If Star Trek and Star Wars fight, which side will win?

[The Borg Queen]

But when have you ever seen a telepathic (or telekinetic) Drone? Surely they must have assimilated Betazoids or some other species before?

They never USE any of the abilities of the people they assimilate, because that would make them plothole-breakingly powerful.

 

[Tomalak]

Probably because there won't be many assimilated Betazoids, and the noise from the collective mind would drown out the effectiveness. The Borg are more about assimilating ideas than physical attributes.

Oh, and Trek would probably win. The SW ships don't seem to have shields, or at least not very good ones. IIRC, one fighter destroyed Darth Vader's massive Star Destroyer in Return of the Jedi just by crashing into it. And it's not like they are up to their eyes in Death Stars.

 

[Unicron]

They do have shields, two specific types actually - particle shields, which protect against physical objects (including torpedoes) and ray shields, which protect against energy blasts. Particle shields are used most often, while ray shields are only used in combat because they have a higher energy drain. Trek shields seem to cover both areas.

The A-Wing that killed the Executor was a lucky strike. It was damaged and struck the bridge by accident, and the shields were already down because other fighters took out one of the shield domes a minute before. But that sort of suicide run would not have worked on a fully shielded Star Destroyer.

 

[jolau]

On the other hand, having such pronounced and visible shield generators on the bridge tower would make for a choice target for Federation weapons officers, then the bridge itself.

 

[UssHell]

^ To all the Borg lovers out there:
Even though the Cube in first contact has adapted to federation weapons, it still suffered massive damage even with shields adapted. So, my thoughts about Borg shielding is that: Borg shields can be adapted to a exact inverse freqency of the weapon, thus meaning alot less damage, but the shields takes some of the damage blast from the weapon. So, if a weapon was powerful enough (for example 100000 billion gigatons), even with borg adaptions, I would think that it is still possible to destroy a Borg cube. As the shields would be overloaded and the next shot thus disentagrate them.
For reflection of attacks, You still reqire evergy to run the reflection shields/deflector, as long as you keep on firing, sooner or later the primary matrix energy sorce will drain out, how fast it does depends on strengh of weapon. Then a overload will trigger in the Deflectors, damaging the Cube, then you just fire away at the defenceless cube.
So, im my opinion, the borg will not really be all that powerful in this war.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I wonder why that cube didn't fire that same weapon from "Q, Who?" that disolved the warp bubbles? What kind of effect would that have on shielding?

What if the cube kept a warp orbit around Earth and fired that and took out ships chasing it?

Or, if they really wanted to do us in, how come they just didn't fly it at full warp into Earth?

 

[Captain Intrepid]

My one comment is, can SW ships engage in combat at superluminal velocities?

 

[kv1at3485]

I'd just like to remind everyone that a distinction should be made between a technology's technical capability, and the capability that is actually used by the user. In universes such as these, it is useless to point to the former as 'what would happen' since the former, normally, far outstrips the latter.

 

[UssHell]

Tharpdevenport said:
I wonder why that cube didn't fire that same weapon from "Q, Who?" that disolved the warp bubbles? What kind of effect would that have on shielding?

What if the cube kept a warp orbit around Earth and fired that and took out ships chasing it?

Or, if they really wanted to do us in, how come they just didn't fly it at full warp into Earth?

Remember that warp velocities are very very hard to control and reqire extreamly precise computer calculations.

Also remember that you can only turn the ship very little at warp; any turn above a few degrees will result the ship thrown out of warp and possibly distruction - as Tom Paris once said (can't remember the episode, but it was the one where Kes come to take revenge on VOY: the Capt asked Tom: 'whats the first rule they teach you in warp mechanics?' and Tom said something about not being able to turn in warp).

So no the cube CAN not warp around the world, anyhow, even if it can, Federation ships won't even have to chase it, just fire a few hundred torpetos into the trajectory of the cube and watch it blow. Even so, the beam only destablises the warp field, worst case senario is the ship having to eject the core. Probably doesn't affect the shields at all.

Flying at warp into Earth would be very pointless, as warp is too slow, and a fleet would be assembled fast enough to stop the cube (most possibally). However, a good way would be to transwarp to Earth and then warp crash into it, but however, even with Earth destroyed, theres still over 150 planets (not including the moons, etc) in the Federation to be destroyed; not to mention the hundred of thousands of ships in the Federation; the Borg would consider it 'a pointless use of resourses', and we all know the Borg to well, they will never waste resourses on something they think can be done with alot less.

I mean, the attack in First Contact almost worked had it not have been for the efforts of the USS Enterprise - E, Who had to disobey a direct order to come to the battle scene.

 

[Deimos Anomaly]

Ah, the Executor destruction again. Held up as an example of Imperial vulnerability to physical impact, or a lack of shields.

Firstly: Why would these ships not have shields? All through SW, shields are referenced time and time again, they are seen at various points also, for example Anakin's fighter's shields in TPM which can be seen shimmering to life around the fighter in the hanger on board the droid control ship (and immediatel repel incoming weapons fire), also the personal shields of droidekas...

IN fact, shields formed major points of plot in several of the movies. In ROTJ, they had to send a special mission to deactivate the shield protecting the death star. In ANH, the shielding of the first death star was mentioned also.

In TPM, the attack on the Trade Federation vessel at naboo was going nowhere before Anakin entered the non-particle-shielded hangar doors, because the shields were too strong for the squads of starfighters attacking it.

What happened in ROTJ is explained further in novelisations and other printed materials, but should be deducable from studying the movie itself. Akbar ordered the entire rebel fleet to hammer the Executor. This included several very large and powerful Rebel capital vessels that were significantly larger and more powerful than standard Star Destroyers (but not individually as powerful as the Executor.)

After a sustained ship-to-ship barrage from these ships, the shielding protecting the Executor's bridge tower weakened enough for starfighters to get in and destroy the big globes atop the bridge. These globes serve a dual purpose, housing powerful sensor arrays, and also supporting shield generators for that entire area of the ship. In taking those out, the ship was both stripped of its bridge shields, and had its battle picture somewhat reduce by the loss of sensor data from the destroyed arrays.

When the crippled rebel fighter smashed through the bridge, control was temporarily lost, and the ship was pulled into the death star's considerable gravity well. Normally control would be transferred to an auxiliary bridge, but there was not enough time for this due to the proximity of the death star.

 

[Delta1]

I'd just like to point out that there's little reason to assume that the globes atop the KDY ships have a shield generating function. Only the LucasArts games and some older RPG material make that statement, IIRC, and I bet it was corrected when they brought Saxton onboard to do the cross-section books. It's more likely that the globes are targeting scanners; their destruction probably blinded the point-defense cannons near the conning tower, allowing Arvel Crynyd's A-wing to slip through.

I love the Battle of Endor. Almost every shot informs the audience of something tactically relevant -- disposition of the opposing fleets, commanders' intents, etc. But some of the subtler elements tend to be lost on the audience, leading to enduring myths like the shield generator globes or the super Ewoks.

 

[Deimos Anomaly]

Saxton's book has them as dual role sensor housings and mounts for the shield generators.

 

[Unicron]

^^No, they were definitely identified as shield generators in ROTJ. That is the only onscreen reference I can remember. And as far as I know, this has been supported by both a lot of offscreen material and by the official Star Wars website.

 

[JuanBolio]

TheMacMan said:
My one comment is, can SW ships engage in combat at superluminal velocities?

...and that's the winner right there, folks. Few seem to grasp it, but it all comes down to combat speed. The Empire has many significant advantages over the Federation, but when it comes down to starship combat star destroyers wallow like pigs at sublight speeds, while Federastion starships can streak by at warp 7, bombarding Imperial fleets with antimatter warheads. It'd be like a flotilla of wooden warships taking on a squadron of F-22's. The Empire has nothing that will touch a starfleet ship at warp.

 

[Kirby]

Star Trek has a reset button.

 

[McAvoy]

I personally never gave any kind of stock in what Curtis Saxton has to say about certain things about Star Wars. I mean he even wrote that the Acclamators had 200 Gigaton weapons on board. We have not seen anything of that sort of firepower in the movies short of the superlaser itself. He pulled that number out of his ass. It's like saying G2K saying that the Enterprise phasers are planet cracking weapons.

Though, I have no doubt that in a prolonged conflict Star Wars woudl win because it has an entire galaxy vs. the Federation's 150 worlds and possibly 1,000 other colony worlds. Hell, they managed to build two Death Stars which both have the volume of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Star Destroyers.

Though it should be noted that like Star Trek, Star Wars has it's ships mainly built at select shipyards. So the numbers should not be godly high like some fans believe.

Additionally, if the Star Wars Galaxy was the same size as Star Treks,then their hyperdrive is far, far, far faster than anyhting shown in Star Trek short of Warp 10.

 

[Jack Bauer]

JuanBolio said:

TheMacMan said:
My one comment is, can SW ships engage in combat at superluminal velocities?

...and that's the winner right there, folks. Few seem to grasp it, but it all comes down to combat speed. The Empire has many significant advantages over the Federation, but when it comes down to starship combat star destroyers wallow like pigs at sublight speeds, while Federastion starships can streak by at warp 7, bombarding Imperial fleets with antimatter warheads. It'd be like a flotilla of wooden warships taking on a squadron of F-22's. The Empire has nothing that will touch a starfleet ship at warp.

Interesting point that I've never really seen in an SW vs. ST discussion. Thanks.

 

[Delta1]

Unicron said:
^^No, they were definitely identified as shield generators in ROTJ.

No, they definitely weren't. Not in the movie. Not by the people who made the movie. Not in the novelization.

McAvoy said:
I personally never gave any kind of stock in what Curtis Saxton has to say about certain things about Star Wars. I mean he even wrote that the Acclamators had 200 Gigaton weapons on board. We have not seen anything of that sort of firepower in the movies short of the superlaser itself. He pulled that number out of his ass. It's like saying G2K saying that the Enterprise phasers are planet cracking weapons.

Saxton's estimate for the maximum firepower of Republic/Imperial weaponry is based on EU statements about "Base Delta Zero" operations, the destruction of worlds using regular warships. More conservative estimates, based solely on the ESB asteroid belt scene, suggest the lesser weapons on an ISD can sustain fire with 0.6GT per shot. (The larger weapons, presumably used for bombardment and not the careful destruction of selected asteroids, would be much stronger.)

JuanBolio said:

...and that's the winner right there, folks. Few seem to grasp it, but it all comes down to combat speed. The Empire has many significant advantages over the Federation, but when it comes down to starship combat star destroyers wallow like pigs at sublight speeds, while Federastion starships can streak by at warp 7, bombarding Imperial fleets with antimatter warheads. It'd be like a flotilla of wooden warships taking on a squadron of F-22's. The Empire has nothing that will touch a starfleet ship at warp.

Your analogy falls apart when you characterize Starfleet vessels as F-22's [sic] and Imperial vessels as wooden warships. A better comparison might be ... I don't know ... supersonic mosquitoes vs. Nimitz-class aircraft carriers? The mosquito might be able to sneak in and deliver a malarial infection, but once the crew of the Nimitz realizes they're under attack, they spray a little DEET and all is right again.

 

[JuanBolio]

Delta1 said:
A better comparison might be ... I don't know ... supersonic mosquitoes vs. Nimitz-class aircraft carriers? The mosquito might be able to sneak in and deliver a malarial infection, but once the crew of the Nimitz realizes they're under attack, they spray a little DEET and all is right again.

Mosquitoes armed with multi-megaton FTL antimatter torpedoes, perhaps...

Since you seem to have a different opinion, please tell us how a star destroyer would successfully combat a starship making warp-strafing runs. I'd love to know.

Delta1 said:
Saxton's estimate for the maximum firepower of Republic/Imperial weaponry is based on EU statements about "Base Delta Zero" operations, the destruction of worlds using regular warships. More conservative estimates, based solely on the ESB asteroid belt scene, suggest the lesser weapons on an ISD can sustain fire with 0.6GT per shot. (The larger weapons, presumably used for bombardment and not the careful destruction of selected asteroids, would be much stronger.)

...yes, and Star Trek, ON SCREEN, showed a combined Romulan/Cardassian fleet laying waste to 27% of the planetary crust of an M-class planet with their opening volley. Both franchises' weapons seem to take on all the power of pea shooters when dealing with ship-to-ship combat, though.

Even if an ISD can shoot gigaton-level turbolaser blasts, it would still never be able to target or hit a Starfleet vessel at warp. The only option would be to flip on the hyperdrive and retreat.

 

[McAvoy]

Saxton's estimate for the maximum firepower of Republic/Imperial weaponry is based on EU statements about "Base Delta Zero" operations, the destruction of worlds using regular warships. More conservative estimates, based solely on the ESB asteroid belt scene, suggest the lesser weapons on an ISD can sustain fire with 0.6GT per shot. (The larger weapons, presumably used for bombardment and not the careful destruction of selected asteroids, would be much stronger.)

Uhhh, based on the asteriod scene alone. The weapons are low kiloton weapons. Not much greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima.

If you want a comparison, most would agree than photon torpedoes have a yield of around 20 to 100 megatons. Phasers are roughly 10 to 20% of the power of the photon torpedo. So that can vary from 1 megaton to 20 megaton phasers.

But again, Star Trek and Star Wars take on the firepower of cannon balls.