True, however I was speaking more in context of how well the Empire used them after Thrawn’s death/could use them against the Federation. The asteroid offensive is based off the idea that the planet in question can’t lower it’s planetary shields or else one of the asteroids may come through the gap and smash the planet. This wouldn’t work against the Federation, as they don’t have planetary shields; only Coruscant has a full-blown, globally encompassing shield (unless I’m wrong and Earth has one).
Having a fighter stick a probe out doesn’t work all that well, because if one is just sitting there emitting a scanning field while there’s nothing else around it sticks out like a sore thumb. The only way I can recall that a Star Destroyer was able to keep tabs on it’s surroundings was when they were on the edge of the Bothawui system, cloaked, with no one knowing they were there. They routinely sent out a scout craft, but this wouldn’t be effective in a combat situation, or if they were in close proximity to any other ships, as it would be obvious the scout ship was coming out of the cloak. And the Empire doesn’t really have any Jedi in reserve. Most Dark Jedi around after Thrawn are at best rouges.
And one other thing; the Empire tried to make use of the cloak after Thrawn’s death, but even Pellaeon, Thrawn’s right-hand man, couldn’t find a practical use (including testing a flight predictor to allow them to target attacking starfighters while cloaked), Pellaeon scrapped the project. Ironically, he also soon proposed peace to the New Republic.
As to an advantage the Empire has over the Federation: Ion Cannons. As I recall, during the war with the Dominion, the Breen (I think) had some kind of weapon which disabled the electronic systems on a starship. Now this technology was quite advanced and only the Breen ships had them; since the Federation enjoyed such a complete butt-kicking against just a few ships with this weapon, imagine what would happen when they come up against the Empire, where every ship in the fleet is armed with several ion cannons. Makes you think.
The Empire has to rule by terror, and the feds don’t. They have built up a relationship of trust with member worlds, so did the empire, but they squandered it.
Babes, geek-boys, babes. The Federation has many more good-lookin’ women. The hell with how much energy the weapons of the respective civilizations can generate; I KNOW what universe I want to live in.
The Federation also has Kirk and he’ll find some way to frag Vader’s ass.
Vader puts every Star Drek character to shame. He’s telepathic, a master swordsman, blocks laser bolts with his hands, and leads a fleet of 25k Star Destroyers that could annihilate the Enterprise, which must not be that sturdy because they get wrecked every movie, and he has Jame’s Earl Jone’s voice.
The downside of course is that Vader is dead, and the man that invented him is by all rational analyses brain dead.
I totally agree with your focus on what’s most important in comparing these two realities, but I’m worried that you’re going for quantity over quality, Coyote. Or have you forgotten Princess Leia in the bikini get-up provided to her by Jabba?
Even if we ignore the fact that there’s only one Data, R2D2 is still cooler. I’ven’t read any of the books, but I’ll further admit to the possibility that there is a Star Wars droid yet cooler than Artoo.
And as to babes? There are at least two people in this thread now who have apparently never seen Princess Leia, who is easily hotter than anyone in Star Trek.
What’s hard to understand? Hyperdrive isn’t the same as warp drive. Hyperdrive actually opens a wormhole into another dimension, whereas warp drive just makes you go really fast in this dimension. However, objects in this dimension cast “shadows” in the other dimension and so running into the shadow of a planet or supernova will cause damage to the vessel in hyperspace.
Hey, we have no idea how long they were travelling between solar systems.
I’ve heard this theory postulated. Frankly, there are plenty of reasons from both series that can give us reason to doubt their physical laws… but once we start doing that, we lose the ability to analyze it, don’t we?
Nope. Films such as TPM and AOTC quite plainly establish that it’s a galaxy-wide civilization.
One Star Destroyer can easily fry a planet’s surface, true (that’s called a Base Delta Zero operation). But only if the planet is unshielded. The Death Star was designed to be a weapon of terror, primarily, well, because they could. And it punched through planetary shields just fine.
Ryan Liam…
Granted. However, even following the Emperor’s death, there were still plenty of Imperial hegemonies that had the capability of fragging the Federation without batting an eye.
Achernar…
Uh… no, it doesn’t. Tech manuals have a classification system for hyperdrive. The Death Star has what is called a class 1.2 hyperdrive. What this means, however, we have no idea… but it’s based on Han’s comment “She can make .5 past lightspeed.” But .5 what? The classification system, obviously, can’t be taken literally.
Chocobo…
Nope. Many planets had a full planetary shield. Alderaan did, for example.
Tech specs aside, the federation just isn’t as cool as the Empire. Their guns look like garage door openers and they dress in leotards. Who here would take Federation Security Officer Joe Schmoe over a Storm Trooper in Vegas? Joe would have a white armor-plated shoe so far up his…
Boba Fett’s entire list of accomplishments that I’ve seen was that he trailed the Millennium Falcon to Bespin. Then later he was, in comical fashion, thrown into the gullet of a desert monster. Wow, what a badass. He didn’t even capture Han Solo himself. He might be able to take on Pauly Shore.
But I’m sure he’s a badass in some knockoff book.
The Federation’s major advantage is that they can shoot straight on occasion and are generally not defeated by an army of teddy bears. Hey, talk about “They have thousands and thousand of star destroyers and they shoot gigatons lasers” all you want; it evidently cannot save the mightly Empire from Ewoks armed with sticks. And Rebel fighters always seem to get past the big fleet to deliver the killing blow. For all their alleged power, Imperial soldiers and ships display all the skill and effectiveness of the Three Stooges trying to land a 747.
Now, the Empire, on the other hand, does not have ships run by traitorous wimps who, when given a chance to destroy their arch enemy, give the enemy a pat on the back and a cute nickname instead (see: “I, Hugh.”) The Federation also has a serious maintenance problem. For instance, photon torpedoes apparently NEVER function properly, since I’ve seen hundreds of them fired and they never seem to make a very big explosion. 64 megatons should vaporize a ship if it penetrates the shield, and even if it doesn’t should make a truly spectacular nuclear explosion, but in “The Undiscovered Country” the Enterprise takes several direct photon topedo hits that appear to do little more damage than an IRA nail bomb. In “The Wrath of Khan,” the Enterprise, unshielded and already wounded, takes a direct photon torpedo hit and yet doesn’t turn into dust. In “First Contact,” the Borg cube’s shields are down before the Enterprise even arrives, and yet it is hit with torpedo after torpedo and still does not vanish in a flash of blinding white light. I mean, do you know how big an explosion 64 megatons is? That should turn a structure the size of a Borg cube into a big ball of gas and little else. But it didn’t, so all those torpedoes were defective. The Federation can’t even get the goddamned holodecks to work without putting someone in mortal danger every other week. So in summary, the differences are:
Imperial weapons work, but cannot be aimed,
Federation weapons can be aimed, but don’t work.
ADVANTAGE: Federation. Maybe the photon topedoes are all duds, but at least they do some damage.
Empire: Incompetent soldiers
Federation: Wimpy soldiers
ADVANTAGE: Empire. I’m sure Stormtroopers will occasionally hit something by sheer luck. Federation troops on the other hand will sit around babbling about how maybe they shouldn’t fight the Empire, who are they to attack another civilization, blah blah blah.
Empire: Idiotic admirals
Federation: Children at helm of flagship
ADVANTAGE: Federation. Wesley may be irritating, but he does seem competent.
Empire: Defeated by teddy bears
Federation: Nearly defeated by Tribbles
ADVANTAGE: Federation. Okay, the Tribbles weren’t armed with scary sticks. But at least Kirk won out in the end.
Empire: Own whole galaxy
Federation: Don’t own whole galaxy
ADVANTAGE: Not entirely clear. An Imperial invasion would presumably have to deal with all the other Star Trek empires, too, who would be no happier about the Empire’s plans than the Federation. So the Feds would have allies; the Empire would not.
Empire: Star Destroyers
Federation: Various types of ships
ADVANTAGE: Clearly, the Federation. Star Destroyers may be impressive on paper, but in practice they appear to be totally useless. They barely even slowed the Millennium Falcon down. The entire fleet couldn’t take out a Rebel fleet of maybe 30-40 ships. In the entire movie series the SDs managed to stop one ship; Leia’s corvette. This is basically Point 1 all over again; as cool as the Star Destroyers look, they are apparently flown, and have their guns manned, by monkeys.
Empire: Darth Vader]/The Force
Federation: Deanna Troi/Empathic ability
ADVANTAGE: Empire. About ten billion times over.
VADER
“Your lack of a low-cut uniform disturbs me.”
Empire: Boba Fett
Federation: That Indiana Jones chick who Picard nails every now and then
ADVANTAGE: Federation. Boba Fett was eaten by a goddamn ant trap. How tough is he? That chick (Lash?) was cute.
Empire: Princess Leia and Princess/Senator Amidala
Federation: Various babes in tight uniforms and outfits
ADVANTAGE: Gotta have volume. Federation all the way. Remember, the Federation includes chicks who look like Ashley Judd, Michelle Phillips, Elizabeth Dennehy, Julie Warner, Michelle Forbes, Olivia D’Abo, and Famke Janssen. I mean, c’mon, Ashley Judd! Famke Janssen! Rowwr.
Empire: Harrison Ford
Federation: Johnathan Frakes
ADVANTAGE: You’ve got to give this one to the Empire. Harrison Ford has been a movie stud since Frakes was in grade school. Also, Billy Dee Williams was better looking than Levar Burton, and Michael Dorn’s handsome but he had to wear the Klingon getup.
Empire: Admiral Piett
Federation: Various admirals
ADVANTAGE: Empire. Not a day went by without Federation admirals doing something colossally stupid or being taken over by aliens or something. Whenever a Federation admiral appeared, you knew something idiotic was about to be said.
Empire: R2-D2
Federation: Data
ADVANTAGE: R2-D2 is fabulous, but Data’s more flexible and less moody, so I’ll take Data and give this one to the Federation.
Empire: Wookiees
Federation: Klingons
ADVANTAGE: Not sure. Wookiees do little other than roar and shoot Stormtroopers, but my grandmother could take on a whole platoon of Stormtroopers. Klingons have a whole fleet and seem really useful, but they seem unable to go longer than a few days without having some internal schizm that has them at each other’s throats, so who knows if they’ll be a benefit or a detriment? In terms of Chewbacca vs. Worf, I’ll take Worf any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Worf rocks.
Empire: Jar-Jar Binks
Federation: That bartender from “Voyager”
ADVANTAGE: Federation. Duh.
Empire: Emperor Palpatine
Federation: Q
ADVANTAGE: Ultimately, this is the trumper. Palpatine was super-powerful but in the end, there he goes plunging down the shaft like a retirement home inmate falling down a short flight of stairs. Q is omnipotent, and do you really think he’d ever let his favourite group of humans get whacked?
Obscure “Star Wars” detail: the blaster the Imperial Stormtroopers used in the first three movies were all modelled on the issue submachine gun of the British Army at the time, known as the Sterling.
Weapons always look more like a real gun when they ARE a real gun. (And I agree; the weapons on Star Trek, especially the newer versions, are really cheesy and bear no resemplance to real weapons.)
The Federation has the advantage that it possesses a starship, known as the “Enterprise” that has never, ever lost a battle, has kept the same crew almost intact for nearly a decade, and has a Captain who absolutel never fails to make the right decision.
Such as it is, the Star Wars hyperdrive speed is set at 1, where 1 is a constant FTL speed. A X0.5 is twice as fast as standard military units, which are typically X1. X1.2 is slightly slower than military units, but faster than most civilian craft, which are rated from X2 to X1, depending on size.
As opposed to Geordi LaForge and a couple of background black guys? Ooops, I think I missed Admiral Cartwright from ST6…
They did have a hyperdrive. Actually, two. One was broken and the other was a cheap backup. Granted, it did take them months to arrive.
YOU try stopping an extremely fast, manuverable smuggling vessel when you’re not allowed to kill anyone… and your light guns might well blow it out of space!
Fair point, it would be kind of random. OTOH if they’re in a stable orbit they can interdict it quite well.
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Keep the sensors passive and disguise it well and they’ll only see it if they’re looking for it right there. As for the Jedi, the only trick one was absolutely necessary for was the planetary shield one, which as you said, doesn’t apply.
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Much as I like Pellaeon he tends to be fairly conventional. Besides, the NR knew all the tricks that had been done before. The biggest edge a cloak has is when the other guys don’t know you’ve got it.
Gosh, a bunch of standard bad guys were defeated by three of the four main good guys, a unit of elite commandoes, and some primitives. Wow, that was a surprise. Now, let’s talk about how the Feddies are terrified of Klingons, who never use missile weapons if they can help it.
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Nuh-uh, they do fine against everybody except main characters (or when they’re not trying to hit).
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See above
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Well, not entirely fair. The Emperor and Moff Tarkin were\are total idiots, but neither are admirals. Pellaeon say is an example of a nice, competent guy, (so long as you don’t compare him to Thrawn anyway)
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See above.
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Maybe, maybe not. The Klingons or Romulans say could perhaps be brought onside by the Empire, and only the Borg and Species 90210 are really significant challenges anyway, and neither are much on the whole allying thing.
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Umm, the only time SDs were actually trying to hit ships that weren’t the Millenium Falcon (piloted by and carrying major heroes) was at Endor. Watch it again and you’ll notice that they didn’t have a massive number edge, and they were doing fine until the Executer and the DS II went kaboom. Then it all went to hell.
Oh yeah, and they’ve got loads of other ships (mostly smaller).
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I’m not really a Fett fan, so I won’t bother defending him, but why are you comparing him to an “Indiana Jones chick”. What’s wrong with Han?
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Artoo is great at what he’s supposed to do, if you want a multi-purpose one they’re around (Guri say)
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Let’s see, Wookies can rip peoples arms off, and yet still understand that ranged weapons are good. Klingons get beaten up by middle-aged humans, and yet still insist on trying hand-to-hand.
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Can’t we just kill them both?
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I think the Emp’s an idiot (and he certainly can’t compare with Q), but as I said before, putting Q on the Fed side doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
