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Could the Federation survive an invasion by the Galactic Empire?
- Thread starter super-heated plasma
- Start date
I was just googling peak speed of hyperspace in SW and it's just whatever works. It's pure speed of plot, so it's nonsense to talk about. That's so annoying.
I'm thinking Star Trek Federation has it.
For all the "power levels" talk, the megatons, gigatons, etc, Star Wars had the old EU, which got wildly out of control power-wise, and yet, a whole era of it consisted of the entirety of known Star Wars being unable to defeat outsiders flying around in, like, fucking space crabs or something. So sorry, we don't give a fuck about the Force and our space crab shells are too hard for all your lasers and lightsabers.
And we bought it.
The Federation would fuck the Empire up real bad.
For all the "power levels" talk, the megatons, gigatons, etc, Star Wars had the old EU, which got wildly out of control power-wise, and yet, a whole era of it consisted of the entirety of known Star Wars being unable to defeat outsiders flying around in, like, fucking space crabs or something. So sorry, we don't give a fuck about the Force and our space crab shells are too hard for all your lasers and lightsabers.
And we bought it.
The Federation would fuck the Empire up real bad.
Pre or Post Heresy Imperium?
I'd think that Pre-Heresy would destroy everything with a full power Emperor and the Primarchs with their legions.
Post Heresy gets dicey with how far the Imperium has stagnated/declined.
If you balance out the tech and focus on the other stuff, I always felt it would come down to the Empire using a lot of fighters versus the Federation focusing on capital ships + having transporters.
I always figured the Federation could take on a Star Destroyer no problem, Federation ships always seemed faster than SW capital ships, but having to go up against tons of Ties would quickly overwhelm a Federation ship.
I don't think Starkiller Base or the Death Star are super dangerous to the Federation, they have way better comms and creativity than the Empire does. One planet would get blown up and they'd have a one use plan to create a mini black hole in the center of the Death Star (and just ponder how many lives they were taking themselves).
I always figured the Federation could take on a Star Destroyer no problem, Federation ships always seemed faster than SW capital ships, but having to go up against tons of Ties would quickly overwhelm a Federation ship.
I don't think Starkiller Base or the Death Star are super dangerous to the Federation, they have way better comms and creativity than the Empire does. One planet would get blown up and they'd have a one use plan to create a mini black hole in the center of the Death Star (and just ponder how many lives they were taking themselves).
I don't know why people keep saying this, but it's not true. Hyperspace routes are mapped out in hyperspace, it's not like they can't use hyperspace until it's mapped, it's just that they can't literally fall asleep at the helm. it takes a planetary body sized object to negatively impact a ship moving at hyperspeed and even then you wouldn't really be in danger, because ships are designed to immediately exit hyperspace whenever a mass shadow is detected. That's how interdiction fields worked, by 'faking' a mass shadow and trapping Ships in system by way of exploiting a safety feature.
A star wars ship in the Trek universe could just make several 'short' [for them] straight line jumps and leave the federation in the dust.
I feel this post isn't getting the love it should, because it's absolutely true.
You're not really disagreeing me. They need mapped out routes to actually take advantage of their drives. Having to map things out as you go for an invasion of an entire galactic quadrant seems like a bad move.
He's literally saying they don't need to be mapped out, which is correct.
Space is kinda empty after all.
They'd still lose even with pre-heresy leadership.
They only pulled off what they did because the galaxy was already in a terrible state, with most of the major powers gone and a massive power vacuum.
now, dark age of technology humanity would be a fun match up.
I feel like the Empire of Man would win, simply because the Federation wouldn't want to poke everything that would start moving in after the Empire of Man would've lost. ^^
I think you need to define the rules for this hypothetical combo universe. Like no Q powers and no Force users? It's also a bit lopsided because the Empire are the villains in their series while the Federation, specifically the Enterprise in this case, are the heroes. So you have the people who are supposed to lose vs. the people who are supposed to win in their respective series. If the Federation were the bad guys they would also lose to the ragtag group of heroes.
If the Federation was really desperate, they could just lead the Empire into Borg terrirory and the Empire wouldn't be the wiser.
Does it count then, if an assimilated Empire defeats the Federation???
I'd imagine the Empire having a much more difficult time in general with the Borg, especially once the Borg start assimilating their tech and people. Just imagine force users in the collective. None of those pesky emotions to worry about now.
Yes and no.
Yes in TNG and beyond. But for some reason in Original series (and movies) - Warp was capable of crossing galaxy spanning distances in matter of days - including travel to center of the galaxy
and the apparently uncrossable edge:
And the above are closer to canon than a single troop transport carrying enough fire-power to obliterate a planet by its point-defense canons...
It's really dumb though (see above). Also contradicted by everything from movies to other materials (what a single transport can do - Grand Admiral Thrawn needed a fleet of star-destroyers for - some brilliant strategiest... ).
The Federation has access to several forms of variably controllable time travel, to the point where there are multiple agencies and departments tasked with investigating and controlling various temporal anomalies.
If they had to, some part of Section 31 would go back in time and prevent the Empire ever existing.
If they had to, some part of Section 31 would go back in time and prevent the Empire ever existing.
That's a dozen original series era torpedoes glassing a continent and cracking the crust of a planet. Each starship has hundreds of torpedoes and can synthesize hundreds more with replicators and antimatter from the warp core. And technology only improved since then. The Rise of Skywalker Death Star Destroyers don't obliterate a planet like the og Death Star either but they clearly do enough damage to render it uninhabitable. Which is something the Federation does regularly.
And as you point out, yes, the Federation controls only one sector of their known universe, and yet they're this powerful. Anyone tries to invade that universe and they have several other great powers to contend with who are just as powerful as the Federation.
The thing is, Star Trek is not a hard science fiction series by any means. However it does understand that if a civilization has the power to travel between star systems within hours, it has the power to play billiards with planets.
The very first episode of Star Trek is a man developing god-like force powers. The first episode of TNG introduces Q, an alien with god-like powers. The first episode of DS9 introduces the Prophets, a collective of god-like aliens with control over time and space. Star Trek is absolutely filled with powerful space fantasy nonsense that make the Jedi and Sith look like child's play.
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Forgetting about the tech, the Empire has shown time and time again that they are incompetent when it comes to strategic warfare. The Federation has better strategic command so they would wipe the floor with them.
That's just it, Space isn't kinda empty really. There are tons of things like undiscovered black holes, rogue planets, etc just floating around out there. And in the Star Trek galaxy you've got Dyson Spheres going undetected for centuries/millennia.
And with Star Wars Hyperdrive not only do you have to map out these obstructions to make travel reliable, you have to CONSTANTLY update those maps on an hourly or daily basis. Within the Star Wars Galaxy there are agencies dedicated to doing nothing but keeping Hyperspace maps up to date that requires equipment across the galaxy to constantly monitor known hazards as well as identify new ones. As soon as the Federation become aware of that they can just locate one of the stations/probes that the Empire were using to keep their nav computers up to date and either destroy it, or hijack it and feed in false data to completely screw the entire Imperial navigation system.
You've also got the advantage Federation ships have in that they can just make micro warp jumps of fractions of a second, and engage their warp drive at more or less the drop of a hat.
Jumping to Hyperspace takes time because you have to make navigation calculations and line up with a specific vector in order to make the jump safely. Like Han Solo said, without proper calculations you could end up flying into a sun or exit right into the middle of an asteroid field.
Federation weapons would have zero problem getting a lock on Star Wars fighters. Federation ship combat taking place at Full Impulse involves the ships moving at around 20-25% of light speed, and their weapon tracking systems can still obtain relatively accurate locks within seconds. Star Wars fighter craft may be small and agile but they're moving at a fraction of that speed. Federation targeting sensors would have zero trouble getting a phaser lock on to a Star Wars fighter.
Fighters also couldn't outrun a Photon Torpedo, which is an FTL capable weapon, without jumping to Hyperspace which would take them out of the battle.
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Um. Space is astonishingly empty. Like, beyond human comprehension empty. None of those things you mention comprise... anything in terms of space. The models we use to show the solar system aren't at all accurate in showing off exactly how empty space is even in our own solar system.
Even if Trek wasn't more advanced technologically, the capacity of the various races that make up the Federation to adapt to their enemies is immense.
And they have telepaths.
And they have wildcards of all sorts, like Q, non-corporeal entities that sometimes interact with them, and the other empires.
If nothing else the Tal Shi'ar and the Obsidian Order would have spies all up in the Empire just to see what was going on.
And they have telepaths.
And they have wildcards of all sorts, like Q, non-corporeal entities that sometimes interact with them, and the other empires.
If nothing else the Tal Shi'ar and the Obsidian Order would have spies all up in the Empire just to see what was going on.
I just had the thought that Q was probably the one who brought the Empire to the Star Trek universe as some sort of "war game" for Picard et al. so I don't know that he'd be all that helpful in this scenario short of ending it and setting everything back to the way it was before.
In that scenario it'd probably be a close fight because he wouldn't find a pure slaughter very fun.
TIE Fighters don't really seem to be all that much faster. Certainly no more well-shielded.
You're right, you don't need a special map when traveling at the speed of light cause space is so empty. Nothing to worry about.
The Empire only seems to rule because of technological advantage. Once they encounter a group with even remotely compatible tech, they lose. Oh there's a rebellion? Just build a giant space laser and blow up some planets. That'll fix it. No need for espionage, or counter terrorism tactics, or anything remotely strategic. Just build a big gun and send some big ships and blow things up.
They don't have competent commanders. Star Fleet has diplomats like Picard that can form alliances with other species for fighting an external threat like the Empire, and battle-hardened commanders like Sisko who understand the gray areas of war and will do what it takes to win.
At the very least, we can agree that the Federation and the Empire have at least compatible tech, but the real advantage is that the Federation is collectively smarter than the Empire and will outwit them in a war.
They don't have competent commanders. Star Fleet has diplomats like Picard that can form alliances with other species for fighting an external threat like the Empire, and battle-hardened commanders like Sisko who understand the gray areas of war and will do what it takes to win.
At the very least, we can agree that the Federation and the Empire have at least compatible tech, but the real advantage is that the Federation is collectively smarter than the Empire and will outwit them in a war.
Given they're very different tech paths it's hard to compare. I guess you could break it down:
Mobility - SW ships can get just about anywhere in their galaxy in a hustle, even shuttle sized stuff. They can also apparently go FTL without Hyperspace (Empire when it seems the Falcon gets to another system without Hyperdrive). So at a macro level they have the advantage, but in individual battles Federation ships seem WAY more maneuverable. Federation could neutralize that advantage with some sort of interdictor though. So Empire has advantage on the large scale, not small though.
Logistics - Easy win for Federation. Replicators grant endless anything, so no supply lines to worry about. Empire still needs to resupply the old fashioned way and keep resource production going.
Shields - Federation easily. Imperial shields, as others have noted, is more akin to ablative armor. Plus Star Destroyers seem crazy susceptible to having shields taken out completely. Federation shields are capable of taking shots that will instantly vaporize the ship underneath if they weren't there.
Armor - Seems like a wash. Ships in both universe seem dependent upon shields and ships go down fast when they're out.
Self-propelled weapons (Torpedos) - Seldom seen in use by Empire, but mainstay of Federation. Photon Torpedoes get an easy win here for sheer power, precision, flexibility.
Energy weapons (Power) - If we ignore the way lasers are seen in Trek (useless and antiquated), Star Wars seems to have more raw power to their shots. However I kinda find this meaningless - it's like a small nuke vs a large nuke. Either one will fuck you up, after a point the power just doesn't matter. Phasers seem designed to take down shields whereas Imperial lasers just try to overwhelm anything they hit. Makes me think of how anti-shield vs anti-armor weapons in say Freespace work.
Energy weapons (Accuracy/Precision) - Federation for sure. Phasers are like near 100% accurate to the point where targeting very specific systems at reduced power levels is the norm. They also aren't fixed or limited in firing arcs. Empire lasers are far more limited. This also gives Trek weapons a major edge in that they can easily target energy cores.
Point Defenses - Don't really seem to exist in Star Wars, whereas phasers are accurate enough to be both offensive weapons and defensive ones.
Numbers - Empire easily.
Ground forces /Troops - Empire has a shitload of really ineffectual soldiers, Federation doesn't really rely on ground forces much, even Marines (trying to remember if DS9 had many). Bit meaningless anyways - ground forces would be for invading/occupying, not for all out war.
Small Craft (Fighters and Shuttles) - Ties of any sort would get shredded by a Federation ship without breaking a sweat and wouldn't be able to do a whole lot in exchange. Federation doesn't have much in the way of small assault craft (single seat type stuff) but Shuttles do posses a pretty surprising amount of firepower and mobility for what amounts to a general purpose transport.
Big big things - Death Star(s), various iterations of the giant Destroyers, Starkiller. Empire likes to build gigantic stuff, but it also gets blown up super easy.
Intelligence (eg SigInt, Recon) - Empire is very reliant on probes, Federation seems to do deep space scanning better (though they lack the mobility to go super far distance wise).
Electronic Warfare - Empire has Ion weapons, but their limited use suggests drawbacks. No indication of remote hacking or particularly advanced jamming tech. Federation seems far more capable there.
Intangibles - The Empire is just kinda bad at warfare, and never had a total grasp of their galaxy anyways. Federation is basically pacifist, but getting the Klingons to join the Federation and beating the Dominion shows the Federation doesn't fuck around when taken to task. Plus no one actually *likes* the Empire (save for the space racists and nazis, and almost no non-human species) so Federation would get common support.
All told it seems like the Federation has all the advantages that matter. The Empire would basically need to be the galaxy's most numerous insurrectionist force to win. Empire could control far more space given numbers and FTL though.
Mobility - SW ships can get just about anywhere in their galaxy in a hustle, even shuttle sized stuff. They can also apparently go FTL without Hyperspace (Empire when it seems the Falcon gets to another system without Hyperdrive). So at a macro level they have the advantage, but in individual battles Federation ships seem WAY more maneuverable. Federation could neutralize that advantage with some sort of interdictor though. So Empire has advantage on the large scale, not small though.
Logistics - Easy win for Federation. Replicators grant endless anything, so no supply lines to worry about. Empire still needs to resupply the old fashioned way and keep resource production going.
Shields - Federation easily. Imperial shields, as others have noted, is more akin to ablative armor. Plus Star Destroyers seem crazy susceptible to having shields taken out completely. Federation shields are capable of taking shots that will instantly vaporize the ship underneath if they weren't there.
Armor - Seems like a wash. Ships in both universe seem dependent upon shields and ships go down fast when they're out.
Self-propelled weapons (Torpedos) - Seldom seen in use by Empire, but mainstay of Federation. Photon Torpedoes get an easy win here for sheer power, precision, flexibility.
Energy weapons (Power) - If we ignore the way lasers are seen in Trek (useless and antiquated), Star Wars seems to have more raw power to their shots. However I kinda find this meaningless - it's like a small nuke vs a large nuke. Either one will fuck you up, after a point the power just doesn't matter. Phasers seem designed to take down shields whereas Imperial lasers just try to overwhelm anything they hit. Makes me think of how anti-shield vs anti-armor weapons in say Freespace work.
Energy weapons (Accuracy/Precision) - Federation for sure. Phasers are like near 100% accurate to the point where targeting very specific systems at reduced power levels is the norm. They also aren't fixed or limited in firing arcs. Empire lasers are far more limited. This also gives Trek weapons a major edge in that they can easily target energy cores.
Point Defenses - Don't really seem to exist in Star Wars, whereas phasers are accurate enough to be both offensive weapons and defensive ones.
Numbers - Empire easily.
Ground forces /Troops - Empire has a shitload of really ineffectual soldiers, Federation doesn't really rely on ground forces much, even Marines (trying to remember if DS9 had many). Bit meaningless anyways - ground forces would be for invading/occupying, not for all out war.
Small Craft (Fighters and Shuttles) - Ties of any sort would get shredded by a Federation ship without breaking a sweat and wouldn't be able to do a whole lot in exchange. Federation doesn't have much in the way of small assault craft (single seat type stuff) but Shuttles do posses a pretty surprising amount of firepower and mobility for what amounts to a general purpose transport.
Big big things - Death Star(s), various iterations of the giant Destroyers, Starkiller. Empire likes to build gigantic stuff, but it also gets blown up super easy.
Intelligence (eg SigInt, Recon) - Empire is very reliant on probes, Federation seems to do deep space scanning better (though they lack the mobility to go super far distance wise).
Electronic Warfare - Empire has Ion weapons, but their limited use suggests drawbacks. No indication of remote hacking or particularly advanced jamming tech. Federation seems far more capable there.
Intangibles - The Empire is just kinda bad at warfare, and never had a total grasp of their galaxy anyways. Federation is basically pacifist, but getting the Klingons to join the Federation and beating the Dominion shows the Federation doesn't fuck around when taken to task. Plus no one actually *likes* the Empire (save for the space racists and nazis, and almost no non-human species) so Federation would get common support.
All told it seems like the Federation has all the advantages that matter. The Empire would basically need to be the galaxy's most numerous insurrectionist force to win. Empire could control far more space given numbers and FTL though.
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How about the three of them combined vs a single Culture ship? To makes things fair, all they have to do is hit the Culture ship once to win.
Starfleet's phaser arrays are much more advanced than the Empire's standard laser/turbo turrets. The Empire would have trouble penetrating Starfleet shields with their conventional methods, while a ship like the Enterprise could rapidly target and destroy groups of TIE fighters in seconds.
So if the fight is a couple Star Destroyers with bays full of TIEs versus one Enterprise D for example, I believe Starfleet would still win. Starfleet is both more damage resistant and more lethally armed. Head to head fleets, Starfleet comes out on top.
Although... the Empire may also have access to a Death Star. One shot at Earth and the entire galaxy is destabilized and panicking. Plus they could (slowly) turn it toward Starfleet's flagships as well, like RotJ. Could be a real pickle.
Without a Death Star I am confident in the Federation. But with a Death Star? Starfleet could still pull it off, but the Empire has a much better chance now.
So if the fight is a couple Star Destroyers with bays full of TIEs versus one Enterprise D for example, I believe Starfleet would still win. Starfleet is both more damage resistant and more lethally armed. Head to head fleets, Starfleet comes out on top.
Although... the Empire may also have access to a Death Star. One shot at Earth and the entire galaxy is destabilized and panicking. Plus they could (slowly) turn it toward Starfleet's flagships as well, like RotJ. Could be a real pickle.
Without a Death Star I am confident in the Federation. But with a Death Star? Starfleet could still pull it off, but the Empire has a much better chance now.
Basically it's considered an insane galaxy-wide threat in Star Wars when one battlestation or 50 star destroyers are equipped with planet destroying superlasers.
Meanwhile even at the time of the original Star Trek series each starship contains enough antimatter to destroy dozens if not hundreds of planets, and the Federation alone has thousands of starships, and the other powers have thousands more.
Like in the original series Kirk just takes down a teapot sized container of antimatter and Akiras an entire planet, boom it's uninhabitable.
Here's a way too long google doc a whole forum wrote about it and it's more words than anyone should ever waste on such an open and closed subject:
This looks pretty cool. Definitely more damage than a normal Star Destroyer could do in such a small timeframe. Now, if the Star Destroyers have the same weapon as the Death Star, that's an entirely other level compared to that.
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They lose, very quickly unless Q involves themself. The Culture operates so far above the level of ST and SW as to be incompatible.The only fictional societies that beat any civilization at The Cultures level of development from The Culture's universe are The Downstreamers and maybe the Xeelee. Possibly The Time Lords as well, but that's more of a case of making The Culture never have had been going to exist.
Thinking about it, the Empire don't even really win out on Super Weapons anymore.
By the time of Picard the Federation have the ability to create temporary black holes at will. Whilst they'd never use it against a planet, if the Death Star posed any kind of threat you just load up a torpedo with Red Matter and fire away. Death Star is sucked into a Black Hole that then politely closes itself when it's done.
Propulsion wise the Federation are also rapidly closing the gap. Thanks to Voyager the Federation have access to Quantum Slipstream tech. Whilst not as fast as Hyperdrive, it would massively negate a lot of the advantages of Hyperdrive in a small scale like the Federation where you're only looking at 7-8 thousand light years to cover.
Beyond that though you have to imagine that by the time of Picard the Federation are close to cracking Borg Transwarp technology, which is even faster than Hyperdrive. Through Transwarp Voyager was able to cover over 30,000 Light years in just a few minutes. Hyperdrive doesn't even come close to that.
Both of the above also have none of the disadvantages of Hyperdrive. You don't need to know every little anomaly/planet/comet/rogue planet/black hole between you and your destination, nor do you need to go around them. You only need to know where you are and where you're going, whatever is inbetween doesn't matter.
By the time of Picard the Federation have the ability to create temporary black holes at will. Whilst they'd never use it against a planet, if the Death Star posed any kind of threat you just load up a torpedo with Red Matter and fire away. Death Star is sucked into a Black Hole that then politely closes itself when it's done.
Propulsion wise the Federation are also rapidly closing the gap. Thanks to Voyager the Federation have access to Quantum Slipstream tech. Whilst not as fast as Hyperdrive, it would massively negate a lot of the advantages of Hyperdrive in a small scale like the Federation where you're only looking at 7-8 thousand light years to cover.
Beyond that though you have to imagine that by the time of Picard the Federation are close to cracking Borg Transwarp technology, which is even faster than Hyperdrive. Through Transwarp Voyager was able to cover over 30,000 Light years in just a few minutes. Hyperdrive doesn't even come close to that.
Both of the above also have none of the disadvantages of Hyperdrive. You don't need to know every little anomaly/planet/comet/rogue planet/black hole between you and your destination, nor do you need to go around them. You only need to know where you are and where you're going, whatever is inbetween doesn't matter.
Start of Consider Phlebas - They'd hit it. Culture was losing ships at the start of that book, which was why the other race thought they were winning. Culture would 'lose' that test mostly due to indifference and simply not having had to go to war in a looooong time.
End of Consider Phlebas - Not a chance. Single culture warship would be able to casually hop around basically breaking up ships at an atomic level before they could even react.
That also kinda shows the interesting part of the Culture novels - the Culture is *so* advanced that books need to focus on types of conflict besides big sci-fi wars.
Given the average distance between two stars in the Milky Way is 30 trillion miles or 5 light YEARS, no, you don't.
People really don't understand how space works. Which to be fair, is partly because it's never shown right in any sci fi film.
Space is really fucking empty. Like, hugely empty. Asteroid fields aren't like how you see on Trek and Star Wars. The asteroids are FAR apart. You could sail through one and never see a single rock. Same with nebulae. They cover light years and are an ultra fine gas, you aren't surrounded by purple clouds and lightning.
Minor nitpick- people constantly underrate Impulse engines. They are much, much, faster than 25% of Lightspeed-
Warp is faster and much more efficient than Impulse at FTL speeds, but there are many, many examples in TOS (and subsequent series) with Impulse being implied or stated to be capable of lightspeed or a very very high fraction thereof.
Fan of both, but it's Star Trek by a lot. I'm having a hard time imagining any scenario where the Empire could defeat the Federation