Star Trek vs Star Wars (multiple scenarios)

[Nydus]

QUOTE=ProfessorWalsh;5030497]They couldn't use Transporters in TNG several times because of electrical storms on planets, once they couldn't use them because of solar flares, they can't use them through any shields, they can't use them to any place with a reactor breach, they can't use them through any electromagnetic interference. Basically they can't use them any time it would be inconvenient to the plot.

 

They can beam through shields in certain conditions; both through their shields and the shields of the destination ship. They can also beam onto damaged ships in the middle of combat. It was said transporters are "useless" in combat, I'm saying plainly that is not the case; transporters have played a role in combat in every iteration of the Star Trek universe. From the OS to the reboot movie. Far from "useless". I actually don't think they'd be a silver bullet in comabt with the SW universe (TP take a lot of power) but they aren't "useless".

 

That doesn't work as an explanation. We are talking about shots from close range, things that MANUALLY could be aimed to hit. A targeting computer shouldn't have a problem hitting any target any person with a mouse and keyboard could bullseye with ease.

 

I don't think you've made your case on this one. Firstly, they do resort to manual fire at times (even on screen) for this reason. Secondly, how close and large are the ships in the scenario you've outlined? Here are my examples:

 

Whenever two large star ships fight in close range they generally always hit each other (TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise, ST:2).

 

In the examples of two star ships fighting each other at long range (e.g. OS: Balance of Terror) combat seems fairly naval, delayed, and requiring constant re-calcuation.

 

In large scale fleet engagements (DS9) with dozens of ships darting around each other you see plenty of misses for the reasons outlined (you have entire fleets of star ships from different factions -- all with their own unique ECM and ECCM suites sending out a cluster**** of false information). I really don't think the average star ships are designed for this kind of combat. I can't help but notice that the larger ships tend to suffer in all these engagements, while the smaller runabouts and new smaller combat star ships (e.g. the Defiant) tend to excel.

 

I personally don't see an inconsistency with the above but maybe I'm missing an example.

 

- Arcada

[ProfessorWalsh]

I personally don't see an inconsistency with the above but maybe I'm missing an example.

 

- Arcada

 

Watch the clips I linked.

[liammozz]

Watch the clips I linked.

 

your right the super star destroyer laughed at the asteroids

 

but that doesn't mean captain picard wouldn't be falling out of his command chair laughing his head off when the super star destroyers lasers opened fire

[PaerisKiran]

They couldn't use Transporters in TNG several times because of electrical storms on planets, once they couldn't use them because of solar flares, they can't use them through any shields, they can't use them to any place with a reactor breach, they can't use them through any electromagnetic interference. Basically they can't use them any time it would be inconvenient to the plot.

 

Transporters CAN be used in such ocasions... it just makes a jelly out of anything that you try to transport in or out.

(and there generaly are safeguards against it)

Which somehow ruins it as warhead delivery system. (Unless you force enemy to adapt defences to something you know and can adjust- notably Voyager beaming photon torpedo on borg shuttle as it was remodulating it´s shield.) Miles O´Brian managed to beam onboard his former captains ship even with it´s shields beeing up. (but he intimately knew practivaly all componets of that ships shield generator)

 

Ona can beam enemy crew out of course but well somehow I imagine beeing killed by beeing slowly desintegrated by unfocused beam which is messed up by another field quite painfull and actualy tormenting beyond any level of taste... (I belive "transporter malfuctions" were briefly adressed in Enterprise and TOS, and Reg Barcley told about them, And Legate Damar used missalingnet field emitor to kill his vorta "supervisor" Weyoun (I do not know number of clone))

 

Beams can also be blocked by precisly calculated fields deliberatly even without risking such chaotic damage. But in the end it is battle of precise enegy field against another energy field. And those fields needs to be extremly precise not to actualy make it worse for beamed person. (or have to completly reflect "beam" which however does not happen often)

 

 

Essentialy same thing is in Stargate- Asgard beam CAN beam things in and out of Wraith Jamming- however if precise setting of the jamming is not known, you will end up (instead of assembled nuke) distributing a monoatomic dust of plutonium throughout enemy ship which actualy is waste of ordonance since it won´t kill enemy fast enough. (and vice versa you can´t put together person together properly if your beam is distorted by EM field).

However... if you, like Thor in Thor´s chariot, do not care about rematerialization of enemy forces you beam away they can be effectively "desintegrated and forgotten".

 

Star Trek beam can do same thing... (Tom Riker´s beam beeing "collapsed" would effectively wipe him from existence... what saved him was just reflection from ionosphere).

 

Beaming (even Star Trek version of it) is relatively easy to weaponize, even in harsh enviroments. However I think utilized as method of killing enemies on enemy shielded vessels they would consider it quite "inhumane". But do we bother with stupidities like "conventions of war"? (Since Empire did not recognize any conventions of war until Pelleaon-Gavrisom treaty)

Edited August 14, 2012 by PaerisKiran

[Astarica]

The most useful way to use a Transporter would be to teleport your enemy to their doom, like into middle of space or inside some kind of solid material. For whatever reason this tactic doesn't seem to actually get used probably because it'd look pretty stupid as the moment you lose whatever protects your from the transporters you'd have Kirk or Picard teleported to their doom and that'd be the end of the Star Trek.

 

So far as an assault mechanism it's not a particularly strong one especially against the Star Wars universe which is incredibly inept at preventing even vastly inferior foes from boarding you so they wouldn't be more surprised than usual. Yes you might teleport behind someone and shoot them but you could also teleport to a spot someone is behind you and shoot you. Maybe it can be used somewhat successfully against a group of defenders that are tunnel visioned, but trying to get behind these said defenders might mean you teleport someone into solid matter to begin with and that's no good either. Stuff like scanning doesn't matter because clearly within the Star Trek universe you can't just teleport someone with a bomb to blow up something important so there has to be some kind of uncertainty when you go in, or every ship combat in Star Trek should start and end with someone teleporting in with a bomb on the reactor core/bridge and killing everyone there instantly the moment transporters can be used.

[PaerisKiran]

The most useful way to use a Transporter would be to teleport your enemy to their doom, like into middle of space or inside some kind of solid material. For whatever reason this tactic doesn't seem to actually get used probably because it'd look pretty stupid as the moment you lose whatever protects your from the transporters you'd have Kirk or Picard teleported to their doom and that'd be the end of the Star Trek.

 

Most usefull and easy ways would be simply target coordinates enemy person ocupies and pres "dematerialize" button which would most likely disasembled person on atomic level (or more likely parts of him would start to disasseble while other parts would most likely resonate together).

In this instance you can simply fu.. care on need to assemble him back anywhere. So you do not really need to bother if jamming actualy messes up your beam a bit.

If it does not completly block it, preventing it to create even partial "beaming" effect, your target would enjoy a screamy painful death regardless of what setting is on the jamming or on your beaming device.

 

However... you can´t simply have children watching utilization of such weaponry. Imagine one hand beeing vaporized, part of your head being ignited as the beam distrupts water molecules to oxygen and hydrogend, part of your body beeing calcified as the beam would dump some good resonance frequncy, as you cells desintegrate, you arteries rupture, and blood boils...

A Sith Torture chamber could not provide such magnificient death for anyone.

Edited August 14, 2012 by PaerisKiran

[ProfessorWalsh]

The most useful way to use a Transporter would be to teleport your enemy to their doom, like into middle of space or inside some kind of solid material. For whatever reason this tactic doesn't seem to actually get used probably because it'd look pretty stupid as the moment you lose whatever protects your from the transporters you'd have Kirk or Picard teleported to their doom and that'd be the end of the Star Trek.

 

So far as an assault mechanism it's not a particularly strong one especially against the Star Wars universe which is incredibly inept at preventing even vastly inferior foes from boarding you so they wouldn't be more surprised than usual. Yes you might teleport behind someone and shoot them but you could also teleport to a spot someone is behind you and shoot you. Maybe it can be used somewhat successfully against a group of defenders that are tunnel visioned, but trying to get behind these said defenders might mean you teleport someone into solid matter to begin with and that's no good either. Stuff like scanning doesn't matter because clearly within the Star Trek universe you can't just teleport someone with a bomb to blow up something important so there has to be some kind of uncertainty when you go in, or every ship combat in Star Trek should start and end with someone teleporting in with a bomb on the reactor core/bridge and killing everyone there instantly the moment transporters can be used.

 

Actually you touched on one of the big Trek flaws there. Their writers are poor tacticians, in fact everyone in Star Trek are poor tacticians. We were shown, for example, that 400 Gigawatts of focused particle energy can completely disable a Galaxy Class Star Ship's shields. The next logical action would be, yes, to use a transporter to beam a bomb onto the enemy bridge (they can scan the ship's layout after all) or other sensitive area. That should be a common tactic yet it is rarely, if ever, used.

 

We also know that a Star Ship's warp nacelles are their achilles heel. Damaging these even slightly causes a catastrophic explosion of the entire ship. They would be one of the primary targets in war, yet in Trek we often see them ignored in lieu of other targets, such as the main body, that has the heaviest shielding and armor.

 

We also know that Trek ships have poor targeting or that their ability to negate targeting systems has far surpassed the capabilities of their targeting system, often missing ships that are barely moving, that are massive in size. Tactically speaking, once the targeting systems become that poor the ship should go to a manually targeted firing methodology as the primary use and only use the targeting systems as a backup.

 

Trek ships also have serious tactical weaknesses in their combat design which small, fast moving ships, could exploit. Case in point, the NCC 1701-D has it's primary phaser array located on the underside, and upper side, of the saucer section. It has a torpedo bay located on the mid point of the ship's "neck" and a secondary at the rear of the ship. The primary phaser array is omni-directional and allows very high coverage but has a serious flaw...

 

Any ships that get below the ship and use the main body of the ship to block a direct line of fire from the phaser array become virtually un-targetable by the ship. The Galaxy Class ship moves very slow due to its large size and thus smaller, faster, ships would have a field day tearing it apart from the underside virtually unmolested. These are things that tacticians could spot at a glance and yet nobody in Trek ever has... The explanation being that none of the other factions use small ships and the Federation considers fighters to be a non-threat.

 

One of the easiest ways to destroy a Star Trek vessel would be to fly onto it from a low attack vector, attach to the underside of a warp nacelle (which provides 100% cover from the phaser banks and torpedo launchers) and damage the nacelle which, as we have seen, causes catastrophic damage.

[Rayla_Felana]

Why do people insist on comparing the Federation to the Empire? why not compare OTHER races? and if anyone should face off with the GE is should be the Dominion or the Borg.

[ProfessorWalsh]

Why do people insist on comparing the Federation to the Empire? why not compare OTHER races? and if anyone should face off with the GE is should be the Dominion or the Borg.

 

It doesn't matter Rayla... Trek fans will always claim that their tech is so far advanced that anyone from Trek would beat anyone from Wars... Despite what official sources say. This is a pointless argument and always has been pointless.

[Astarica]

Most usefull and easy ways would be simply target coordinates enemy person ocupies and pres "dematerialize" button which would most likely disasembled person on atomic level (or more likely parts of him would start to disasseble while other parts would most likely resonate together).

In this instance you can simply fu.. care on need to assemble him back anywhere. So you do not really need to bother if jamming actualy messes up your beam a bit.

If it does not completly block it, preventing it to create even partial "beaming" effect, your target would enjoy a screamy painful death regardless of what setting is on the jamming or on your beaming device.

 

However... you can´t simply have children watching utilization of such weaponry. Imagine one hand beeing vaporized, part of your head being ignited as the beam distrupts water molecules to oxygen and hydrogend, part of your body beeing calcified as the beam would dump some good resonance frequncy, as you cells desintegrate, you arteries rupture, and blood boils...

A Sith Torture chamber could not provide such magnificient death for anyone.

 

Yeah, you'd just aim the transporter at where you're pretty sure there are people (i.e. the bridge), and whatever you happened to get is clearly a win for you and fire it enough time you're bound to have killed enough people to cause a problem. Since they don't do this in Star Trek either you've to limit Transporters as a convenient way to board a still mobile vessel, which is pretty useful but because shooting down an incoming boarding shuttle appears to be unheard of in Star Wars, it's not as big an advantage as it'd against a universe that actually makes an effort to stop boarding attempts. For example both Esseles and Black Talon basically have you onboard a civilian ship that boarded a captial ship effortlessly.

[liammozz]

Why do people insist on comparing the Federation to the Empire? why not compare OTHER races? and if anyone should face off with the GE is should be the Dominion or the Borg.

 

the borg would win they have superior fire power and numbers they would assimilate the entire SW universe within a month or two

[PaerisKiran]

Yeah, you'd just aim the transporter at where you're pretty sure there are people (i.e. the bridge), and whatever you happened to get is clearly a win for you and fire it enough time you're bound to have killed enough people to cause a problem. Since they don't do this in Star Trek either you've to limit Transporters as a convenient way to board a still mobile vessel, which is pretty useful but because shooting down an incoming boarding shuttle appears to be unheard of in Star Wars, it's not as big an advantage as it'd against a universe that actually makes an effort to stop boarding attempts. For example both Esseles and Black Talon basically have you onboard a civilian ship that boarded a captial ship effortlessly.

 

It was done "off screen" few times- When Kazon tried to build a replicator (which essentialy is just "dummer" transporter) or when Legate Damar used malfuctioned transporter "accident" which kiled his Vorta supervisor (I do not remember which incarnation of Weyun it was).

 

On Voyager they managed to beam Seska out of such "radiation poluted" enviroment... but that was risking turning her into jelly compared to sure death of radiation poisoning.

 

Generaly properly set up shield can reflect transporter beam away, and transporter inhibitor sends energy wave that counters the "dematerialization" process. Second can be "overpowered" mostly by "dumping more power" than inhibitor has... but you can not be sure what you beam away as it will interfere with your beam.

 

As I say it was done in star trek... but results are unpredictable and risky(if you want to send your people or tech into "jammed" area) or rather distatestefull (if you use it to kill someone in "jammed" area) therefore I somehow do not think federation would be rather fond of weaponizing it this way.

Plus there does come a question of transporter´s immediate capacity... this isn´t stargate where single X303 easily beams a skyscraper to orbit. (And Asgard mothership desintegrates tens of thousand Jaffa in 20 seconds)

Edited August 14, 2012 by PaerisKiran

[ProfessorWalsh]

the borg would win they have superior fire power and numbers they would assimilate the entire SW universe within a month or two

 

I wouldn't say that.

 

First of all... The Borg couldn't even beat the Federation in a "month or two" and the Star Wars Galaxy has many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more planets in it as well as people.

 

Second of all... We don't know how the Borg could handle trying to assimilate the species in Star Wars.

 

Third of all... Star Wars has a lot of solid state weaponry which Borg cannot adapt to.

 

Fourth of all... Star Wars has way better AI and robotics tech than Star Trek ever considered having. The Borg would have a hard time handling armies of droids that they can't really assimilate. Also robotics and cybernetic technologies in Star Wars are leaps and bounds beyond those in Star Trek. Star Trek, for example, cannot fix a severed spinal column... Shown in TNG when it happened to Worf... Star Wars can fix that in a matter of minutes. So one of the biggest problem the Borg might face is the fact that Wars has a lot more cybernetics/bionics knowledge than they do and may be able to come up with countermeasures for Borg Assimilation. Also, because Wars has far better AI we can also assume that they have far better programmers... This is dangerous to the Borg as the Borg are totally vulnerable to cyber-attack as shown in TNG.

[liammozz]

tushay i didnt think of that i was just going on the basis there ship to ship weapons are useless against a trek ship so 2 borg cubes over a planet teleporting millions of drones at once would have most planets screwed over

 

the only counter i could have would be if they managed to assimilate one droid programmer they have all the knowlage they need to adapt there own systems and if they found the rataka ruins on tat or belvista the would be come vastly more powerful in a very short amount of time

[Astarica]

A key difference is that Star Wars (especially Sith/Empire factions) depend more on people than technology despite having access to an equally impressive array of technobabble compared to any space faring civilizaiton. When Thrawn used his drill miners to try to steal the capital ships, it's not because he suddenly discovered a technology that nobody has ever thought of before that allows you to penetrate the bridge of a capital ship. The drill miners obviously have been around for a long time, and it seems reasonable to assume they could always drill through the hull of a capital ship with shields on (you'd assume even idle ships have shields turned on when an invasion is coming), but normally the 5 Stormtroopers you can slip through isn't going to be able to overpower whatever security that is stationed at the bridge let alone the rest of the ship, even for a faction like the New Republic that doesn't rely on using stuipd amount of manpower.

 

One can assume that the Star Wars universe must have a history of a random Jedi/Sith slip on board somehow and started killing everyone with ease, which is why Star Wars ship boarding defense is not concerned with stopping the boarding action (they always occur somehow) but having enough firepower to stop a Jedi/Sith, which is certainly much tougher than any reasonable assault team that can be put together by Star Trek. And since The Force easily trumps any technology, a defense that's meant to have a chance at stopping a Jedi/Sith certainly isn't going to be disadvantaged against merely technology.

[ProfessorWalsh]

tushay i didnt think of that i was just going on the basis there ship to ship weapons are useless against a trek ship so 2 borg cubes over a planet teleporting millions of drones at once would have most planets screwed over

 

Their ship to ship weapons aren't useless. You simply thought that Star Wars used lasers instead of blasters which are plasma based weaponry and are totally useful against enemy ships. Also again, they have solid state projectiles, missiles and mass drivers, which are 100% effective on Borg and the Borg cannot adapt to them.

 

Only really incorrect Trek fans think that Wars weapons couldn't take them down, they are easily on par with, if not better than, the Trek weapons.

[PaerisKiran]

I wouldn't say that.

 

First of all... The Borg couldn't even beat the Federation in a "month or two" and the Star Wars Galaxy has many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more planets in it as well as people.

 

Borg can´t beat Federation simply because they can not devote that much resources to actualy dooing it... there are Devor, Crenim, Hirogen... and 50 other races with technology level matching (in some cases outmatching) Federation in Delta Quadrant... and those managed to cope with Borg for centuries.

 

Sure Borg could send a fleet try to conquer it one by one (and they would probably suceed...) but other races would swipe through their undefended planets. Gamma quadrant there is Dominion, and Beta quadrant? Who knows...

 

If you actualy count all races and inhabbited planets I think Star Trek would actualy win with it´s galaxy.in term of biomass

Edited August 14, 2012 by PaerisKiran

[PaerisKiran]

Their ship to ship weapons aren't useless. You simply thought that Star Wars used lasers instead of blasters which are plasma based weaponry and are totally useful against enemy ships. Also again, they have solid state projectiles, missiles and mass drivers, which are 100% effective on Borg and the Borg cannot adapt to them.

 

They do have deflectors and gravitic torpedos and culling beams on their ships, not to mention inertial dampers, rest assured in ship terms they would adapt very quickly to projectile attack.

 

Adding an inertial damper onto a drone might be overkill to them though. But I think they would eventualy do it if casualties started to become unmanagable.

[liammozz]

Their ship to ship weapons aren't useless. You simply thought that Star Wars used lasers instead of blasters which are plasma based weaponry and are totally useful against enemy ships. Also again, they have solid state projectiles, missiles and mass drivers, which are 100% effective on Borg and the Borg cannot adapt to them.

 

Only really incorrect Trek fans think that Wars weapons couldn't take them down, they are easily on par with, if not better than, the Trek weapons.

 

can someone lend me a shoe horn to take my foot out my mouth please

 

i always thought they where lasers since that what they looked like

 

well then it all depends on if they can assimilate a droid programmer or rakata tec before its used against them because if they learn how to remote slice the droids, and use the new cybernetics they have assmulated they would become on par besides the solid state weapons that will always be there down side

[Astarica]

tushay i didnt think of that i was just going on the basis there ship to ship weapons are useless against a trek ship so 2 borg cubes over a planet teleporting millions of drones at once would have most planets screwed over

 

the only counter i could have would be if they managed to assimilate one droid programmer they have all the knowlage they need to adapt there own systems and if they found the rataka ruins on tat or belvista the would be come vastly more powerful in a very short amount of time

 

People have some serious disconnect at the size of the two universes. Wikipedia puts the losses in the war against Yuuzhan Vong as 365 trillion sentient beings in 25 years. Let's say a millino drones landed on Coruscant and each killed a thousand citizens before someone killed them with a vibroblade/electrostaff/training saber/other kinetic weapon, that'd be 1 billion deaths. It probably won't even make the headline on the news that day if it took place in the middle of the Yuuzhan Vong war since on average 40 billion sentinent beings died each day the war was going on.

[ProfessorWalsh]

They do have deflectors and gravitic torpedos and culling beams on their ships, not to mention inertial dampers, rest assured in ship terms they would adapt very quickly to projectile attack.

 

Adding an inertial damper onto a drone might be overkill to them though. But I think they would eventualy do it if casualties started to become unmanagable.

 

Yeah, but this is also assuming that Wars didn't adapt and we know that they can, as they did during the 'Vong invasion. Seriously, all it would take to wipe the entire Borg Collective out would be one HRD with a viral payload. HRD means Human Replica Droid, droids so advanced that they can trick scanners and even medical examinations (something Trek has never even seen) and were featured prominently in the Shadows of the Empire novel. Load one up with a computer virus, put it on a planet about to be hit by the Borg, let it get assimilated... BAM... Dead collective.

 

Also... Yes... The Borg adapt quickly... But we are talking weapons that could one shot a Borg Cube here. Things like Galaxy Guns.

[liammozz]

Yeah, but this is also assuming that Wars didn't adapt and we know that they can, as they did during the 'Vong invasion. Seriously, all it would take to wipe the entire Borg Collective out would be one HRD with a viral payload. HRD means Human Replica Droid, droids so advanced that they can trick scanners and even medical examinations (something Trek has never even seen) and were featured prominently in the Shadows of the Empire novel. Load one up with a computer virus, put it on a planet about to be hit by the Borg, let it get assimilated... BAM... Dead collective.

 

Also... Yes... The Borg adapt quickly... But we are talking weapons that could one shot a Borg Cube here. Things like Galaxy Guns.

 

yeah but your forgetting all they have to do is assmulate one person or one computer with that info and they have it

[PaerisKiran]

People have some serious disconnect at the size of the two universes. Wikipedia puts the losses in the war against Yuuzhan Vong as 365 trillion sentient beings in 25 years. Let's say a millino drones landed on Coruscant and each killed a thousand citizens before someone killed them with a vibroblade/electrostaff/training saber/other kinetic weapon, that'd be 1 billion deaths. It probably won't even make the headline on the news that day if it took place in the middle of the Yuuzhan Vong war since on average 40 billion sentinent beings died each day the war was going on.

 

First thing that is wrong- that war definitely did not last 25 years... (Or at least coruscant standard years which are supposed to be same as Earth... however since it´s star is blue, inhabitable zone should be roughly at distance of Mars from Sol... which should make it´s years twice as long as ours)

 

And it is actualy questionable what is "sentient" in SW terms. Some trees on Ithor (which biosphere was completly destroyed by YV bioweapon were considered sentient (definitely NOT sapient)).

given that there are more planets like Naboo and Tatooine than Coruscant or Correlia... I do not truly like that estimate either.

[ProfessorWalsh]

yeah but your forgetting all they have to do is assmulate one person or one computer with that info and they have it

 

Doesn't matter if they have it or not. They had the knowledge when TNG used the same tactic against them, and it worked fine. Having the knowledge of something doesn't stop you from being caught by it.

[PaerisKiran]

Yeah, but this is also assuming that Wars didn't adapt and we know that they can, as they did during the 'Vong invasion. Seriously, all it would take to wipe the entire Borg Collective out would be one HRD with a viral payload. HRD means Human Replica Droid, droids so advanced that they can trick scanners and even medical examinations (something Trek has never even seen) and were featured prominently in the Shadows of the Empire novel. Load one up with a computer virus, put it on a planet about to be hit by the Borg, let it get assimilated... BAM... Dead collective.

 

Also... Yes... The Borg adapt quickly... But we are talking weapons that could one shot a Borg Cube here. Things like Galaxy Guns.

 

Those computer viruses didn´t really work as intended... what Data designed effectively stoped at one ship- Borg severed connection when first drones started to malfunction.

The neuroleptic pathogen Icheb´s people designed worked marginaly better but Borg solved that too (eventhough Admiral Janeway did superb damage).

Most vessels weren´t infected- order was reestabilished when unimatrix 1 was wiped out with the pathogen.

 

And how many cubes you can oneshot before they realize... "just catch it with tractor beam" (which somehow noone even tried in Dark Empire on galaxy guns projectiles, or on Suncrusher´s torpedos)