Since there’s an Enterprise-vs.-Star-Destroyer thread here going strong, I think it’s time to ask:
Who would win in a fight between:
An Earth Alliance Heavy Cruiser from Babylon 5, and
An Imperial-Class Star Destroyer from Star Wars?
Star Destroyer, no question.
Shields, technology, and size. The Cruiser is slag.
-andros-
Granted, I’m not as knowledgeable about Babylon 5 as I am about Star Wars or Star Trek, but from what I’ve seen on that show, capital ships get blasted from only a few shots. Then seem pretty fragile. Even if the ISD only rammed it at slow speed, it’d probably shatter while leaving the ISD with a dent in the nose.
-SPOOFE
True, capital ships on Babylon 5 tend to get torn apart by only a few hits – but these are always hits from really big weapons. When a Starfury (fighter) fires a bunch of its projectiles at a cruiser, the big ship only seems to get a few dents in it.
Plus, Earth Alliance cruisers have this really powerful laser cannon mounted on the front. It only seems to fire directly forward, but it’ll slice another capital ship in half.
A Vorlon world destroyer would be a fun match for the deathstar.
Babylon 5 Wars (the official Babylon 5 wargame) shows the following for an Earth Alliance Hyperion-Class Heavy Cruiser:
Crew: 256 (19 officers)
Length: 245 meters
Width: 70 meters
Height: 120 meters
(Note: The Babylon Project Earthforce Sourcebook lists it as having a crew complement of 250 and a “hull displacement” of 31,500 metric tons. Only the Great Maker knows what “hull displacement” means for a ship that doesn’t float on the water.)
Hangar capacity: 6 fighters + 2 shuttles
Heavy laser cannons: 2 forward, 2 aft
Plasma cannons: 2 forward
Pulse cannons: 1 forward, 1 left, 1 right
Standard particle beams: 3, all on a 360-degree turret
Interceptors: 2 forward, 2 aft
(Interceptors are point-defense weapons designed to deflect incoming shots or shoot down fighters. They also project an “energy web” around the ship reminiscent of deflector shields.)
All of these systems, and the structure of the ship itself, are armored. No details are given as to what Earth Alliance ship armor is made out of, but it’s reasonable to assume that they use materials and alloys not much more resilient than those available today.
Hyperion-class Heavy Cruisers also have “jump engines”, which can create a “jump point” near (but not directly atop) the ship. Jump points are interfaces between normal space and the Babylon 5 universe’s hyperspace – you must pass through a jump point to enter hyperspace, and you must pass through another jump point to leave it. Babylon 5 hyperspace is nothing whatsoever like the hyperspace in Star Wars, with the exception that both allow for faster-than-light travel. A quick “microjump”, like those a Star Destroyer can perform, is impossible for a ship from the Babylon 5 universe such as an Earth Alliance Hyperion-class Heavy Cruiser.
One thing I forgot to mention: Jump points have occasionally been used as weapons, with devastating consequences both to their intended victims and to the ships that created them. A jump point created in the core of a star can cause the star to explode, like a miniature Type II Supernova. A jump point created atop another jump point will also create an enormous explosion. A ship passing midway through a jump point when the jump point closes will generally be smashed to bits.
Jump points are also mono-directional: When one is formed, it either allows normal-space objects to enter hyperspace, or hyperspace objects to enter normal space, but not both.
I have to say the Earth Alliance destroyer. We have seen the destroyer fire it’s big forward guns and destroy large capital ships. I made a similar comment in the E Vs ISD thread. The fact is we have never seen the star destroyer do anything what would lead you to believe it has great firepower. I think you can only go by what is SEEN on the screen not what is written in the books.
BTW ever notice how similar the Earth Alliance destroyer looks to the Leonov from 2010.
Icerigger wrote:
I would agree, except there also seems to be a rather substantial size differential. Earthforce Cruisers and Destroyers are both aboout a quarter of a kilometer long and very narrow. Imperial Star Destroyers are listed as being 1600 kilometers long – that’s one mile long – and are considerably wider and thicker toward the stern. Even the EA Cruiser’s heavy laser cannons would have trouble slicing all the way through something that huge.
We also have to contend with the differences between Earthforce Starfury fighters and Imperial TIE fighters. The Star Destroyer carries 70+ TIE fighters, while the Earthforce Cruiser only carries 6 Starfuries. Then again, TIE fighters are extremely fragile – they blow up if you so much as look at them funny.
It’s the rotating center section. (Note that, according to the reference books I read last night, EA destroyers have a rotating section but EA cruisers do not.)
Come on guys, everyone knows the Federation would win.
Because if everything was completely desperate and the Empire was about to win, Giordi or some other engineer would simply cross-phase the warp trans-rectifier using a hyberian magnet, thus causing a warp flux ripple the continuum, creating an inverted plasma shift. This would destroy the entire empire.
Sorry, just having a laugh at comparing the ‘technology’ of two fictional agencies created by writers who make up gobbledegook on the fly because they were arts majors in college and don’t have a clue about physics.
What is this “Federation” of which you speak? Are you talking about the League of Non-Aligned Worlds? 
There’s one other advantage Starfuries have over TIE fighters:
TIE fighters are constrained to maneuvering like airplanes. It’s something about the nature of the ion drives they use in the Star Wars universe (that and Lucas’s fascination with World War II). Starfuries operate under no such constraint. They have been shown on several occasions flipping over and shooting backwards at enemy spacecraft. They do not have to “follow their nose” like TIE fighters do. In a close-in dogfight, this is a decisive advantage. If the Star Destroyer’s TIE fighters couldn’t shoot down all 6 of the Heavy Cruiser’s Starfuries before they closed to dogfight range, there would me much TIE fighter pilot blood spilt upon the stars.
Personally, I’d love to find that race that Sheridan’s girlfriend encountered in the first season when she went looking in places G’Kar told her not to (the ones he compared to us looking down at ants, and the ants having no clue what we could possibly be). Now there is some serious butt-kicking capability!
Esprix
Too late, Esprix, 'cause Ivanova already found them in that episode where she went with Lorien to search for the First Ones. They appeared as a Hawaiian Tiki God’s head, and answered her request for assistance in fighting the Shadows by saying, “Zog.”
Sam Stone, I would like to point out that you missed something. They’d acomplish this by modifying the deflector or sensor array. That’s how it’s always done.
Really? I didn’t realize that was the same race. I mean, I knew the ones Sinclair’s GF saw were most likely First Ones, but I didn’t know we actually saw that same race when Ivanova went out looking. Hmmm. Time to watch those two episodes back to back.
Esprix
danielnsmith wrote:
Nonsense. Hyperion-class Heavy Cruisers don’t even have deflectors (unless you count the interceptors’ energy-web system). And the sensor array on the front of an Earth Alliance ship is a very precisely-calibrated piece of equipment – if you modified it in the field, it would just become less accurate, assuming your modifications didn’t ruin it completely.
(Yes, daniel, I know you and Sam were actually talking about a certain Galaxy-class ship from a certain other show, but you guys have your own thread for that.)
Is the Earth Alliance now on par with the Minbari? Remember those “super destroyers” EA now has shadow technology. At the beginning of B5 Earth was over matched to Minbari forces, now are they more even?
Good question – but I didn’t want to bring any of the super-high-tech enhancements into the picture, such as the EA’s Shadow-enhanced ships or the Minbari/Vorlon-enhanced White Star fleet. I’m betting a White Star could make mincemeat out of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Ah, but don’t forget about the Excalibur (albeit a prototype) - Minbari/Shadow/Vorlon/Human technology. If all the Alliance members (or at least the Big 5) have access to this technology, then they’re all equal.
Esprix
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