Federation vs Empire

[JRoss]

I submitted this to the stardestoyer.net forums, but I'm posting here, too, since those forums require mod approval on posts and I'm not sure they'll approve what they don't want to hear.

I'm curious about this. It seems that yes, the ships of the Empire are faster than those of the Federation, but from what we've seen on-screen, that seems to be the only edge that the Empire has.

Consider:
-The Federation and its neighbors have demonstrated the ability to reliably engage in time-travel on multiple occasions. This includes an episode of TOS, Star Trek IV, Trials and Tribbleations and Endgame.*
-The Federation has teleportation technology.
-The Federation and energy-to-matter conversion technology.
-The Federation has cloaking devices and the means to detect cloaked ships. The Empire may have cloaks, as evidenced by Piett's line in ESB about cloaking devices, but it's certainly clear that the Imperial fleet does not use them, or they would have done so before the Battle of Hoth and that if they had the means to detect a cloak then Piett would have ordered them to do so when they lost the Millenium Falcon from view.*
-An episode of The Next Generation showed an engineer who created a ridiculous method of space travel that made a "subspace wave" or whatever that went out of control. It was stated that the wave would have destroyed any planets in its path. The Enterprise came up with a way to dissipate the wave at the end of the episode. Any Starfleet capital ship would be capable of deploying and dissipating the wave as a weapon. That would easily take out or disable a Death Star.*
-The Enterprise from TOS is capable of incinerating the crust of a planet on its own. I believe the name of the episode where this is mentioned is "The Armageddon Factor." The Imperial flagship Executor was incapable of destroying the Hoth Echo Base from orbit. If you are thinking about the Rebel shield, see the next entry.
-The Hoth Echo Base shield is able to be penetrated by ground vehicles. Starfleet shields are capable of deflecting incoming attack ships. In the episode Preemptive Strike, the only way a small fighter was able to pierce the shields and get close to the Enterprise was that Enterprise allowed them in.
-A point could be made that in regards to the Second Death Star's shield. That shield was delivered by a planet-based facility. If the Empire had the technology to equip the Death Star with its own energy shield then they would have done so, but neither Death Star was so equipped. The conclusion is that Starfleet shields are stronger and more economical.
-The Federation defeated the Dominion in battle. There is no conceivable scenario in which the Federation would fail to demand and receive the Dominion's invasive transporter technology, which is capable of beaming through shields.
-In Endgame, Voyager comes back home with advanced technology that allows them to destroy Borg ships with little effort. Such technology is only 20 years ahead of Voyager's time so there is little doubt that if the crew of Voyager could adapt it to their own ship so quickly, then Starfleet would waste no time in upgrading the fleet.
-Yes, the Empire has Death Star technology. However, the Empire only has ever had one Death Star at a time, never a fleet. As the Death Star would be vulnerable to the subspace wave above, the point is moot.

*The asterisk-marked entries are all illegal in the Federation. However, Star Trek VI, Star Trek Insurrection and the episodes The Drumhead, Homefront and Paradise lost all show that Starfleet has many people in it's chain of command who are perfectly willing to contravene existing laws for the sake of victory in battle.

I like both Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm simply puzzled over the fact that many people assume that the Empire would destroy the Federation when the Federation clearly has superior technology.

 

[captcalhoun]

the Death Star I does have shields. the X-Wings experience 'turbulance' when tehy cross the Death Star's shields and it's also said that the thermal exhaust port is ray shielded, which is why they have to fire a proton torpedo down the port.

 

[JRoss]

Yes, but the shielding tech is different. The x-wings cannot cross the shields of the second Death Star. That specific tech is obviously not feasible on-board a ship or facility, or the Empire would have put it on the second Death Star in the first place, rather than placing it on a vulnerable ground facility.

 

[sojourner]

Jeff Goldblum with an I-Mac would destroy everyone and name himself Emperor of the combined Federation and Empire.

 

[JRoss]

^So true.

 

[Distorted Humor]

Jeff Goldblum with an I-Mac would destroy everyone and name himself Emperor of the combined Federation and Empire.

^ thread win...

 

[Christopher]

-The Federation and its neighbors have demonstrated the ability to reliably engage in time-travel on multiple occasions. This includes an episode of TOS, Star Trek IV, Trials and Tribbleations and Endgame.*

The time travel in "Trials" was courtesy of a hyper-advanced (or supernatural, depending on whom you ask) alien artifact, the Bajoran Orb of Time. The time travel in "Endgame" was initiated from the early 25th century, decades after the timeframe of Voyager. There are only a few recorded instances of starships intentionally and successfully using the slingshot (or "lightspeed breakaway") maneuver for time travel, which isn't enough to prove reliability. If anything, it stands to reason that those are rare flukes, otherwise anyone with a starship could screw up history on a whim and the timeline would be a total mess. (For more discussion, see my recent novel Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock.)

-The Federation has cloaking devices and the means to detect cloaked ships. The Empire may have cloaks, as evidenced by Piett's line in ESB about cloaking devices, but it's certainly clear that the Imperial fleet does not use them, or they would have done so before the Battle of Hoth and that if they had the means to detect a cloak then Piett would have ordered them to do so when they lost the Millenium Falcon from view.*

Since we're dealing with different universes, the usage of the phrase "cloaking device" may not be consistent. I think I've seen at least one fictional instance of the term being used to refer to a form of sensor countermeasure that still left a craft (or person?) visible.

-An episode of The Next Generation showed an engineer who created a ridiculous method of space travel that made a "subspace wave" or whatever that went out of control.

Not entirely ridiculous (though the choice of visual effect certainly was). It was based in a real physical principle, a soliton wave. A soliton is a standing wave that's constrained from dissipating and thus can continue for a long time, like Jupiter's Red Spot or a light pulse in a fiber optic cable. A self-constraining soliton is rather less likely, but not entirely out of the question.

-The Enterprise from TOS is capable of incinerating the crust of a planet on its own. I believe the name of the episode where this is mentioned is "The Armageddon Factor."

"A Taste of Armageddon." And the specific reference was that "the entire inhabited surface" of the planet, specifically "all cities and installations," would be destroyed.

-The Federation defeated the Dominion in battle. There is no conceivable scenario in which the Federation would fail to demand and receive the Dominion's invasive transporter technology, which is capable of beaming through shields.

The Federation did not defeat the Dominion. The Dominion had the decided advantage in actual battle, but Odo convinced the Founders to halt their aggression and leave the Alpha Quadrant alone in exchange for his return and a cure for the disease that was ravaging them. The Dominion was not conquered by the Federation; they simply chose to halt their own campaign of conquest and return home. The Federation had no actual power to impose any demands on them.

-In Endgame, Voyager comes back home with advanced technology that allows them to destroy Borg ships with little effort. Such technology is only 20 years ahead of Voyager's time so there is little doubt that if the crew of Voyager could adapt it to their own ship so quickly, then Starfleet would waste no time in upgrading the fleet.

We don't know for certain that the transphasic torpedoes were fundamentally more powerful than existing technology, simply that they were harder for the Borg to adapt to. They were designed specifically as anti-Borg weapons, so we can't make assumptions about their applicability in other scenarios. As for the ablative armor, that was simply a bad idea all around. Dense physical armor around a ship would diminish its ability to shed waste heat, limit its maneuverability and sensors, and actually pose a serious risk of irradiating the crew from secondary particle cascades in the armor material if it were struck by a high-energy beam or projectile. Logically, its only value was as something the Borg hadn't already adapted to, and if they hadn't seen it before, it must be because nobody else was stupid or desperate enough to use it. (And the Borg did adapt to it during the episode, rendering it useless as a Borg defense thereafter.)

I like both Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm simply puzzled over the fact that many people assume that the Empire would destroy the Federation when the Federation clearly has superior technology.

Well, it's fiction. Ultimately, whatever the alleged specifications, a fictional weapon or defense is only as good as the story needs it to be. A new weapon that's ultra-powerful when it's introduced, like quantum torpedoes or the Power Rangers' latest Zord or armor enhancement, will generally be no better than the previous weapons by the next episode. Photon torpedoes are supposed to be antimatter warheads, far more powerful than nuclear weapons, but they're generally shown to have little more power than artillery shells (or less, like in Star Trek V when a torpedo went off only a few meters behind Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and they were completely unharmed). And of course the potential galaxy-changing superweapons like Genesis or the soliton wave are conveniently forgotten for the sake of maintaining the status quo.

So really, there's no way to break it down objectively. Whether the Federation or the Empire would win is entirely dependent on what the storyteller needs to happen. The fix is automatically in.

 

[JRoss]

We don't know for certain that the transphasic torpedoes were fundamentally more powerful than existing technology, simply that they were harder for the Borg to adapt to. They were designed specifically as anti-Borg weapons, so we can't make assumptions about their applicability in other scenarios. As for the ablative armor, that was simply a bad idea all around. Dense physical armor around a ship would diminish its ability to shed waste heat, limit its maneuverability and sensors, and actually pose a serious risk of irradiating the crew from secondary particle cascades in the armor material if it were struck by a high-energy beam or projectile. Logically, its only value was as something the Borg hadn't already adapted to, and if they hadn't seen it before, it must be because nobody else was stupid or desperate enough to use it. (And the Borg did adapt to it during the episode, rendering it useless as a Borg defense thereafter.)

I'd posit that judging by the mass-destruction of the Borg cube done by the trans-phasic torpedoes versus the photon torpedoes against which the Borg had not adapted in "Q, Who?" then the trans-phasics are significantly more powerful.

I agree that the armor at least looked hideous and as a plot device was terrible, but you'll have to show me how, in the nearly-none-existent gravity of space denser armor will slow you down enough to make a difference in a fight.

As to taking Dominion tech, sorry, but that's what winners do. Especially if Klingons and Romulans are among those winners. Not to mention that Starfleet had fairly-intact Dominion ships captured, and Dominion bases which utilized neutronium armor.

 

[JRoss]

Ugh, so that mod-approval thing at stardestroyer.net let me post my arguments, but so far not my responses to the counter-arguments. Funny.

Yes, the soliton wave was generated by a planetary facility, yadda yadda yadda, but watch Nemesis, subspace weapons are pretty easy to deploy on starships if a few mercenaries can get their hands on them. Trek ships can cause novae pretty much at will and the various planet-destroying torpedoes.

Mean-time, a bunch of guys get to respond with variations of "lol techbabble" while I don't get to point out that what they are doing is excluding Trek's on-screen canon by saying techbabble, while I am including all of Star Wars' on-screen canon respectfully.

 

[Christopher]

I agree that the armor at least looked hideous and as a plot device was terrible, but you'll have to show me how, in the nearly-none-existent gravity of space denser armor will slow you down enough to make a difference in a fight.

The more massive an object is, the more inertia it has, and thus the more resistance to acceleration. Also, being covered by armor kind of leaves you without holes to fire your thrusters through.

Not to mention that the armor was materialized and repaired by some kind of replicator technology, which would demand a lot of power and put a drain on the ship's systems.

As to taking Dominion tech, sorry, but that's what winners do. Especially if Klingons and Romulans are among those winners.

But my point is that the Federation didn't win. The Dominion ceded the fight and went home. That's a very different thing. The Dominion still had the advantage of raw power and the Federation wouldn't have been able to force them to do anything.

Not to mention that Starfleet had fairly-intact Dominion ships captured, and Dominion bases which utilized neutronium armor.

Leaving aside the total nonsense of "neutronium armor" (if it were genuine neutronium, it would either sink to the core of the planet or explode lethally due to a lack of sufficient pressure to maintain degeneracy), the Federation already had access to other artifacts using "neutronium" -- the corpse of the Doomsday Machine and the "Relics" Dyson Sphere.

As for the captured ships, okay, but the technology to beam through shields is probably a temporary advantage, just until someone develops better shields. There's probably an ongoing arms race between transporters and shields to defeat each other, just as there's implicitly an ongoing arms race between cloaking devices and sensors (since we've repeatedly seen cloaks penetrated in one story yet still be effective years or decades later, indicating that cloaking technology is continually improved and updated). Again I cite "Relics," where the Enterprise's 24th-century transporters easily penetrated the Jenolan's 23rd-century shields. (Technically this was a plot error, but it's easily explained due to the difference in the levels of technology.)

 

[Solariabsg25]

Mean-time, a bunch of guys get to respond with variations of "lol techbabble" while I don't get to point out that what they are doing is excluding Trek's on-screen canon by saying techbabble, while I am including all of Star Wars' on-screen canon respectfully.

Unfortunately, the site is a little too Wars-biased, where moon-sized space stations and planet-destroying superlasers are fine, but they argue that phasers cannot disintegrate a person.

At the end of the day, the techs are so very different to make comparisons meaningless. Do Star Wars shields work the same as Trek? If not, it could be that Super-Stardestroyer is easy meat for photons.

Besides the Andromeda Ascendant would have them all for breakfast - forget kilometres, she measures combat ranges in light-minutes!!

 

[Davros]

Star Fleet ships fight at warp speed. Game over for the Empire.

 

[exodus]

-The Federation and its neighbors have demonstrated the ability to reliably engage in time-travel on multiple occasions. This includes an episode of TOS, Star Trek IV, Trials and Tribbleations and Endgame.*

The time travel in "Trials" was courtesy of a hyper-advanced (or supernatural, depending on whom you ask) alien artifact, the Bajoran Orb of Time. The time travel in "Endgame" was initiated from the early 25th century, decades after the timeframe of Voyager. There are only a few recorded instances of starships intentionally and successfully using the slingshot (or "lightspeed breakaway") maneuver for time travel, which isn't enough to prove reliability. If anything, it stands to reason that those are rare flukes, otherwise anyone with a starship could screw up history on a whim and the timeline would be a total mess. (For more discussion, see my recent novel Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock.)

-The Federation has cloaking devices and the means to detect cloaked ships. The Empire may have cloaks, as evidenced by Piett's line in ESB about cloaking devices, but it's certainly clear that the Imperial fleet does not use them, or they would have done so before the Battle of Hoth and that if they had the means to detect a cloak then Piett would have ordered them to do so when they lost the Millenium Falcon from view.*

Since we're dealing with different universes, the usage of the phrase "cloaking device" may not be consistent. I think I've seen at least one fictional instance of the term being used to refer to a form of sensor countermeasure that still left a craft (or person?) visible.




Not entirely ridiculous (though the choice of visual effect certainly was). It was based in a real physical principle, a soliton wave. A soliton is a standing wave that's constrained from dissipating and thus can continue for a long time, like Jupiter's Red Spot or a light pulse in a fiber optic cable. A self-constraining soliton is rather less likely, but not entirely out of the question.




"A Taste of Armageddon." And the specific reference was that "the entire inhabited surface" of the planet, specifically "all cities and installations," would be destroyed.




The Federation did not defeat the Dominion. The Dominion had the decided advantage in actual battle, but Odo convinced the Founders to halt their aggression and leave the Alpha Quadrant alone in exchange for his return and a cure for the disease that was ravaging them. The Dominion was not conquered by the Federation; they simply chose to halt their own campaign of conquest and return home. The Federation had no actual power to impose any demands on them.

-In Endgame, Voyager comes back home with advanced technology that allows them to destroy Borg ships with little effort. Such technology is only 20 years ahead of Voyager's time so there is little doubt that if the crew of Voyager could adapt it to their own ship so quickly, then Starfleet would waste no time in upgrading the fleet.

We don't know for certain that the transphasic torpedoes were fundamentally more powerful than existing technology, simply that they were harder for the Borg to adapt to. They were designed specifically as anti-Borg weapons, so we can't make assumptions about their applicability in other scenarios. As for the ablative armor, that was simply a bad idea all around. Dense physical armor around a ship would diminish its ability to shed waste heat, limit its maneuverability and sensors, and actually pose a serious risk of irradiating the crew from secondary particle cascades in the armor material if it were struck by a high-energy beam or projectile. Logically, its only value was as something the Borg hadn't already adapted to, and if they hadn't seen it before, it must be because nobody else was stupid or desperate enough to use it. (And the Borg did adapt to it during the episode, rendering it useless as a Borg defense thereafter.)

Agreed on all this.

Well done, Christopher.

 

[exodus]

Star Fleet ships fight at warp speed. Game over for the Empire.

The Empire employees spies & saboteurs.
Later goodie two-shoes & morally upstading Starfleet.

 

[The Badger]

Yes, but the shielding tech is different. The x-wings cannot cross the shields of the second Death Star. That specific tech is obviously not feasible on-board a ship or facility, or the Empire would have put it on the second Death Star in the first place, rather than placing it on a vulnerable ground facility.

The second Death Star was still under construction when the Rebel fleet attacked. The ground based facility would provide security before it became self sufficient.

True, the Emperor boasted that the battle station was 'fully operational' but he was trying to erode Luke's morale at the time. As we know the first DS, plus numerous other vessels, have shields, it's reasonable to expect DS2 to have them.

 

[JRoss]

Yeah, they had shields, but not the same kind as the ground-based shield. X-wings pass through DS1 shields with some bumpity-bumps. Things go zzzkt! and die against DS2's shield. I'm saying that if they could have mounted that kind of thing on the Death Star then they would have.

 

[Admiral2]

I like both Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm simply puzzled over the fact that many people assume that the Empire would destroy the Federation when the Federation clearly has superior technology.

The Empire has superior numbers and a superior military doctrine: Kill all who don't submit and break their stuff. The Federation is defended by scientists and philosophers flying glorified space shuttles. In a knock-down drag-out fight between the two, I'd pick the Empire to win every single time.

"If the war for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win."

-Thomas Sowell

 

[JRoss]

Oh, yeah the Feds did win. Founders all sick and dying and them controlling the wormhole equals winning.

 

[exodus]

Oh, yeah the Feds did win. Founders all sick and dying and them controlling the wormhole equals winning.

Wouldn't the non-aggression treaty they both sign indicate neither side won nor lost but rather they both called "Truce". Much like the treaty's signed to create the Neutral Zone & The Demiliterized Zone.

 

[HAL.9000]

I think in the evolution of things, we on earth would go through an "empire" phase of technology before we reach the "Federation" phase.

Empire is a horse driven carriage.
Federation is a car.