# The Enterprise VS.  Star-Destroyer

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 20, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274 "2011-01-20T02:32:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/41 "2011-01-20T15:49:29Z")

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[QUOTE=MrDibble]  
The alternative, the beaming over of photon torpedoes that trekkies love to speculate about - when has that ever been done?

[/QUOTE]

I think Janeway did it against the borg, once.

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**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/42 "2011-01-20T18:52:16Z")

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As I recall, we rarely (ever?) see Federation planets with much in the way of planetary shielding. We know Star Destroyers are capable of planetary bombardment, and are capable of coming out of Hyperspace very close to bombardment range, assuming that the Admiral running the ship doesn’t want to get choked out.

So the Star Destroyer pops out of hyperspace and tells Picard that if he doesn’t surrender, cities start dying. Troi tells Picard that she does indeed sense hostility, and Picard surrenders.

The Enterprise crew will then figure some way out of the mess, but that will probably be the end of any potential capital ship engagement.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/43 "2011-01-20T19:00:39Z")

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> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> I’m going to have to ask where in the movies it said that Luke “had the highest force power of anyone in a while”.
> 
> I always got the impression that Luke, while strong in the Force, fell far short of what his father could have been had he not been ruined in his battle with Obi-Wan.

I think I may have mixed up Anakin from the prequels with Luke. But I still thought Luke was quite powerful, as he beat his Father, which would imply he was stronger than him. Although, I have read that some people think Vader threw the fight.

Is your contention that joining the Dark Side actually weakened Vader’s force powers?

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**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/44 "2011-01-20T19:00:50Z")

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\<best Ogre voice\> Nerds!?

Just kidding…

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/45 "2011-01-20T19:17:16Z")

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> [@bouv](#):
>
> Am I the only one that notices the two glaring flaws with this “strategy”?
> 
> 1. Clearly the “new” ship is the actual one.
> 
> 2. Point 1 is moot because the “image” of the old ship would be there for such a small fraction of a second as to not matter.

[Memory Alpha](http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Picard_Maneuver?cb=612) has that covered. And they don’t do fanwanks.

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**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/46 "2011-01-20T19:27:35Z")

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[QUOTE=BigT]

Is your contention that joining the Dark Side actually weakened Vader’s force powers?  
[/QUOTE]

It’s possible that becoming a Cyborg might have reduced his force potential, compared to his al naturale days.

(He beats Obi Wan in Episode 4, but Obi Wan took a dive, so to speak.)

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**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/47 "2011-01-20T19:53:16Z")

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> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Not true. In the DS9 season 2 finale _The Jem’Hadar_, they make a point of Dax telling the (Galaxy-Class) Odyssey’s Captain Keogh to leave the families behind before going into the Gamma Quadrant.

Okay. The E-D and its Galaxy class sisters, which was what I actually meant. My point was that characterizing Starfleet as operating a fleet of flying daycares is a mischaracterization.

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**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/48 "2011-01-20T20:18:39Z")

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> [@Hades](#):
>
> My point was that characterizing Starfleet as operating a fleet of flying daycares is a mischaracterization.

I see no reason not to apply this characterization to the rest of the TNG/DS9 Starfleet. Look at DS9 - in the middle of a war, but Sisko still has his kid there - attending school taught by…the Chief’s wife! So OK, “orbiting daycare” is a better term for that one. But the trend is there. Voyager avoids this by giving us the pseudo-kid Kes and her (frankly, perverse) daddy/lover relationship with Neelix. Waifs and strays, man, waifs and strays.

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**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/49 "2011-01-20T20:33:32Z")

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Deep Space Nine was intended as administrative outpost. It’s not even a Federation starbase, but a Bajoran one operated by Starfleet with their permission. Even at that, there are plenty of military bases with families living on them here in the real world so I don’t see how O’Brien and Sisko bringing their families with them proves anything.

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**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/50 "2011-01-20T20:42:14Z")

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Are we talking about a long drawn out war, or a simple one off melee? In the latter, I can’t see the Enterprise having time to devise a tactical strategy while getting up the corn chute from a dozen Tie Fighters.

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**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/51 "2011-01-20T20:59:23Z")

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Manning a B-Wing, X-Wing or even a Y-Wing of all things, I’ve taken out many Star Destroyers. Pop the shield generators top and bottom, gentle graze the bridge with blaster fire and they go down a treat. Nerd stats aside, I can’t see the big Federation ships having much trouble with that.

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**Author:** ![noobzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@noobzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/noobzilla)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/52 "2011-01-20T21:14:00Z")

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Great posts by some of you guys. I find this community incredibly intelligent and knowledgable.  
I have actually saved some of the best lines from this thread.  
The part about a Star-Destroyer not actually destroying stars, like a Star-Fighter doesn’t actually fight stars. I lol’d.

But I have a question did anyone actually read the article I posted?

> [@](#):
>
> A Star Destroyer is more than five times longer than Kirk’s Enterprise (and two-and-a-half times longer than Picard’s Enterprise). So if size is anything to go by, the Enterprise stands little chance in a frontal assault.
> 
> However, the Federation has more advanced technology in some respects-- notably, transporter technology-- and if the Enterprise crew can draw upon their much more extensive mission experience, the situation is much more hopeful. For example: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy inject themselves with hefty doses of kironide, the chemical that gives psychokinetic powers (Plato’s Stepchildren), then transport directly to the bridge of the Star Destroyer to confront Darth Vader on an equal telekinetic footing. They stun Vader with phasers set on wide dispersion (so he can’t block them with his light saber), then take him back to the Enterprise. Before he wakes up they use the transporter to split Vader into his good and evil halves (The Enemy Within). The evil Vader is kept under sedation while the good one tells them everything they need to know to overthrow the Empire. Then the Enterprise uses a slingshot orbit around the nearest sun in order to go back in time (The Voyage Home, et al.) and prevent the fall of the Old Republic. The End.

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/53 "2011-01-20T21:22:49Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> So if size is anything to go by, the Enterprise stands little chance in a frontal assault.

Judge it by it’s size, do you?

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**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/54 "2011-01-20T21:24:55Z")

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The Force is more than simple telekenisis, and I don’t think they know how to duplicate splitting a person into good and evil halves. Plus, there’s not much good there; the good half of Vader would die within minutes, and the evil one? Well, fuck, you’ve just turned your entire starship into a plasma fire.

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**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/55 "2011-01-20T21:43:40Z")

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> [@BigT](#):
>
> I think I may have mixed up Anakin from the prequels with Luke. But I still thought Luke was quite powerful, as he beat his Father, which would imply he was stronger than him.

Luke was more powerful than Vader, yes. But Vader is a lumbering machine whose Force powers sort of end at choking, sensing and occasionally tossing a metal wastebasket.

> [@BigT](#):
>
> Is your contention that joining the Dark Side actually weakened Vader’s force powers?

No. I’m saying that having half of his body melted off and being sealed inside of an ATM weakened Vader’s Force powers. He loses his arms. His legs. He can’t even breathe on his own anymore. Machines can’t use the Force. Living beings use the Force. And we know that Vader is “more machine than man”. He’s only a shadow of what he was when he was alive and when he was alive he was likely only a shadow of what he could have been at the height of his power.

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**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/56 "2011-01-20T21:59:54Z")

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> [@noobzilla](#):
>
> Great posts by some of you guys. I find this community incredibly intelligent and knowledgable.  
> I have actually saved some of the best lines from this thread.  
> The part about a Star-Destroyer not actually destroying stars, like a Star-Fighter doesn’t actually fight stars. I lol’d.
> 
> But I have a question did anyone actually read the article I posted?

I read it. Judging by the tongue in cheek manner in which the author touches on it, he realizes how even the most hardcore has a hard time taking this hypothetical “seriously.” 😃

The problem in comparing one space opera to another–and that’s what Star Wars and Star Trek are–is that they build up these impossibly powerful villains who fall to the most timid of attacks. The best comparison is between the Borg and the Empire. The Empire clones super soldiers and blows up entire planets. The Borg are a hive mind supercomputer that can heal itself instantaneously, and can adapt to its enemy’s strategies at a pace that would make Deep Blue crap its mainboard. They both should be UN-BEATABLE.

So what takes them down? A potato in the exhaust pipe and a runtime error. Man, and I thought Goliath was a bitch. 😃

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**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/57 "2011-01-20T22:05:44Z")

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I think that even if a tactic was never used on screen doesn’t mean it can’t be feasible. The whole hyperspace travel thing in SW really screws with the manueverability and speed of the ships in a sub-light battle. We know even puny ships in ST can go warp. They could drop a rock from warp aimed towards a Star Destroyer and it seems that would pretty much do it. Could the same rock be dropped from hyperspace?

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/58 "2011-01-20T22:26:42Z")

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> [@History\_Mystery\_and\_the\_Wolf](#):
>
> Anyway, since I see no reason why the Star Destroyer’s weapons (they can perform orbital bombardment, I believe, so they must be long ranged and powerful), shielding (it exists, and I don’t know of any reason to believe it is any different to federation shielding: it might just be more passive, or Star Wars weaponry much more powerful) and ability to zoom (why do we think that hyperspace \< warp speed? Star Wars ships pootle around the galaxy, far, far away just fine)

I agree that the differences in weaponry and shielding aren’t relevent; either side can fanwank and pull out “canon” bullshit all day.

The warp versus hyperspace thing is an interesting point, though, that you can’t easily dismiss. The two methods of interstellar travel are very different. It’s very well established in Star Wars that a ship is either maneuvering in regular space, or is in hyperspace. When a ship enters hyperspace it jumps from one point to another in a way that doesn’t seem to normally interact with regular space. In between hyperspace points it does not appear that a ship can DO anything.

In Star Trek, ships entering warp speed can not only perceive the rest of space, but can interact with it. They can alter course, fire photon torpedoes, detect other ships, and the like. It would seem to confer a rather enormous advantage.

The introduction of Galactica as a third combatant is also interesting. While Galactica doesn’t even have beam weapons, it has an even cooler method of interstellar movement - it simply jumps - and is awesomely resilient to attack; it must be about seventy percent armor. The goddamn thing is unkillable.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/59 "2011-01-20T22:59:34Z")

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> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> Luke was more powerful than Vader, yes. But Vader is a lumbering machine whose Force powers sort of end at choking, sensing and occasionally tossing a metal wastebasket.
> 
> No. I’m saying that having half of his body melted off and being sealed inside of an ATM weakened Vader’s Force powers. He loses his arms. His legs. He can’t even breathe on his own anymore. Machines can’t use the Force. Living beings use the Force. And we know that Vader is “more machine than man”. He’s only a shadow of what he was when he was alive and when he was alive he was likely only a shadow of what he could have been at the height of his power.

Makes sense. Either way, him being weaker than Luke means that, if Luke couldn’t do what was proposed in the post I was originally responding to, Vader couldn’t either. Seeing as the Emperor didn’t fly a Star Destroyer, that means Vader is the only force user we need to be concerned about.

(The Jedi (in the prequel trilogy)( wouldn’t be attacking the Enterprise, IMO.)

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**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-enterprise-vs-star-destroyer/568274/60 "2011-01-20T23:03:13Z")

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> [@RickJay](#):
>
> …  
> The introduction of Galactica as a third combatant is also interesting. While Galactica doesn’t even have beam weapons, it has an even cooler method of interstellar movement - it simply jumps - and is awesomely resilient to attack; it must be about seventy percent armor. The goddamn thing is unkillable.

Each platform has critical design flaws:

Galactica: Flammable, one dropped cigarette in the docking bay and the whole ship is at risk.  
Enterprise: No seatbelts or circuit breakers  
Star Destroyer: Single-pane bay window on the flight deck

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