re: Star Wars vs. Star Trek in a battle for all the marbles...who wins?

I have to give the edge to Star Wars on this.

Regarding technology: as stated, hyperspace travel is FAR faster than warp travel. Empire can engage in hit-n-run attacks, engaging totally on their terms, as to where and when they want to fight. They also have extreme numbers on their side. Those two factors alone would allow for luring any Trek capital ships out away from preferred targets, and then blitz that target.

Also regarding tech- when the Falcon disappears in ESB (hiding on the back of the hull), the captain mumbles something about that ship being too small to have a cloaking device. That statement confirms that SW has cloaking; that big ships can be cloaked; and based on the battles we have witnessed, cloaking is a tech that has been determined not very useful (since they don't use it).
I guess the ability to quickly drop in and out of the scene literally with hyperspace drives has trumped the ability to hide... cloaking is useless once you take a shot and reveal your position, unless you destroy the majority of the opposing force with that first shot. You won't do that with an Imperial battle group with hundreds of fighters; you expose your position and the Imperials will flood the battle with a ton of ships. The longer the battle stays, the more the Empire can quickly throw into the fray.

Star Trek has not shown much of an answer to the Star Wars fighter squadrons; in DS9, the Federation capital ships had trouble hitting the smaller Jem H'Dar ships, and one was destroyed by a kamikaze run.
In ST Beyond, they had a lot of trouble dealing with a swarm of fighter-sized ships, and had to resort to jamming the communications.

For any ground-fighting, the transporters would aide Star Trek in mobilizing movements, but it seems limited in the quantity of troops they could quickly move. To offset that, Star Wars has the large Imperial forces, and if they so desire, they could likely reopen the battle droid factories in a few months. Might not take them much longer to bring the clones back online too. With such a large and fast-moving fleet, that gives Star Wars huge offensive invasion capability, you simply swamp the defending Star Trek forces with numbers, and focus on taking out the transporter platforms. Once that occurs, there's no chance to handle it.

Not going to go into the Q and other such entities in Star Trek, other than to say I would imagine the Force might have an as-yet-unseen counter, possibly Force sentience at a metaphysical level that could match the Q Continuum. That seems totally plausible, considering the Force seems to be playing with the lower (mortal) lifeforms in Star Wars throughout the series, with the Light and Dark Sides playing chess over the milleniums.

On a more political side, I wouldn't trust the Klingons or Romulans a whole lot, if I were the Federation fighting the Empire. Seems like the Klingons in particular would be fairly receptive to the Dark Side... Vader might become their new hero-warrior, and then you have switching alliances.

quote:

---

In First Contact, the Federation musters a fleet of a dozen or so ships against the invading Borg. I just don't think the Federation has what it takes with withstand an Imperial fleet.

---

All of this gets thrown out the window for the Federation / Dominion wars in DS9. Thousands of ships are involved in those battles.

quote:

---

Has anyone mentioned how the Empire never remembers to put a cover on the hole in the Death Star that will allow it to be destroy with a single shot?

---

Personally if I were in charge of Imperial weapons research I would have vetoed the Death Star projects. For the amount of money they poured in you could probably have hundreds of thousands of more star destroyers, super star destroyers, and fighters instead.

quote:

---

the republic/sith armies still fought with swords

---

They have vibro blades, yes, but Sith and Jedi have light sabers in KOTOR.

TOR took a "film model" approach because they were targeting a larger audience. Makes sense. That said, I'm not referring to the "look" of things. I'm referring to the weapons using the same projectiles, lightsabers are still around, hyper space travel is still pretty much the same speed, etc. There's a serious drop off in the speed of innovation.

quote:

---

They have vibro blades, yes, but Sith and Jedi have light sabers in KOTOR.

---

Yeah but you know what I'm saying.

quote:

---

TOR took a "film model" approach because they were targeting a larger audience. Makes sense. That said, I'm not referring to the "look" of things. I'm referring to the weapons using the same projectiles, lightsabers are still around, hyper space travel is still pretty much the same speed, etc. There's a serious drop off in the speed of innovation.

---

I understand, but I think KOTOR took a film model approach as well, but they were able to do it with much more nuance.

In the comics I referred to, you had Jedi walking around with lightsabers attached to battery packs and Sith dressed like Egyptian Pharaohs.

The lack of technological innovation really doesn't bother me a whole lot though (outside of the TOR era being re-designed to look more like the movies). The rapid technological advancements we have made in the past 200 years are the exceptions more than the rule. The Roman Republic of 500 BC didn't look all that different from the Roman Empire of 500 AD

quote:

---

From the way I see it, from Han Solo quote, you need 1000 Star destroyer to destroy a planet. The Federation only need a single one in all honesty.

---

A single Imperial Star Destroyer can bomb a planet back into the stone age, or beyond. What was referenced was completely obliterating it, not something we see available in Star Trek as I can recall.

And I'm not referencing the side science projects like the Genesis device, as I'm sure the Empire also has stuff along those lines (for example, I think ancient times, involved physically moving the core systems from one part of the galaxy to another. The obscene amount of energy required to move a solar system, intact, is off the scale). I'm going by what's presented in the main stories that we get, the armament etc.

quote:

---

Now the Empire greatest weapon appear to be the Star Destroyer and their immense fleet. But if they want to cripple the federation they would have to strike at a core world, which would mean they have to bring a significant amount of ships to Fed space. On the flip side the Federation can just wait at key worlds and wait for the Empire to arrive to begin their battle.

---

This is where hyperdrive vs warp drive comes into play, the hit and run tactics. It takes mere days to hop completely across the galaxy with hyperspace, so Star Wars can scout out the Star Trek worlds, start dropping fleets in to ravage the unprotected ones, and then hop right back home before there's a major response. Sure, you can set up picket lines around the main planets, but everything else will fall quickly, and you will lose tons of territory, etc.

quote:

---

The federation biggest advantage is science and how well they adapt to new situation. All the federation need is one single Hyper Drive in their hands and they can reverse engineer it. After that, the Hyperspace advantage will be nullified.

---

Same goes for transporter tech, if you play that game. And I don't think you can retro-fit the Enterprise with a new engine system, you would have to build new ships. However, you probably COULD retrofit existing Star Destroyers with telepads.

The Star Trek forces would need to buy time, something the advantages of the Star Wars forces would make very hard to do.

Without stealing hyperdrive tech, I can't see how the Trek forces can go on the offensive; and that means the best you can do is force a stalemate. You can resist, but if you can't attack the other side's command and industry centers, you don't win.

quote:

---

Another aspect I haven't seen anyone mention: the Changelings. Having a whole race of shapeshifting beings with centuries of experience at subterfuge and manipulation could well turn the tide with a few well-placed Changelings.

---

Jango Fett's bounty-hunting partner was also a shapeshifter, and I would assume she's not the sole member of her race. So that 'advantage' would go both ways. And again, cloaking devices are mentioned in Star Wars, just not employed onscreen.

Going by what we've seen onscreen (and ignoring the JJ Abrams annoying entries, since they don't bother to make anything require any practical explanation), I just don't see the major forces of the Star Trek genre defeating the Empire. It would be similar to the Pacific campaign in WW2, in large part due to the different speed factors.
The Empire would have fleets pop out of hyperspace at under-defended areas, carve up the Trek territories while not bothering with strongly contested planets. When they decide they are ready, they send a massive fleet to engage Earth, timed to have a Death Star show up once the battle is underway. Take the planet out, and then either mop up or withdraw, depending on how it's going.

Repeat against the other factions, and start building more Death Stars on the assumption that the Trek forces are going to attack Coruscant. They'd have the time to do so- it took 6 years to build another after Ep 4 (the time it took to get to Ep 6), and the Trek forces would need way more time to just get across the galaxy. If they ramped it up into open production instead of doing it secretively, they could have a dozen or more waiting for any reprisal.

I've yet to see any explanation on how this is anything other than an offensive war for the Empire.

quote:

---

plus the force and all.

---

Yeah, that's a nice little thing to have in the back pocket.
You'd have to believe even Palpatine and his strict Rule of 2 would loosen up, if there were a serious threat on the horizon. He readily employed the Jedi during the Clone Wars; and as we see, Force users are popping back up now.

As a kid, I always thought the more interesting matchup was Star Wars vs Battlestar Galactica. Again, the Empire has the most toys to throw into the mix; and like you said, the Force... but at least the dogfights would be fun.

The only reason the Emperor lost is because of Prophecy, nothing else.

There's no prophecy here.


Game. Blouses.

Or in this case..

Game. Empire.