in a very morbid and dystopian sort of way) about huge decaying cities spanning the entire surface of dead planets.

 

I know under the starship entry on Wikipedia, it suggests that most ships don't have any real armoring at all, which makes a bit of sense when you stop and think about it. For the most part, there's almost entirely only energy based weaponary and deflector shield technology is so high that trying to rely on mass drivers or even kinetic missles (though they DO have them - the A-wing in particular was equipped with concussion missles off the top of my head) wasn't as sure of a shot. Relying on materials that dispersed heat in some fashion (durasteel) and shields that could do the same would be far more effective in that environment, allowing less material to be dedicated to the ships themselves (making them lighter and less expensive).

 

Both very logical setups, given the environments they're in, and the types of weaponary they have to deal with on a regular basis. However, this also gives the Imperium that much more of an advantage: They know they can take a beating from darn near anything and have a good chance of limping home.

 

 

Although this is conjecture, it would be an important point if true. Energy weapons do make up the majority of weapons in Star Wars. Slugthrowers are virtually unheard of and rail weapons are rare, so the majority of solid projectile weapons are missiles or rockets.

 

 

Still, you don't design your ships to deal with things that it'll never see for the most part. That's inefficient, and more space you could be using on blackjack tables, bars, and high-class escorts. Or I suppose if the suits are watching, for stupid stuff like 'food' and 'cargo' and 'support craft'.

 

A very important point that armchair strategists often overlook. As the saying goes "amateurs think in terms of tactics; professionals think in terms of logistics."

 

To be fair though, planets of extreme importance won't be victim to exterminatus. The only exception to this would be if an entire sector had fallen and efforts to retake it had failed, utterly.

 

True. It's not as though ALL planets are completely expendable to the Imperium and they're virus-bombing planets left and right. They would normally try to take the planet with a ground offensive first. There are still only so many inhabitable planets in the Milky Way...

 

Note: A Wiki is not canon source of information. That 40k wiki you're using is full of inaccuracies and fan fiction.

 

It'll have to do, since I unfortunately don't have the resources to buy all the relevant books on 40K and SW. Besides, "official sources" such as books and video games often contradict each other, which poses another problem.

 

I approve of your post. Very detailed with sources. I'm going to snip most of it, since I am generally in agreement anyway.

 

A typical Hive world has a population between 100 to 500 billion people. There are approximately 32,380 Hive worlds in the Imperium.

100 billion x 32,380 would give it over 3 quadrillion (3,238,000,000,000,0000) people by counting only the populations of these Hive worlds.

There are 967,620+ planets left uncounted. The Imperium undoubtedly has many quadrillions of citizens.

 

The Administratum classification (which I can't find now for some reason) may say that Hive Worlds have between one and five hundred billion inhabitants, but many Hive Worlds have less, such as Scintilla and Malfi. I believe the proper classification for a Hive World should be between 10 billion upwards, since 10 billion is the upper limit of a Civilised World.

 

The Imperium's population definitely reaches several quadrillion from Hive Worlds alone. (including 100 trillion from Terra alone) On a whim, I calculated the population of the remaining 967,000 non-Hive World planets using an average of 1 billion for each (which I thought at first was reasonable) and arrived at a staggering 967 quadrillion.

 

Maybe this means the average non-Hive population of Imperium planets should be lower, say 100 million. Just the thought of the Imperium having a population of around 1 quintillion is giving me a nerdgasm.

 

In fact, the Imperium can lose "millions upon millons" of warp-capable starships and not collapse. The worst that happened was some sub-sectors fell apart.

 

I believe this figure of millions of warp-capable ships lost in the Howling includes not only military ships, but also civilian ships of all sorts, such as luxury liners, cargo freighters, explorers, Administratum ships used for collecting taxes or running censuses or what-have-you, etc. When civilian ships are included, the Imperium definitely has millions.

 

Individual Battlefleets can have thousands of warships.

 

That's a much bigger figure than the figure for Battlefleet Armageddon (only a Sub-sector Battlefleet, I know...) given in the wiki.

 

Regarding ship size, the Imperium no doubt has 20 or even 30km ships, but these are most likely not common by any means...

 

Or you can break it down to basics and have your run of the mill jedi knight vs a run of the mill tactical marine. Would be a good fight that would probably go to the marine, but some fun intangibles that the force provides would come into play.

 

Sith marauder vs Khorne berserker

 

Bounty hunter vs Howling banshee

 

These would be more fun to discuss/debate.

 

Guys, guys. I've found it. The showdown to end all showdowns and determine once and for all whether Warhammer 40K or Star Wars is superior. It is:

 

Who Would Win: Grox or Nerf?

 

Which is the more powerful herd animal? YOU DECIDE.

 

[Foxfirega]

So judging by that I'm not the only one that can't help giggling every time she sees a wild Nerf, then.

 

All good points - I may have had some math failures earlier. :U Trying to quickfire math before coffee and while running analysis on something entirely unrelated (ADD multi-tasking is weird some days) tends to do that. I'm gonna give deference on some of the hard numbers on that stuff.