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

[Unicron]

Delta1 said:
No, they definitely weren't. Not in the movie. Not by the people who made the movie. Not in the novelization.

In ROTJ, there's a scene where two A-Wings blow up one of the domes on the Executor's bridge module. This is followed immediately by an officer on the bridge saying the shields are damaged, and then followed by the runaway A-Wing crashing into the bridge. It seems plain that the whole point of having this dialogue follow the shot of the dome being blown up is to demonstrate that those domes are the shield generators.

And the website, which is maintained by the studio and the people who have worked on the saga in different capacities, disagrees with you. Here is the first paragraph of what I linked to:

The Super Star Destroyer is one of the largest, most powerful Imperial vessels ever created. It follows the same basic dagger-shaped design of the Imperial-class Star Destroyers, but magnified to much larger scale. A smooth hull presents an arrowhead shaped profiled when viewed from above. Resting in the center of this hull is an "island" of habitable volume. Weapons emplacements bristle on the layered city-like surface. The trapezoidal command tower stands near the aft end of this island, capped with two geodesic communication and deflection domes. The underside is a busy network of engineering and superstructure. Thirteen colossal engine thrusters glow blood red as they push the immense craft through space.

Bolding mine. This agrees with what was posted earlier about the domes being sensor/shield units. If you can provide another explanation of what they do, and back that up with something from the movies or a production person, then I'll reconsider.

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.

Not really analogous. The key advantage a Trek ship would have is the ability to fight while going FTL, which is not possible with the hyperdrive in Star Wars. It relies on a preprogrammed set of coordinates to avoid any hazards en route. So you've got a ship at sublight, which is already slow in the case of Star Destroyers and many other large SW ships, trying to fight a ship that's attacking it at warp (FTL) speed.

Picture the Nimitz having lost its engines, and trying to fight a superior number of bombers or a group of smaller, faster warships. The Nimitz has better armor, and some offensive power so long as it still has aircraft, but without engines it's at a serious disadvantage.

The same advantage * might * be true against a B5 ship, since it's not clear how B5 hyperspace reacts to combat. I'm not really sure.

 

[kv1at3485]

I don't know why the whole 'warp attack against sublight targets' is even an issue. After TOS, there are no such incidences of that occurring. Even in situations where it would have been very wise (and smart) for the combatants to do so.

The same can be said of any strategy using warp drive to 'jump' in and out of combat.

No, regardless of top speed or acceleration or whatever, battles would degenerate into the brawls we have come to know so well with everybody well capable of hitting everybody else.

(This is what I meant by that practically speaking we can only judge the usefulness of the technology by how the users are likely to use it.)

 

[McAvoy]

One of the biggest advantages that hyperdrive equipped ships have is that it needs a pre-programmed route. This means the Star Wars ships when they first come to the Trek universe cannot move anywhere until they at least figure out a route in which to engage their hyperdrive. Even then that might not be the route in which to make a tatical move against the Trek universe.

 

[kv1at3485]

The problem encountered by a hyperdrive trying to go a long distance in one go in a new locale would be no different than that of a really fast warp drive trying to do the same thing.

The reason why warp drive is 'chart as you go' is because it's somewhat slower. There's time to react to new 'geography'.

Using a hyperdrive in an 'uncharted' volume does drastically reduce its effective speed, simply because many short hops need to be employed.

 

[McAvoy]

As far as I know it would be alot of short hops almost instanteous hops to accomplish this.

 

[Unicron]

^^ It's hard to say whether it's slower, really. It would seem that the SW hyperdrive is less flexible, since it relies on preprogrammed coordinates. It's somewhat like how B5 ships rely on hyperspace beacons while traveling through their version of hyperspace, because it's filled with energy currents and because it has no recognizable features for navigation.

 

[McAvoy]

That may be true. But they would either need extremely short hops which as far as I know they don't have the sensor capability to pre-program the exit.

As soon as they figure the basic routes they should be good.

 

[JuanBolio]

kv1at3485 said:
I don't know why the whole 'warp attack against sublight targets' is even an issue. After TOS, there are no such incidences of that occurring.

So... you think Starfleet just can't do it anymore?

 

[Balthier the Great]

I voted Star Wars, but I think if we we're going to do every SF universe, Dune would win. A civilization that spans the galaxy, can fold space, and can see the future would beat either one.

 

[kv1at3485]

That's about the gist of it. Capability ('what the technology is able of') does not match Intention ('what the user is mentally able of'). In simpler terms: user incompetence is to blame. (This is not an uncommon theme in Star Trek, or Star Wars for that matter, or most other space opera...)

Although like so many brainbugs, this one is by no means limited to Starfleet (which does sort of destroy the notion of Starfleet being, or a child of an 'enlightened' organization). Apparently Star Trek's Milky Way is filled with equally clueless individuals.

---

BalthierTheGreat said:
Dune would win. A civilization that spans the galaxy, can fold space, and can see the future would beat either one.

If it was all scifi (and assuming one generously labels ST and SW as such), Dune doesn't even begin to approach the heavy weights of the scifi arena.

Although, ironically, if Star Trek were to get its act together it too could enter that august group.

 

[Squiggy]

BalthierTheGreat said:
I voted Star Wars, but I think if we we're going to do every SF universe, Dune would win. A civilization that spans the galaxy, can fold space, and can see the future would beat either one.

Q

Hello?

 

[Balthier the Great]

Q isn't a starfleet captain. He was breifly, but only when he lost his powers, so I don't think you can count on Q to help the Trekverse much. He seemed mostly interested in causing trouble, not helping.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Jack Bauer said:
Don't they use lasers in Star Wars? Lasers can't penetrate Federation shields. And don't give me the turbolaser crap...they're still lasers.

And I said I wouldn't get involved.

That's what I always thought. The Death Star is awesome and Super Star Destroyers look cool, but I always imagined that the Enterprise-D could take out anything the Star Wars universe had. Though admittedly we can't know what exactly "turbolasers" are.

But the fact still remains that one sensor sweep of the Death Star would determine its weakness. Then Riker would take the "manual steering column" at helm , fly in there and one photon torpedo would do the trick.

And that site linked to above is suspect. I highly doubt that Boba Fett's wimpy ship-ette could stand one phaser blast, let alone outgun the Ent-D.

 

[Unicron]

Why should we assume that all lasers would fail, though? That's never been established. All that was established in a few TNG eps is that primitive lasers would be ineffective. For that matter, how much difference is there, damage wise, between a military laser (as we'd see in SW and many other sci-fi series) and a Trek phaser or disruptor?

This is one of the reasons I don't participate in this sort of thing much. There are way too many assumptions involved, and too many overzealous fans on all sides who don't always make reasonable arguments (i.e. "the Death Star would be useless against the Trek universe because the Borg could just adapt!" )

And if you're referring to links from Stardestroyer.net, all of it is suspect. It's run by a guy who's very intelligent and has engineering experience, but who's also a rabid SW fan and always does his best to give it an unfair advantage in any cross-universe battles.

 

[sttngfan1701d]

Unicron said:
Why should we assume that all lasers would fail, though? That's never been established. All that was established in a few TNG eps is that primitive lasers would be ineffective. For that matter, how much difference is there, damage wise, between a military laser (as we'd see in SW and many other sci-fi series) and a Trek phaser or disruptor?

This is one of the reasons I don't participate in this sort of thing much. There are way too many assumptions involved, and too many overzealous fans on all sides who don't always make reasonable arguments (i.e. "the Death Star would be useless against the Trek universe because the Borg could just adapt!" )

And if you're referring to links from Stardestroyer.net, all of it is suspect. It's run by a guy who's very intelligent and has engineering experience, but who's also a rabid SW fan and always does his best to give it an unfair advantage in any cross-universe battles.

I don't participate in these discussions much either. But regarding phasers vs. lasers, I always assumed that the former were superior. The TNG Tech Manual states that phasers were "developed to replace pure EM devices such as the laser, and particle beam accelerators." Now you're right when you say that we have no idea how different military lasers are (like the "turbolaser" ones in SW), but I have always taken the view that Phasers are inherently superior. Not because of a bias toward Trek per se, but because the writers could have equipped the Trek ships with lasers (like every other Sci-Fi series) but they didn't, and they went so far as to say why.

Regrding the Death Star and the Borg, um....I think it's reasonable that the Death Star could take out a planet, a Cube would be no problem. But more cubes certainly would. And Star Destroyers would be in trouble against the Jem Hadar, as they would take out the shields first and then do suicide attacks against the relatibely immobile SD.

But any of the big, thick laser beams in the Star Wars universe look nasty and probably pack a punch. You just don't see them used often.

 

[Patrickivan]

The Rebellion won. Now everyone can just get along! No star wars, just star peace!

 

[sttngfan1701d]

No star wars, just star peace!

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I still think that the only way to properly compare the two is on the only truly measureable element... the relative quality of the bad-acting. In which case, SW has the "Death Star" of bad acting, whereas Star Trek has a flotilla of "Light Cruisers" of bad acting.

But lest we forget, Star Wars also has a secret weapon... Jar Jar Binks. When you can't get a HUMAN actor to be as bad as you want... create one digitally!

Jar Jar is the equivalent of a universe-destroying temporal anomaly. And since Jar Jar wasn't defeated (and they DID defeat their own equivalent thing in "All Good Things...") I guess Star Trek wins. Or, is that loses...? Oh hell, I can't figure it all out!

 

[Unicron]

sttngfan1701d said:

I don't participate in these discussions much either. But regarding phasers vs. lasers, I always assumed that the former were superior. The TNG Tech Manual states that phasers were "developed to replace pure EM devices such as the laser, and particle beam accelerators." Now you're right when you say that we have no idea how different military lasers are (like the "turbolaser" ones in SW), but I have always taken the view that Phasers are inherently superior. Not because of a bias toward Trek per se, but because the writers could have equipped the Trek ships with lasers (like every other Sci-Fi series) but they didn't, and they went so far as to say why.

Yeah, but the main reason the term "phaser" was invented was because they didn't want to use lasers in TOS. Lasers were the generic weapon used by every sci-fi movie or TV in existence. At the time, it had nothing to do with the phasers being more powerful than a ray gun.

Course, I do tend to think that they're more powerful in some regards. I just try to be very careful about the conclusions I draw when I look at eps.

Regrding the Death Star and the Borg, um....I think it's reasonable that the Death Star could take out a planet, a Cube would be no problem. But more cubes certainly would. And Star Destroyers would be in trouble against the Jem Hadar, as they would take out the shields first and then do suicide attacks against the relatibely immobile SD.

I agree. Multiple Borg vessels would be a problem for the Death Star, and although I'm less sure about the Jem'Hadar having superiority against the shields (as the Feds and their allies were able to improve their shields since the Odyssey was destroyed), the Star Destroyers would definitely be vulnerable to suicide runs.

 

[Beyonder]

Assuming they can get their hands on star charts

Star Destroyers en masse hyperspace to a Fedeeration Planet and begining attacking it, Starfleet calls for assistance and a fleet of Federation Starships warp as fast as they can go, taking days or weeks depending on where they are, Star Destroyers then Hyperspace away to another planet and continue.

They can keep this up and starfleet can never catch them and is takes 70 years to travel 70,000 light years, whereas it takes days for Hyperspace capable ships. After all it IS a Galactic state with Coruscant at the core worlds and Tatooine in the ass end of the Galaxy.