Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer

In My Humble Opinion
41

Coupla things, the net result of which will probably do nothing more than reveal me for the lightweight I am:

  1. The Galactic Empire does not have transporter technology. Am I the only one who suspects that their shields might be transparent to a technology that their engineers don’t even appear to have anticipated? I concede that whatever is being beamed over by transporter is simply another form of energy, and thus should be stopped just as surely as an energy weapon, but in ROTJ, the shields didn’t prevent a relatively slow-moving out-of-control X-wing fighter from taking out the bridge deflectors(as was pointed out earlier), so I’m not betting the farm on the efficacy of ISD shields against a transporter beam.

  2. This isn’t mine, but I’m using it anyway. The Star Wars people can generate an energy weapon that can sunder the molecular bonds of any material, and what do they do with it? They make swords.

42

Well, as I’ve already said in a straight Enterprise v ISD battle I feel the ISD would win regardless of my inner feelings (which are cheering for Picard et al).

Interesting to pit the ISD against something like the Borg though. The first encounter could be quite brief - the ISD’s firepower annihalate the entire cube quickly and efficiently. But do the collective (other cubes) then adapt? If their communication is subspace then the ISD may struggle with the next borg attack.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

43

Ok, the turbolasers in the Star Wars universe fire blasts of laser light that is so incredibly amplified and condensed that it is effectively a solid.

I think the ISD, with that kind of weapons technology, could effectively pound the Enterprise into dust.

Now in my second month of exile in the 21 pit

44

Asmodean: Currently, Last Unicorn Games is putting out a rather extensive line of RPG products based on the Next Gen/DS9 series’.
FASA (the same company who does Battletech) produced a system in the early to mid 1980’s, written by Greg Coystikain.

45

Allright, to quote the OP:

So, please excuse me if I am not 100% accurate on all the sci-fi “facts” that there are.

Anyway, I think that the Star Destroyer would open a huge imerial can o’ whoop ass on the Enterprise. I may be wrong but the Star Destroyer is a warship, right? The Enterprise isn’t is it?
And they both have shields. They are not that different in size. They are both kind of big and bulky and slow to maneuver.
The SD (that’s “Star Destroyer”, not Straight Dope") has some distinct advantages.
[list]
[li]Weapons out the wazoo.[/li][li]Fighters and small support ships.[/li][li]Tractor beams[/li][li]The force[/li][li]No petty moral hangups nor slightest compunction with wiping out foes entirely.[/li][li]Two words: Death Star[/li]
All in all, I think that not only would the ISD beat the Enterprise like a side of beef, but that the Empire on the whole would spank the Federation like a red headed stepchild.
Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The cool thing is, that since this is fiction here, there is no right or wrong, so it’s safe to say that everyone is right. I guess that means that everyone is simultaneously wrong as well, but that’s another thread entirely.

46

Now, if you want to compare the two ships, then you need to remove the force from the battle. We all know that vader would open Santi’s emperial size keg of whoop 'o ass, but he could do so from any whip. Stick him inside a garbage scow and he still whoops ass…

…for more silky smooth segues, write to “silky smooth segues” 610 n 10th street, Albuquerque NM 87109.

47

A few points:

[ul][li]“Star Trek” (the original series) had a warp scale that went up at least as high as 13, I think a little higher, but we never found out what the upper threshold was. According to the tech manuals, it was recalibrated when warp technology improved so that warp 10 was the upper limit (being in all places and all times at once, which Einstein says is impossible, but “Voyager” managed to circumvent rather clumsily, and the Enterprise got pretty near with the Traveller’s help). Although it is possible they’d broken this law of physics and could go faster than that threshold (i.e., warp 13) by the time of “All Good Things…”, I’d guess they just again recalibrated the scale with the development of new warp technology (the 3rd warp nacelle might support this).[/li][li]An Imperial Star Destroyer might win the first battle with the Borg, but I guarantee they’d lose the war. Frankly, I’m still amazed they haven’t taken over the Federation. I just never got the impression that the SW universe folk were as clever as the ST universe folk. Personally, I’d love to see Vader as a Borg… {heh heh heh}[/li][li]Regarding the Force, and assuming a lot of it is mental control, you forget that the ST universe is chocked full of telepathic races - Vulcans, Betazoids, and so on. In the above scenario, Deanna would have immediately felt Vader’s evil chill and warned Picard off to a safe distance, or at least had him fire on the Star Destroyer. I’d also love to see Spock mind-meld with Vader![/ul][/li]
That is all.

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy! (or, if you prefer the Jesusfied version, Asketh the damn Priest Guy!)

“Never assume a malicious intent when stupidity will explain just as well.”

{This space reserved for a Genuine WallyM7 Sig™}

48

Hmmmm…

I’m glad SPOOF cleared you all up on the size issues. Yes, the *Executor[/] is 8 kilometers long, its the Super Star Destroyer class (SSD).

Having done what inertia has claimed myself, from time to time (and I quote):

I offer you the following considerations.

(1) Shields are a preventative measure.
The were never meant to stop ships from colliding with one another. They prevent the particles of space from holing a vessel (thats deflectors in ST universe) and they stop lasers/turbo-lasers in the SW universe (again, thats deflectors). The defensive shield system in BOTH universes is not unlimited, and apt to fail at the worst moment.

(2) ST characters (in particular the crew of the Enterprise-D) tend to use their heads in attacking, more than the Imperials ever did. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch of the imagination in seeing them figure out the shield projecters on that big wedge-shaped monstrosity they’re facing are two relatively tiny sphere’s they could target easily with a salvo of photon torpedos.

(3) However, SW vessels are far more robust, with a notable exception being the Falcon.
After the shields fail on these babies, you don’t see or read about “Core dumps” or “coolant leaks” (here’s a trivia quesiton I’d like the answer for: # of times LaForge yells “coolant leak!” in TNG and the Ent-D explodes). Impstar’s (as they’re known in my geeky circles pushing up his glasses) are made to absorb punishment, and are so huge (I saw a correct figure of over a kilometer in length) you can literally punch holes all over them and they’ll keep fighting. If you’ve got the time or patience, you can tactically hit all the turbolaser/ion cannon/warhead launching batteries so they can’t shoot you. Then you’re being swarmed by TIE’s at the same time, some of which have pretty big warheads to launch of their own. To my knowledge runabouts/shuttlecraft don’t have much by way of weaponry. The long and the short is, the Impstar’s own shields don’t matter, the deciding factor would be, can the Enterprise
disable the huge craft?

(4) My answer is: No, not before the Impstar lowers the Enterprise’s shields and wreaks havoc on all its electrical systems with the ion cannons. End of story, Picard lovers. These ships are made for planetary bombardment… how the Enterprise D’s shields can withstand it is beyond me. Once the ship is disabled, floating in space, then the Empire can concentrate on interrogating the prisoners at a more leisurely pace. Black Interrogator droid with menacing needles hovers behind Jai Pey

(5) The wildcard: Transporter technology. I’m really kinda “iffy” about the pros and cons of how the transporter might be of benefit to the Enterprise. Maybe transport an explosive device into the opposing ship’s “engine room”? Ahhh… but in order to do so, they have to lower the shields. And if they lower the shields, they can get broadsided by a barrage of ion cannon that could potentially disable the whole ship. Not feasible… they’d risk too much in that maneuver.

Totally unrelated thing I read up there from tracer:

The Han Solo prequel-trilogy has an interesting spin on this… the area that the Kessel run takes place in is filled with black holes. Thus, direct routes from planet/system A to planet/system B might not be possible. However, if a pilot had the moxie to push the outside of the envelop and go through an uncharted area, perhaps fly closer to a black hole than anticipated… he could foreseeably make this set-distance run (12 parsecs) in less than 12 parsecs.

Perfectly right, though… Han boasting about ship speed by talking distance is misdirection (thank you Lord Lucas). Its like me claiming Oh yeah I’m the fastest runner on earth, why I ran the length of my province in less than 1000 kilometers.

Anyhoo… back to my pilot studies.

Regards,
Jai Pey

49

I don’t have time to post responses to everyone, but here’s a link with official definitions (i.e. OKayed by Lucas) and decent scientific explanations of the science in Star Wars – including everything you ever wanted to know about ISDs.

Oh, and I was wrong about the engine – it’s not a small star or black hole, it actually is a giant antimatter engine (a much bigger version of what Enterprise has).
http://theforce.net/swtc/

50

Hmmm, from what I can recall visually from the show, it sounds like some Borg cubes (for example, the one that got through to Earth in ST:First Contact) are about as big as a Star Destroyer.

So which one of those would win? Especially considering a Borg cube can also take heavy damage and keep fighting, just like a SD.

Do you think the Borg Queen would get it on with Vader boy? :slight_smile: “Data? Data who?”

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy! (or, if you prefer the Jesusfied version, Asketh the damn Priest Guy!)

“Never assume a malicious intent when stupidity will explain just as well.”

{This space reserved for a Genuine WallyM7 Sig™}

51

kaylasdad99 wrote:

In the Star Trek universe, transporters can’t even function through the shields of the ships running the transporters. If the technology to make shields transporter-transparent existed, the Star Trek engineers would surely have incorporated this capability into their ships’ shield designs. The fact that no beam-through-able shields exist in the Star Trek universe implies that all shields would stop transporters, whether the shield engineers know about the existence of transporters or not.

But then, bringing down a Star Destroyer’s shields is simply a matter of scoring one well-placed direct hit on the shield generator tower.

52

I’d like to say this… if the Enterprise crew had a sizeable knowledge of the layout, specifcations, statistics, etc. of a Star Destroyer, they’d probably be able to create some sort of intrusive counter-attack (for example, sneak a crew somewhere on board or, yes, even transport a bomb onto the bridge… though this would be risky as it’d leave the Enterprise very, very vulnerable to attack in the fifteen-twenty seconds the shields would be down). However, as far as the Enterprise is concerned, that big tower could be a launch bay or garbage containment. Given time, I’m sure they’d be able to discern the layout of the ship, but in the midst of a firefight, there’re other things to be concerned with.

Another thing that may be a factor in the ISD’s favor… the armoring. The ship is constructed out of “durasteel”, which seems like it’d just be really, really dense steel. The Enterprise has had trouble transporting people/equipment through dense materials (like an asteroid, for instance). Which would probably disrupt any transporter attempt, or at least take a longer amount of time to ensure a safe transport, or something.

Also, the ST ships are a lot more fragile than SW ships (except maybe for TIE fighters, but those are smaller masswise than any shuttlecraft I’ve ever seen). The Enterprise needs a structural integrity field to prevent from falling apart during even the simplest of maneuvers. An ISD, on the other hand, can easily keep fighting with almost half the ship blown away (and contrary to popular belief, they DO have auxillary bridges… even tertiary bridges…).

Finally, there’re have been several mentions of how easy it is to mess with a Star Destroyer in an X-wing… I think the Enterprise is significantly larger than a starfighter.

-SPOOFE

53

Star Destroyers are 1600 meters long (roughly a mile). They possess immensely powerful shields designed to protect it from other capital ships (Not fighters like X-wings and A-wings, which can actually fly underneath the shield…TIE fighters are designed to protect it from other fighters). Underneath their shields are heavily armored hulls, and their viewports are not measly glass, but transparisteel (transparent metal). They have 4 squadrons of TIE fighters, 1 squadron of TIE interceptors, and 1 squadron of TIE bombers (A squadron being 12 fighters). It also has shuttles and gunboats in its arsenal. It has hundreds of turbolasers and ion cannons, and proton torpedo and concussion missile launchers. It also has very powerful tractor beams for recovering damaged ships (up to small-mid sized capital ships). It has a relatively low sublight engine speed, but it can travel across the galaxy in roughly a month in hyperspace (not “lightspeed”, “hyperspace”).

I don’t know much about the Enterprise, other than it is 600 or so meters long. It is also not a warship, but a diplomacy ship. It has phasers and photon torpedo launchers. It has shields, but they don’t seem to do much (In every episode, they’ll get fired on, and they’ll take structural damage even though their shields were at 68% or something). It has longer ranged weapons, and faster flight speed, but it’s warp speed is far slower than that of hyperspace (look at Voyager…roughly estimated 80 years to get from one quadrant to another).

The Enterprise could not beam people or bombs aboard the Star Destroyer when it’s shields are up. The Star Destroyer’s shields even prevent hyper-com transmissions from coming through (Only direct ship-to-ship holotransmissions.) Even if the Enterprise did somehow manage to get a bomb onboard the Star Destroyer, it is of such immense size the damage would be insignificant (BTW, that A-wing that crashed into the Executor hit the piloting section of the bridge while it was performing maneuvers…secondary control did not have the time to avoid a collision with the Death Star).

The Star Destroyer has several options up it’s sleeve. For example, it could execute the micro-jump SPOOFE mentioned (That type of maneuver is mentioned in many of the Star Wars source books and novels), acquire the Enterprise with tractor beams, and bombard it with it’s ion cannons (which according to Star Wars source books, penetrate every documented type of shield), which shorts out electrical components of every type, disabling engines, weapons, shields, life support, etc. It may then proceed to destroy the ship with turbolasers, or board the ship with troop transports (after all, a Star Destroyer is supposed to be a self-sustaining war machine…it garrisons tens of thousands of stormtroopers).

There is not much the enterprise could do to a Star Destroyer, but even if it did seem like it might risk too much damage, it can always run away by going into hyperspeed (Which I’ve determined to be far faster than warp speeds).

There you have it…all documented information from both universes (Sorry if I seem biased in favor of Star Wars…it’s universe is far more explained than Star Trek)

54

SPOOFE Bo Diddly wrote:

The Enterprise doesn’t have to drop all of its shields in order to use its transporters – it only has to open up a sizeable hole in its shields facing the direction it wants to use the transporters in. It could drop one “sector” of shields, beam a bomb onto the Star Destroyer’s bridge, and then immediately turn so that its downed shield-sector was no longer facing the Star Destroyer.

Or at least, that’s how you’d do it in Star Fleet Battles (a wargame invented in 1979, based on the Roddenberry-sanctioned Star Trek Technical Manual by Franz Joseph Designs).

55

Woops! Excuse me. The book by Franz Joseph Designs is titled the Star Fleet Technical Manual, not the Star Trek technical manual. Even in 1975 (when the book was published), Paramount was guarding its trademark on the Star Trek name.

56

Also, the shuttles have transporters as well. Bombs could be placed on them. The fact that all ST shields prevent transports only shows that either:
No one is the ST has come up with a different shield (and people in SW would probably have a different shield archetype)
or
Such a shield woul leave a ship to vulnerable (other people could transport in).

I keep on reading that the Enterprise was a diplomatic ship, but I don’t remember seeing any radically different ships. Just what do the warships look like?

57

When I say that the Enterprise is a diplomatic vessel, that has nothing to do with what’s outside… it’s what’s inside that counts. A huge amount of the space inside the ship is given over towards space for diplomats and their families, plus amenities for comfort and entertainment. This leaves a relatively small percentage of ship space and resources for weapons/defenses.

In contrast, the whole of a Star Destroyer is given over towards the masterful art of war. That fact, combined with the fact that a Star Destroyer has at least triple the sheer mass/volume (roughly), implies that a Star Destroyer would be able to concentrate a much larger amount of offensive energy at the Enterprise.

-SPOOFE

58

Oh god!! Now we’re using cliches!!
Next they’ll be claiming our universes are merely part of Hollywood too…

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

59

As long as you’re on the subject what about:

Borg Cube v. Death Star?

60

I may repeat several already made points, and dispute a few others. If you don’t like it, to fragging bad, write a response and deal with the pain.

OK, it boils down to a simple matter of policy:

Enterprise Contact Policy:
Step 1.Hi we’re the federation. Will you be our friend?
Step 2.Hello Why aren’t you answering?
Step 3.<continue on with similar inane drivel until they finally leave>

Galactic Empire Contact Policy:
Step 1. Surrender NOW.
Step 2. <Open Fire Subcommander. Blast them into Muons>

As for the reasoning that the enterprise could simply beam over a few photorps into the ISD, because since their shields wouldn’t be designed to stop transporters, utter nonsense. Firstly, they’d have to think of it, and aside from Scotty, the average cunning of a starfleet officer appears to be on the same order as a rather demented goldfish. Plus theer is no reason to think that transporters wouldn’t be stopped by Imperial Ray/Particle shielding. They stop Turbolasers, Ion Cannons, and small warheads, so Transporters would probably not be a problem.

But assume that for some reason you were able to beam a party over to the ISD. Imagine Heavily Armored, Armed, Imperial Storm Troopers vs. Pajama Wearing, Flashlight Wielding, Starfleet Yellow-Shirts. Personally I know who MY money is on. ISD’s Carry THOUSANDS of troopers. Transporters can beam 6 at a time. And for those of you about to mention the first Death Star, it was the size of a small moon, and that is alot of volume to cover even for 100,000 troops, much less a reduced garrison.

A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) Suggested that if Scotty were there, he would do the same thing he did on the Kobiashi Maru scenario. FOr those of you who don’t know, Scotty scored teh highest Legitimate score on the KM test in starfleet history. He ALMOST beat it by beaming Anti-Matter canisters into the seams of the enemy vessel’s shields, then beamed back just the canisters. This had a very detrimental effect on the enemy vessel. ISDs, being rather more heavily armored than anything in the ST universe, would take this ploy, shrug off the damage and lay teh smack down on whoever was arrogant enough to think it would work. This isn’t to say they wouldn’t feel it. They would take damage, and have to make quite a few repairs. It is to point out the difference between a properly designed warship and a family camper(i.e. the 1701-D/E).

As for the matter of laser blasts being ineffective against the Enterprise shields, that is blindly optimistic at best. as mentioned, they were refering to LOW power lasers. To clarify this for all the dedicated Trek-heads out there, I will draw a nice, clear, modern example for you:

There is a reason the Iowa Class Battleship wasn’t retired until after the Gulf war. the Low power laser refered to in the quote mentioned would be, on the scale we are talking about, be equivalent to about a .50 cal heavy machine gun. Good enough for small targets such as trucks, tanks etc, but a peashooter against an armored fortification. A turbolaser would be about equivalent to Big Mo’s 18 inch bombardment guns. i.e. armor/shields? what armor/shields? ISDs also, ton for ton, pack more guns than a redneck NRA chapter.

As for the question of Empire versus borg… Empire, partially because of above reasoning, partially because they don’t try to assimilate anything. They crush it under-boot.

I COULD go into several other points, such as fighters, Sith powers, FTL combat (impossible ), Social Differences (aside from wearing spray on dresses/uniforms, just what IS the point of a ship’s councelor?), etc, but it is late and I’ve given you all quite a bit to think about already. :slight_smile:

Love, Luck, and Lemmings to you all :cool: