Starfleet Jedi

So what would happen during this scenario: Thousands of years ago a Replicator ship from the Ida Galaxy traveled to the Star Wars galaxy during the Sith War and crashed landed on a planet. Now lets say thousands of years later in the middle of the clone wars a Trade Federation ship dropped out of orbit around the planet to investigate for a new colony. They land on the planet to find that the surface was littered with Rep blocks. They picked them up for study and to learn from them. The blocks soon activate and begin to replicate. What happens from there?
Timeline for the clone wars is at the end of season 3.
I would like nice tactical information on how the war will go down not about power requirements so much. Can the Star Wars galaxy stand a chance?

Civ001 wrote:So what would happen during this scenario: Thousands of years ago a Replicator ship from the Ida Galaxy traveled to the Star Wars galaxy during the Sith War and crashed landed on a planet. Now lets say thousands of years later in the middle of the clone wars a Trade Federation ship dropped out of orbit around the planet to investigate for a new colony. They land on the planet to find that the surface was littered with Rep blocks. They picked them up for study and to learn from them. The blocks soon activate and begin to replicate. What happens from there?
Timeline for the clone wars is at the end of season 3.
I would like nice tactical information on how the war will go down not about power requirements so much. Can the Star Wars galaxy stand a chance?

Hi!
I'm already puzzled at the idea that the Replicators would be on standby since their arrival during the Sith Wars.
There are two ways to make this possible and interesting. First, go with Replicators which have not assimilated much tech. That said, we don't know how basic they would be, or more properly, we don't know how primitive they'd be. The models Reese produced were just as capable as the Ida ones, and the Asurans, which seem to be the original model before some kind of reboot took place and that some scientist, Lantean or not, decided to build a wilder hegemonic swarming version, we still have plenty of capacities which are about even with some of the feats shown by the Replicators during their entire presence in the Milky Way.
No, with some plot fiat, we can assume that the Sith unleashed something that paused them all, in a way or another. But that's very speculative and I'm not sure where we're going with that.

Frankly, there's no way this can be a good thing for Star Wars. It generally takes stupefying dei ex machini to defeat the blocks.
They're not invincible, but the problem is that taking care of one infested ship won't be enough to take of all the Replicators.
You can always find a way to sabotage an infected ship and have it crash into a planet or star, and that may not be enough btw, depending on the violence of the crash.

It's very possible that disruptors (Star Wars' ones) or the MCPS could prove effective, but they're far from being sufficiently spread to stop the Replicators. Not to say that such technology may be deciphered at some point, or even assimilated baring the bots could put their... err... legs on it.
Now, within Star Wars setting, the Replicators are going to spread faster than manageable. Simply put, technology and metal is everywhere. Hyperdrives allow trips to any planet, and the Replicators can boost the power of ships to dramatically increase FTL speeds.
Worst thing of all, it may be that all the Replicators on that planet activate.
From there, they may form their own ships and then it's just game over.
The Asgards managed to contain the Replicators for two reasons:

1. They often had the edge on technology, although that dwindled towards the time of SG-1 (but they kept them at bay for a century at least, I think, and yet lost their galaxy to the bugs).
2. Small numbers. Simply put, the smaller the numbers, the more manageable the bugs were, so much that the Asgards would always have the upper hand. Even if an infested ship would be superior to its original model, the bugs generally had a few of them and the Asgards could defeat said ship with small numbers, but greater numbers nonetheless.

Problem is, nothing in Star Wars seems to be tailored to deal with such a menace that easily. I don't see how any effective containment can be put in place, enforced and maintained. Plus it's going to be a slaughter very quick. SW forces principally use energy weapons with yields similar to those found in SG, and 100% Replicator ships will be horrors to defeat, although it's not sure how soon the repliships would appear. But if they do, then think of that: it took 6 top notch and specially designed anti-Replicator Asgard O'neill-class ships to destroy one cruiser, after several shots, and that was only achieved because they shot at the ship before it could raise its shields after coming out of hyperspace.

Surprisingly enough, a subforce scenario with Asuras being attacked by, say, the Broken Circle fleet or most of the GAR will be much more manageable than taking on the bugs, for the reasons that the Asurans have some limitations, are focused on being more humanoid than anything else, and don't make it a goal in life to assimilate technology. Plus they won't have access to teleportation, although they'll be far more traditional in their naval capabilities, building warships with weapons which have been unrivaled. Namely, the squids/drones.

this wont end well, they swarm off that planet and hit the TF ship, and send it back to the main galaxy. The TF worse will probably try and contain the problem and keep a lid on it..their arrogance and poor judgment means any effective military action will be too late.

all in all your looking at the collapse of the SW galaxy to the replicators maybe in four years max?

Well since I think Mr. Oragahn covered the situation and the most likely outcome, Replicator falls everyone dies, I'll think I'll try a stab of a more hopeful alternative.

Once the threat is recongized for what it is a cease fire will be proposed for the raging civil war, since Palpy is defacto ruler of both sides that shouldn't actually be that hard, and the two factions will have to began pooling resources and talent to face this new threat from another galaxy.

Knowing the underlying Star Wars build mentality as well as Paly's specificly we are likely going to see them follow in the Asgards' footsteps with them rushing into production ever larger ships loaded to the gills with more powerful weaponry to try and stem the Replicator tide. Some form of noncomputerized dead man switch to self-destruct should the ship be overtaken will likely come into existence.

Offically or unoffically a "Scorched Earth" policy will be errected to at least impair the Replicators acquisition of raw materials creating a "quarantine zone" around the initial infection area to contain them along with the endless stream of warships that will be sacrificed into it.

As the war drags on superlaser technology will be crudly implemented and grafted onto thier largest ships which should at last grant them the means to more readily defeat the Replicator ships. This edge as well as the heroic jedi, all of whom to be arranged to perish in an all consuming final battle against the Replicators, will finally allow the Republic-Sepertists to push through the "quarantine zone" crushing the extragalactic menence once and all for.

Leaving the Sepertists forces too drained and broken from the moumental task they'd just accomplished causing them to splinter and fragment with no clear nigh-apocolypse threat to unify them. Fragments that will be easily absorbed and digested by the former Republic, turned Imperial as fearful people hungry for stability and order are stoked and manipulated with cautious tales of the dreaded threat returning to the Galaxy and of unknown horrors still slumbering in the inky abyss awaiting to be discovered.

Admiral Breetai wrote:this wont end well, they swarm off that planet and hit the TF ship, and send it back to the main galaxy. The TF worse will probably try and contain the problem and keep a lid on it..their arrogance and poor judgment means any effective military action will be too late.

all in all your looking at the collapse of the SW galaxy to the replicators maybe in four years max?

The Replicators are already onboard the ship. The class of ship that they are on is a Lucrehulk-class battleship http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucrehul ... battleship.

So, you gave the Replicators a ship with a diameter of two ISDs?

What did the CIS and Republic ever do to you?

Khas wrote:So, you gave the Replicators a ship with a diameter of two ISDs?

What did the CIS and Republic ever do to you?

I'd own one of those supe it up..and rent it out to the NJO as a mobile fortress/academy

sonofccn wrote:Well since I think Mr. Oragahn covered the situation and the most likely outcome, Replicator falls everyone dies, I'll think I'll try a stab of a more hopeful alternative.

Once the threat is recongized for what it is a cease fire will be proposed for the raging civil war, since Palpy is defacto ruler of both sides that shouldn't actually be that hard, and the two factions will have to began pooling resources and talent to face this new threat from another galaxy.

Knowing the underlying Star Wars build mentality as well as Paly's specificly we are likely going to see them follow in the Asgards' footsteps with them rushing into production ever larger ships loaded to the gills with more powerful weaponry to try and stem the Replicator tide. Some form of noncomputerized dead man switch to self-destruct should the ship be overtaken will likely come into existence.

Offically or unoffically a "Scorched Earth" policy will be errected to at least impair the Replicators acquisition of raw materials creating a "quarantine zone" around the initial infection area to contain them along with the endless stream of warships that will be sacrificed into it.

As the war drags on superlaser technology will be crudly implemented and grafted onto thier largest ships which should at last grant them the means to more readily defeat the Replicator ships. This edge as well as the heroic jedi, all of whom to be arranged to perish in an all consuming final battle against the Replicators, will finally allow the Republic-Sepertists to push through the "quarantine zone" crushing the extragalactic menence once and all for.

Leaving the Sepertists forces too drained and broken from the moumental task they'd just accomplished causing them to splinter and fragment with no clear nigh-apocolypse threat to unify them. Fragments that will be easily absorbed and digested by the former Republic, turned Imperial as fearful people hungry for stability and order are stoked and manipulated with cautious tales of the dreaded threat returning to the Galaxy and of unknown horrors still slumbering in the inky abyss awaiting to be discovered.

Most of this is just bound to fail. Replicators will spread too fast for any plan to implemented successfully. One ship there, another there. Take any planet, advanced or not. If there are ships, hyperdrives and metal, you're toasted. Every single planet becomes a beachhead and a point of departure. Superlasers aren't close to good enough by the time the Replicators would spread over the Outer Regions or the Core Worlds.

Now, self destructs do work. We know that self destructs under a minute, more like 30 seconds, are not stopped by Replicators that board a ship build around a different kind of technology.
But then, after that, it's an orgy, because they do easily take control of the next ship based on the same tech. They even make themselves invisible to internal scans, if there are any. Plus the bugs can be sneaky. We've precisely seen this happen as one hid inside a crate brought by Apophis and Teal'c as they left Apophis' supership.
The bug waited to be alone and soon started to dissolve metal and do what they love to do: eat, reproduce and assimilate (we, humans, don't do much of the last one).

Scorched Earth won't be good enough. Metal is still metal, and radioactive ruins are not a problem for Replicators. Literally liquefying every single city or world would be necessary. Same goes for any kind of wandering ship and space station.
The task is just not doable. By the time they'd react, it would be too late.

If anything, the Replicators would soon find the Death Star and then it's just... oh boy.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Most of this is just bound to fail.

Quite possibly. I am taking the optimistic scenario to counter your "gloomy" one. :)

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Replicators will spread too fast for any plan to implemented successfully. One ship there, another there.

Sending isolated ships hither and yon, when your starting at a extreme numerical disadvantage, is a good way to get them destroyed. As well they'd need to defend the planets they are "eating", a process of undetermined time IIRC, to prevent Star Destroyers from showing up in orbit and bombarding them.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Take any planet, advanced or not. If there are ships, hyperdrives and metal, you're toasted. Every single planet becomes a beachhead and a point of departure.

Well the point of the scorched Earth is to deprive them of the first two, as well as supporting industrial base, forcing them to fly farther from the point of infestation and increasing the likelihood of them running into a task force which blasts them into oblivion.

As to the last I can do little to stem but I'm willing to suggest it doesn't help the Replicators nearly as much as converting a ship would, however you slice it it would take longer for them to build the needed blocks to form one of thier starships than it takes for them to overcome a typical vessel.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Now, self destructs do work. We know that self destructs under a minute, more like 30 seconds, are not stopped by Replicators that board a ship build around a different kind of technology.

Well at least in Enemies(SG-1-5) we have this

JACOB: Self-destruct is set. We have four minutes. I’ll try and shut it off from the pel’tec. SAM, you know where the crystals are?

Which had been presumbly ongoing for some time since and the Replicators in the end didn't figure out how to simply turn off the computer controlled self-destruct. The next time they did learn the feat but that was longer than a mere thirty seconds of letting them play with it.

Going with something more low tech like some kind of simlutanious key lock affair to arm and detonate say a fusion bomb should be even more difficult for them to disable.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:But then, after that, it's an orgy, because they do easily take control of the next ship based on the same tech.

I wouldn't say that, they began breeding like crazy devouring all nonessential systems and began rerouting/rewiring your internal systems but I would argue they don't instantly have your ship and if you have say thousands of organic soldiers at your disposal, something the Asguard I don't believe ever had, and say primitive slug throwers you'd least be able to delay their assimulation. Still wouldn't allow a ship that's been boarded ever to dock at port again of course.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:They even make themselves invisible to internal scans, if there are any.

By reprograming your internal sensors, nothing should prevent any avialable R2 unit or independent scanner team from detecting them.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Plus the bugs can be sneaky. We've precisely seen this happen as one hid inside a crate brought by Apophis and Teal'c as they left Apophis' supership.

Yes they can, I don't doubt this.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Scorched Earth won't be good enough. Metal is still metal, and radioactive ruins are not a problem for Replicators.

Meh, I don't intend to halt them merely slow them down, make them waste as much energy for as little gain as possible. This combined with sending a never ending stream of warships into their territory I'm pinning my hopes on keeping them on the defensive and contained.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:If anything, the Replicators would soon find the Death Star and then it's just... oh boy.

The Death Star at this point is little more than a skeleton and I imagine work is going to be swiftly curtailed, prority given to warships instead of a mobile battlestation.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Superlasers aren't close to good enough by the time the Replicators would spread over the Outer Regions or the Core Worlds

Obviously if they take the Core Worlds the war is lost however I am not yet willing to forfiet that as a certanty at this point. Bear in mind I am employing a variant of the same stratagy the Asguard used to stalemate thier war with the Replicators, build powerful and more powerful warships and spam them at the enemy.

As to the Superlasers themselves I think they'd prove devestating. In conjuction with a conventinal fleet, to which the SSD equivlents could contend as part of when not charging the superlaser, they'd be able to oneshot any Replicator vessel of thier choosing. Increasing the number of ships the Replicators would have to send to contend with a Star wars task force.

sonofccn wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Replicators will spread too fast for any plan to implemented successfully. One ship there, another there.

Sending isolated ships hither and yon, when your starting at a extreme numerical disadvantage, is a good way to get them destroyed. As well they'd need to defend the planets they are "eating", a process of undetermined time IIRC, to prevent Star Destroyers from showing up in orbit and bombarding them.

Not all worlds are capable of defending themselves adequatedly. Not to say that the Replicators will obviously beam down numbers and fire bug darts. Point is, the moment the Replicators set foot on a planet, the planet is most likely considered lost.
Replicators look for materials and high technology. The coreship they have captured will already give them plenty of information about where to go. They'll also have hacked the battledroids, so now you get to see a mix of bugs soaking up energy bolts, and droids which may actually get improved and enhanced. The coreship itself will be full of transport ships.
It takes minutes to conquer an entirely new kind of ship that's above 2 km wide, based on what we saw in "Enemies" precisely. B1 doids won't even know what to do against that, they won't even have a smart brain to think about how to lock systems or else. Even the Odyssey, in "Ark of Truth", was getting meticulously and relentlessly captured within ten minutes once the Replicators broke, and they were already closing some systems and taking control of them. It took Carter working from the Asgard console to slow down the Replicators and eventually find the cypher in that particular Tua'ri made brand of bugs to disable them.
The Replicators will just spread too fast, on any Trade Federation world, before they even get the idea of nuking it as much as possible. It's not a decision that's easy to take, or even regular. They literally have to BDZ a planet with mass fire, and liquify as much of it as possible, which requires tremendous amounts of firepower which, again, won't be brought into operation before a long time. Way too long to stop the bugs. Meanwhile, the bugs will spread through any city they get in, take control of everything, get inside ships, kill people and hack even more droids.
At this point, it's just a question of time. Any ship brought to burn the planet will first have to deal with the Replicators first in space. And since they will have assimilated the technology of sensors, shields, weapons and so on, it will only get worse from there.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Take any planet, advanced or not. If there are ships, hyperdrives and metal, you're toasted. Every single planet becomes a beachhead and a point of departure.

Well the point of the scorched Earth is to deprive them of the first two, as well as supporting industrial base, forcing them to fly farther from the point of infestation and increasing the likelihood of them running into a task force which blasts them into oblivion.

As to the last I can do little to stem but I'm willing to suggest it doesn't help the Replicators nearly as much as converting a ship would, however you slice it it would take longer for them to build the needed blocks to form one of thier starships than it takes for them to overcome a typical vessel.

Scorched Earth will not suffice. Not only there won't be enough firepower to destroy all planets, but the Replicators have absolutely no reason to operate inside a small sector. If anything, they'll simply spread as a wave while some other ships will make longer jumps towards targets of choice. The moment, for example, they learn about the Kuat system or planets the likes of Coruscant, Christophsis, Trantor, Nar Shaddaa, Axxilia, Metellos, Lianna, Anaxes, Taris, Hosk Station, Centerpoint Station and so on, it's game over.
As for ships, they can always have several "queens", and one of them will obviously be dedicated to the production of purebug ships.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Now, self destructs do work. We know that self destructs under a minute, more like 30 seconds, are not stopped by Replicators that board a ship build around a different kind of technology.

Well at least in Enemies(SG-1-5) we have this

JACOB: Self-destruct is set. We have four minutes. I’ll try and shut it off from the pel’tec. SAM, you know where the crystals are?

Which had been presumbly ongoing for some time since and the Replicators in the end didn't figure out how to simply turn off the computer controlled self-destruct. The next time they did learn the feat but that was longer than a mere thirty seconds of letting them play with it.

Going with something more low tech like some kind of simlutanious key lock affair to arm and detonate say a fusion bomb should be even more difficult for them to disable.

4 minutes, let's say ten, on a totally new ship. As we saw with the attacks against Asgard ships, this solution isn't even applicable anymore. You just better have to set a nuke with a timer.
Still, how many people will play heroes and blow themselves? How long will it take to get the message to all worlds, and have everybody change their habits and be ready to do anything similar, even if it means crashing into a planet at hypersonic speeds?
Slim to none. This level of organization will never exist. There are just too many worlds, political powers, lags and a variety of cultures and technologies to get that implemented within a week.
Yes, because it's all it's going to take, really, for the menace to already be exponential in nature.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:But then, after that, it's an orgy, because they do easily take control of the next ship based on the same tech.

I wouldn't say that, they began breeding like crazy devouring all nonessential systems and began rerouting/rewiring your internal systems but I would argue they don't instantly have your ship and if you have say thousands of organic soldiers at your disposal, something the Asguard I don't believe ever had, and say primitive slug throwers you'd least be able to delay their assimulation. Still wouldn't allow a ship that's been boarded ever to dock at port again of course.

They don't instantly have it, but it generally takes less than some ten minutes for the ship to be crawling with bugs. Yes, ten minutes. Then again not all ship captains will know how to deal with those things in time. Ultimately, blowing your own ships because that's all you can do, that's not helping you. You're just postponing the next defeat. Meanwhile, all it took for the Replicators is to send a small batch of bugs, while their other ships, enhanced and more powerful, and nigh unstoppable.
They take control of any ship, anything that comes with an hyperdrive is doom assured. You can't get them all, and if the bugs form packs, which we know they do, then the blocks themselves will fall through the atmosphere of the planet they decide to attack. From there, the planet will be crawling with newer bugs.

Really, if the solution is to blow a ship within the ten minutes it's been boarded by Replicators, you're simply not going to win. Meanwhile the Replicators will continue to produce more of themselves somewhere else.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:They even make themselves invisible to internal scans, if there are any.

By reprograming your internal sensors, nothing should prevent any avialable R2 unit or independent scanner team from detecting them.

Obviously the Asgards would have tried that. They take control of sensor systems and most likely have those sensors not report bugs. The next phase is to know how sensors work and somehow become cloaked to them, even before having taken control of any system. The other time Replicators got on board an Asgard ship, the bugs already were invisible and yet didn't take control of the ship. But perhaps they only were visible in the rooms they were in. In a way or another, it's going to be problematic fof intenal security systems.
Once the Replicators know how droids work, they could in theory render themselves hard to spot.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Scorched Earth won't be good enough. Metal is still metal, and radioactive ruins are not a problem for Replicators.

Meh, I don't intend to halt them merely slow them down, make them waste as much energy for as little gain as possible.

This is going to be a hard job. Reese produced a single block from a coffee spoon. You need about 25 blocks, more or less, for one leg. The main torso seems to need 100 blocks.
Let's say around 200 blocks. A spoon is about 20~25 grams. So you need about 4~5 kg of metal to produce one bug.
A rather negligible mass for another bug to gather. They don't waste any visible matter either.

This combined with sending a never ending stream of warships into their territory I'm pinning my hopes on keeping them on the defensive and contained.

Won't work, for the simple reason that there won't be a single world to pin them down on before you can even mount such a strategy. Remember, they already have a core ship full of their own cargo ships. Any first contact will end with the local forces beaten, unless the Replicator are vastly outnumbered, which thus far never happened, as they seem not to be stupid enough to against odds. Again, sneaky and all that.
Star Wars mainly uses energy weapons. They'll be as screwed as the Asgards were, minus the fact that the Asgards had higher levels of technology than anything I've seen in Star Wars thus far.
I mean, let's say the Replicators go for some backwater planet. What happens? They may get attacked by a few outclassed ships if there's any security force that would be present or react in time. Eventually, if it's a planet like Tatooine, I don't see them doing anything but attempting an interception in atmosphere, which is already too late.
Bugs land their ships, build more of themselves as to be able to beam even more stuff down, and within hours, they have already taken control of the main city of the planet in question, with all its metal and obviously numerous space ships.
There won't be any rescue force worth its salt to intervene and do anything worthwhile.
From there, Replicators spread more, end of game.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:If anything, the Replicators would soon find the Death Star and then it's just... oh boy.

The Death Star at this point is little more than a skeleton and I imagine work is going to be swiftly curtailed, prority given to warships instead of a mobile battlestation.

Although the superlasers for other ships is complete conjecture, the Death Star's superlaser was already largely assembled at the end of ROTS, and obviously, somewhere in this whole installation, lies the detailed blueprints of this weapon. In the end, it doesn't matter. The bugs assemble according to their needs. If they have to bloat around the superlaser assembly, they'll do it. Oh sure, it will look like shite, and they'll probably use the useless skeleton to produce more of themselves.
Of course, a ship of that mass, with a superlaser dish at its core, and enhanced Replicator shields, is just a complete disaster for the galaxy. With that kind of firepower, they may simply decide to bust starts and collect the floating metals, and do the same for planets.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Superlasers aren't close to good enough by the time the Replicators would spread over the Outer Regions or the Core Worlds

Obviously if they take the Core Worlds the war is lost however I am not yet willing to forfiet that as a certanty at this point. Bear in mind I am employing a variant of the same stratagy the Asguard used to stalemate thier war with the Replicators, build powerful and more powerful warships and spam them at the enemy.

That is just not the way Star Wars will do it. The Asgards were one single force that could apply a clear strategy over its entire territory. Star Wars is not. It's all fractioned, even Moths will do as they wish before anything really smart gets done. They'll do what the Goa'uld did: send ships to defeat those things, and as we learned in "Reckoning", that is just going to increase the Replicators' numbers exponentially, as stated by Jacob.
Plus SW ships are certainly nowhere as good as the Gate ones.

As to the Superlasers themselves I think they'd prove devestating. In conjuction with a conventinal fleet, to which the SSD equivlents could contend as part of when not charging the superlaser, they'd be able to oneshot any Replicator vessel of thier choosing. Increasing the number of ships the Replicators would have to send to contend with a Star wars task force.

Where do you see evidence that they would even think of placing superlasers on spaceships, that they'd have the money, time and resources to do so, that they wouldn't mainly use typical firepower, and that the superlaser technology would actually be ready to be produce en masse?
We know that only to design a new class, it can take years. The design of the Imperator class almost bankrupted the Empire.
Simply put, the ships equipped with superlasers will never exist. There won't be enough time for that.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Not all worlds are capable of defending themselves adequatedly. Not to say that the Replicators will obviously beam down numbers and fire bug darts. Point is, the moment the Replicators set foot on a planet, the planet is most likely considered lost.

I do not disagree they are going to initially spread like wildfire especially through the poorer planets.

They'll also have hacked the battledroids, so now you get to see a mix of bugs soaking up energy bolts, and droids which may actually get improved and enhanced.

Impossible. Not even Replicators can do anything for tincans whose combat programer were they keystone cops. :)

It takes minutes to conquer an entirely new kind of ship that's above 2 km wide, based on what we saw in "Enemies" precisely.

Actually we don't have a hard figure for Aphosis's ship. We saw his ship attacked by presumbly the Replicators than SG-1 go hide in the star's wake taking at least an hour to repair the shields and than an indeterminate time was spent aftewards trying to repair the hyperdrive before emerging to find Aphosis ship adrift. The second ha'tack had a miniscule crew and all but invited the Replicator onboard.

B1 doids won't even know what to do against that, they won't even have a smart brain to think about how to lock systems or else.

While I'd be the first to admit B1 battledroids are one of the last things you'd want to throw at the Bugs they are not designed to lock out systems or anything. Their organic masters would be the ones tasked with that difficulty, the battledroids are just supposed to shoot things.

Even the Odyssey, in "Ark of Truth", was getting meticulously and relentlessly captured within ten minutes once the Replicators broke, and they were already closing some systems and taking control of them.

Which if IIRC was a skeleton crew fighting them as well they likely were very familar with both Human tech and Asguard tech by that point.

The Replicators will just spread too fast, on any Trade Federation world, before they even get the idea of nuking it as much as possible.

That depends on the planet's in questions defenses, what ship is heading towards the planet such as a warship or a converted freightor, how many Bugs make it to landfall, as well as where they land. Many variants we can not easily control.

They literally have to BDZ a planet with mass fire, and liquify as much of it as possible, which requires tremendous amounts of firepower which, again, won't be brought into operation before a long time.

In terms of stopping a foothold situation you don't have to liquify Replicator blocks, intact blocks have been found "dead" and shooting them scatters the landscape with them and not nearly all of them have ever been shown reconstructing themselves.

As to liquifying metal what's the point? It cools and hardens and than the Replicators eat it. While structurally it may be weakened by the process on an elemental level it should be just fine and still "edible" to them.

Meanwhile, the bugs will spread through any city they get in, take control of everything, get inside ships, kill people and hack even more droids.

While contending against whatever the planet's ground defense is. Likely ranging from panicked civlilian firing poorly aimed blaster bolts to bombers making strafing runs. Even to simply swarm and kill them as Replicators have been shown doing takes time and some of them like the Droideka will prove at least moderatly challenging with its forcefield.

Any ship brought to burn the planet will first have to deal with the Replicators first in space. And since they will have assimilated the technology of sensors, shields, weapons and so on, it will only get worse from there.

Assuming the ship survived depositing the Bugs you mean and obviously yes they'd first have to wrestle air superority but that is not any new challenge. The only question is how quickly could a force be sent and how large would it be.

Not only there won't be enough firepower to destroy all planets, but the Replicators have absolutely no reason to operate inside a small sector.

As to firepower you appear to be overestimating what I intend to do. I want to destroy hyperdrives, smash industries and of course blow up any and all Bug blocks that I can. I have no desire to slag a planet which would be a waste of energy as far as I am concerned.

As to the second point concetration of numbers/firepower. Spreading too far too fast, since they start out with only one warship and maybe some transports( all I could find for that class of ship were these and they don't appear to be hyperdrive capable, may make many foothold situations but the planet's own defenses combined with rescuing fleets may see the embyonic invasion scoured.

The moment, for example, they learn about the Kuat system or planets the likes of Coruscant, Christophsis, Trantor, Nar Shaddaa, Axxilia, Metellos, Lianna, Anaxes, Taris, Hosk Station, Centerpoint Station and so on, it's game over.

Not game over, at worst they gained raw material which is something I can't really deny them at any event. On the other hand a rich, juicy target full of technology and easy to assimulate metal could act like one nice lure putting all the Replicators in one nice and easy to bombard planet.

Centerpoint station however would be alarming to feed to the Replicators. Its power is...extreme.

As for ships, they can always have several "queens", and one of them will obviously be dedicated to the production of purebug ships.

I'm sorry please define "Queens". The only "Queen" bug I'm aware of would be the one on the Russian sub and the only command structure I recall in the Replicator forces were the humaniod ones.

4 minutes, let's say ten, on a totally new ship.

On a system that was rather straightforward and played to thier strenght.

As we saw with the attacks against Asgard ships, this solution isn't even applicable anymore. You just better have to set a nuke with a timer.

I'd take it as a sign to have a non computer controlled self-destruct.

Still, how many people will play heroes and blow themselves? How long will it take to get the message to all worlds, and have everybody change their habits and be ready to do anything similar, even if it means crashing into a planet at hypersonic speeds?

Luckily both the Republic and the Confederacy employ soldiers who wouldn't think twice about doing it, clones and battledroids. Expendable and obeditant. Just give the order.

Slim to none. This level of organization will never exist.

A chain of command already exists for both the Republic and the Sepertists. They've been at war for some time at this point. A relativly simple order that ships must be scuttled to prevent the enemy from capturing them should not prove that tasking.

There are just too many worlds, political powers, lags and a variety of cultures and technologies to get that implemented within a week.
Yes, because it's all it's going to take, really, for the menace to already be exponential in nature.

Many worlds but one Grand Army. Days at the most for the high command to have it sink in Replicators assimulate ships.

They don't instantly have it, but it generally takes less than some ten minutes for the ship to be crawling with bugs. Yes, ten minutes.

Swarming the ship yes, but longer to get it under thier control and we rarely if ever see how they'd manage against a large force of enemies rather than the odd SG squad.

Ultimately, blowing your own ships because that's all you can do, that's not helping you. You're just postponing the next defeat.

The point being your warship blows up thier warship and than self-destructs taking any remaining Replicator ship with it denying them their prize.

They take control of any ship, anything that comes with an hyperdrive is doom assured. You can't get them all, and if the bugs form packs, which we know they do, then the blocks themselves will fall through the atmosphere of the planet they decide to attack. From there, the planet will be crawling with newer bugs.

actually blowing ships up has been shown to be effective in killing them, be it rentry burn up or smacking them into a planet or essentially detonating a giant warship sized torpedo. We also know they don't always form up into blocks and AFAIK the first and only time they employed that stratagy was under Fifth who is not in command anymore.

Obviously the Asgards would have tried that

Canonically the Asguard were too smart for thier own good and needed Humans with "stupid" ideas to not overthink the issue.

They take control of sensor systems and most likely have those sensors not report bugs. The next phase is to know how sensors work and somehow become cloaked to them, even before having taken control of any system.

That wouldn't make sense to what Thor says. In Nemesis ( SG-1-3)he explains:

CARTER
Why can't I see any bugs on this screen?
THOR
The first thing the replicators do once aboard an Asgard ship is disable the sensors capable of detecting them.
CARTER
But I can still see Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c.
THOR
They are being detected by the thermal sensors which cannot see the replicators.

The Replicators by this point have been on the ship for an indefinate period of time and are famaliar with Asguard technology. Why wouldn't they have adapted by that point or why wouldn't Thor mention this?

The other time Replicators got on board an Asgard ship, the bugs already were invisible and yet didn't take control of the ship. But perhaps they only were visible in the rooms they were in.

Unknown. Which episode is this?

This is going to be a hard job. Reese produced a single block from a coffee spoon. You need about 25 blocks, more or less, for one leg. The main torso seems to need 100 blocks.
Let's say around 200 blocks. A spoon is about 20~25 grams. So you need about 4~5 kg of metal to produce one bug.
A rather negligible mass for another bug to gather. They don't waste any visible matter either

But compared to them grabbing hordes of hyperdrive equiped spacecraft having bugs plunk around on a blasted world eating ore is a Godsend. As well we do know they prefer to use the "host's" power when possible. From Small Victories (SG-1-4)

CARTER
So why are the bug's ships traveling so slow?
THOR
In order to generate the subspace field required to travel at hyperspeed, full power of the generators is required. Presently they are using that power to replicate.
CARTER
So, if they did decide to go to hyperspeed it would also mean no shields or weapons.
THOR
Yes. But remember the replicators do not care about time as we do.
CARTER
Right, they're not in a hurry. How did they get control of your ships in the first place?

While they obviously don't need it to replicate, Reese's model built up a sizable swarm without noticable power droppage, they presumbly breed faster when their swimming in power and no matter what else grow slower on a blasted world than one teeming with technology and reactors.

Won't work, for the simple reason that there won't be a single world to pin them down on before you can even mount such a strategy.

I don't presume to pin them down on a single world. I'm assuming they are going to ensnare several worlds before either sides knows what is truly going on. My intent is to cardon off a rough area of space with a ring of destruction to deny them the ships and technologies and raw energy that entices them. Then send in warships to blow up thier ships and scour all infected worlds of the blighters. The Replicators can either A) fight back which keeps them away from my coreworlds or B) focus on attacking my coreworlds going into the teeth of my defenses while my warfleets sterilize the infected worlds and then come to finish off the Replicator fleet.

Star Wars mainly uses energy weapons. They'll be as screwed as the Asgards were, minus the fact that the Asgards had higher levels of technology than anything I've seen in Star Wars thus far.

the Goa'uld also use energy weapons, are not nearly as advanced as the Asguard and nothing showed they were completely useless agains the Replicators.

Eventually, if it's a planet like Tatooine, I don't see them doing anything but attempting an interception in atmosphere, which is already too late.
Bugs land their ships, build more of themselves as to be able to beam even more stuff down, and within hours, they have already taken control of the main city of the planet in question, with all its metal and obviously numerous space ships.

Well if we're talking about Tatooine are not a lot of their structures stone/concrete and such not glittery towers of metal? In addition what ships you swipe would hardly be all overpowering but frieghtors and smuggler ships. The MF, even buffed by the Bugs, I'd wager could be taken out by Naboo's defense force.

Although the superlasers for other ships is complete conjecture, the Death Star's superlaser was already largely assembled at the end of ROTS, and obviously, somewhere in this whole installation, lies the detailed blueprints of this weapon. In the end, it doesn't matter. The bugs assemble according to their needs. If they have to bloat around the superlaser assembly, they'll do it. Oh sure, it will look like shite, and they'll probably use the useless skeleton to produce more of themselves.

Oh, I assumed you were talking about having a moonsized slab of easy to eat metal. As to the superlaser itself it would be far simpilier if they just absorbed it into one of their ships, they certainly can generate the power, than anything else. Why waste blocks when you don't need too.

The Asgards were one single force that could apply a clear strategy over its entire territory. Star Wars is not. It's all fractioned, even Moths will do as they wish before anything really smart gets done.

But the armies are not unduly fractured they report straight up the chain to thier respective goverments who are controlled by the same man. The wishes of say the Wookies on if they want to burn worlds is immaterial they don't crew the starfleets, they do not serve at the forefront of the Grand Army. As for the Grand Moffs they are what they are and I don't think they are so incompetent they can't repel an incursion or contribute thier share to the caravan of warships going straight into the infected area.

They'll do what the Goa'uld did: send ships to defeat those things, and as we learned in "Reckoning", that is just going to increase the Replicators' numbers exponentially, as stated by Jacob.

But as I think I've demostrated that has less with the Replicators being so great as it does thier opponets having glaring blind spots. Designing a failsafe to pop your ship is not exactly an overly elaborate or difficult procedure that requires substantinal retrofitting.

Plus SW ships are certainly nowhere as good as the Gate ones.

Unknown. You mentioned them being comparable earlier and our argument has largely stemmed on the Replicators Swarming and Assimulation patterns.

Where do you see evidence that they would even think of placing superlasers on spaceships

Well they did do it in the original time line. So its completely technologically feasible and fits with thier observed mentality.

that they'd have the money, time and resources to do so

Based on the Empire, which conilidated the Republic and the Confederacy, building an undetermined number of of vessels of such scale while building the Death Star and without any pressing need?

sonofccn wrote:

It takes minutes to conquer an entirely new kind of ship that's above 2 km wide, based on what we saw in "Enemies" precisely.

Actually we don't have a hard figure for Aphosis's ship. We saw his ship attacked by presumbly the Replicators than SG-1 go hide in the star's wake taking at least an hour to repair the shields and than an indeterminate time was spent aftewards trying to repair the hyperdrive before emerging to find Aphosis ship adrift. The second ha'tack had a miniscule crew and all but invited the Replicator onboard.

Right, I largely shortened the assimilation time.
It's more like 10 hours in this case.
It seems that when Replicators are not threatened, they really don't bother. It's quite consistent, they do take their time when digesting a ship. That is what happened when they moved towards Halla with their three Biliskners.
This is contrasted with what they were shown to do when infesting other ships. like the Odyssey.
I still don't see how it's going to change anything there though. The droids on the core ship will be useless, and the captains, Neimoidians possibly, may just reach for the pods and that would be all. Perhaps they could set some self-destruct, is there's such a thing possible, or if they even think of it or care. For one I didn't see Grievous do anything like that.
IF they do blow up their ship, then they may have bought themselves some time, until another ship arrives and is ordered to blast the planet. The question being if the blocks on the surface would be reactivated. If so, by the time a new CIS ship arrives and primes its weapons for an orbital bombardment, the replicators would be ready to leap at them. The ship couldn't cover the entire planet in time, plus it's a risky thing, since replicator blocks do absorb energy. By being in the zone where a nuclear-like burst doesn't vaporize anything but still shines hard enough so as to deposit enough energy over a certain surface area, blocks could be energized.
Besides, wouldn't the replicators on the core ship actually try to reactivate the other blocks on the surface since all they're waiting for is energy and a signal?

Even the Odyssey, in "Ark of Truth", was getting meticulously and relentlessly captured within ten minutes once the Replicators broke, and they were already closing some systems and taking control of them.

Which if IIRC was a skeleton crew fighting them as well they likely were very familar with both Human tech and Asguard tech by that point.

Yes. Well, the skeleton crew was caused by the people moved to safe zones IIRC. I watched AOT once, but I don't remember that the ship was running with a few guys.
Anyway, it's then almost taken for granted that the more the bugs are used to a given tech, the faster they are to take control of anything built from it.

The Replicators will just spread too fast, on any Trade Federation world, before they even get the idea of nuking it as much as possible.

That depends on the planet's in questions defenses, what ship is heading towards the planet such as a warship or a converted freightor, how many Bugs make it to landfall, as well as where they land. Many variants we can not easily control.

The replicators can win with inferior odds as 5 to 3, so much that they emerge victorious while having three ships of their own, either newly infested ones from those they fought, or just the first batch they infested and with which they blew the five vanilla Biliskners.
As far as it goes, we can tell that they didn't lose a single ship, since they fought with three, and emerged with three.
A one on one will see a vanilla coreship busted rather easily. Two might do it.
The battle of Dakara didn't see the Replicators win immediately. They came with a batch of infested ships and those small spidery cruisers. Only one landed on the surface, in front of the temple.
Here is the ratio:



Blue triangles represent Ba'al's fleet.

The story would be very different with one of those big cruisers.
With shields up, the cruiser would have not been threatened much by six O'neils, which I'm sure are quite more potent than the warships in Star Wars. However, purebug ships only appeared when humanoids appeared. It could be just a question time though, but the ship that approached Prometheus was an infested ship, the same type seen one year earlier in "Enemies".
That said, if the bugs can't leave a planet because there are no ships to salvage, they may likely form their own ship because that is what they'd currently need.

They literally have to BDZ a planet with mass fire, and liquefy as much of it as possible, which requires tremendous amounts of firepower which, again, won't be brought into operation before a long time.

In terms of stopping a foothold situation you don't have to liquefy Replicator blocks, intact blocks have been found "dead" and shooting them scatters the landscape with them and not nearly all of them have ever been shown reconstructing themselves.

They're small critters. Nuking a surface won't be enough. You can't drop a megaton nuke on a small city and consider the job done. A single hole, crack, cave or bit of wall that will protect a single bug and everything will need to be restarted. So that is why you need to go the length and make it sure that no bug could realistically survive. Considering that they can spit metal dissolving acid, even entombing one under piles of rubble may not be enough. Simply put, you must liquefy a city as deep as the city reaches.

As to liquefying metal what's the point? It cools and hardens and than the Replicators eat it. While structurally it may be weakened by the process on an elemental level it should be just fine and still "edible" to them.

The point is to do it to the entire of the surface, so no blocks could remain. That's the only way to be sure.

Meanwhile, the bugs will spread through any city they get in, take control of everything, get inside ships, kill people and hack even more droids.

While contending against whatever the planet's ground defense is. Likely ranging from panicked civlilian firing poorly aimed blaster bolts to bombers making strafing runs. Even to simply swarm and kill them as Replicators have been shown doing takes time and some of them like the Droideka will prove at least moderatly challenging with its forcefield.

Droidekas will be a distraction. Ten/eleven hours is enough to have a swarm that's simply beyond manageable, during the discovery phase, the one where replicators get used to conquering the first ships built around a different technology.
In terms of ground battles, that's a short time.

Any ship brought to burn the planet will first have to deal with the Replicators first in space. And since they will have assimilated the technology of sensors, shields, weapons and so on, it will only get worse from there.

Assuming the ship survived depositing the Bugs you mean and obviously yes they'd first have to wrestle air superority but that is not any new challenge. The only question is how quickly could a force be sent and how large would it be.

Can't tell. Still, with access to maps and strategical information, I doubt the Replicators would be dumb enough to attack a target they can't deal with. There are enough spaceports and stations in that galaxy for the Replicators to attack before anything can come to threaten them. They can already use the hyperdrives of any small ship and already dispatch small groups left and right.

Now, a Lucrehulk-class doesn't seem to transport that many small and FTL capable ships at all. So that's a plus for SW. But if the replicators take control of any space port, then the problem is close to be sealed in favour of the bugs.

Not only there won't be enough firepower to destroy all planets, but the Replicators have absolutely no reason to operate inside a small sector.

As to firepower you appear to be overestimating what I intend to do. I want to destroy hyperdrives, smash industries and of course blow up any and all Bug blocks that I can. I have no desire to slag a planet which would be a waste of energy as far as I am concerned.

It is necessary, as you need to destroy blocks. If you don't, then blasting industrial centers won't be enough. However, assuming the bugs don't start building pureships and assuming you do keep an eye on their numbers, you could effectively blockade the world they're on. Assuming they have not made themselves invisible to sensors.

As to the second point concetration of numbers/firepower. Spreading too far too fast, since they start out with only one warship and maybe some transports( all I could find for that class of ship were these and they don't appear to be hyperdrive capable, may make many foothold situations but the planet's own defenses combined with rescuing fleets may see the embyonic invasion scoured.

Correct. That's why they'll obviously go looking for targets which can be dealt with. Find me one case of replicators going against a target that what clearly out of their league, and you'll have a point.

The moment, for example, they learn about the Kuat system or planets the likes of Coruscant, Christophsis, Trantor, Nar Shaddaa, Axxilia, Metellos, Lianna, Anaxes, Taris, Hosk Station, Centerpoint Station and so on, it's game over.

Not game over, at worst they gained raw material which is something I can't really deny them at any event. On the other hand a rich, juicy target full of technology and easy to assimulate metal could act like one nice lure putting all the Replicators in one nice and easy to bombard planet.

That's if the local political powers understand what they're dealing with, and are ready to burn their own world down to the ground, potentially resulting in hundreds of billions of victims.
It goes without saying that an attack against such important targets would not happen right off the bat. The replicators would first build numbers.

But if they manage to eat a planet like Christophsis and cover it with blocks, then no firepower that SW has demonstrated will save them. When it was suggested to overload Prometheus' hyperdrive to destroy the only remaining structure on Halla housing the time dilation device, Carter said that it would most likely end feeding the replicators with more energy.
We know that the blast itself would have been devastating, enough to obliterate the entirety of Nevada, even possibly leave a near a huge crater in the middle of this state.

As for ships, they can always have several "queens", and one of them will obviously be dedicated to the production of purebug ships.

I'm sorry please define "Queens". The only "Queen" bug I'm aware of would be the one on the Russian sub and the only command structure I recall in the Replicator forces were the humaniod ones.

That's what queens are. We saw another one in AOT.

Slim to none. This level of organization will never exist.

A chain of command already exists for both the Republic and the Sepertists. They've been at war for some time at this point. A relativly simple order that ships must be scuttled to prevent the enemy from capturing them should not prove that tasking.

The problem is not about how long it would take to spread the info once up, but for the mattering intel to actually reach higher levels. A sector of the CIS may hear of an outburst of odd droids and not realize that those "droids" are not of the same vein SW inhabitants are used to see.
As usual, the better the information is, and the quicker it goes up the ladder, the more chances SW forces stand. It also requires that the forces attacked by replicators don't sit too far from the hierarchies actually capable of implementing anything worthwhile.
For example, if replicators land on an independent planet or some base for smugglers, the info won't get anywhere fast enough. Likewise, if the info ends on the desk of some more or less idiotic administrator, it will most likely be ignored or considered a problem dealt with more firepower.

There are just too many worlds, political powers, lags and a variety of cultures and technologies to get that implemented within a week.
Yes, because it's all it's going to take, really, for the menace to already be exponential in nature.

Many worlds but one Grand Army. Days at the most for the high command to have it sink in Replicators assimulate ships.

The largest fleets I've seen dispatched in emergency, in TCWS, still remain small, and that on both sides. It all boils down to how many large ships the replicators have. For example, I can't remember more than 3 to 4 Venators being dispatched at once in the middle of the war. If the replicators already control two coreships or one coreship and another warship of similar volume or at least on par with a Venator, it won't suffice.

Ultimately, blowing your own ships because that's all you can do, that's not helping you. You're just postponing the next defeat.

The point being your warship blows up thier warship and than self-destructs taking any remaining Replicator ship with it denying them their prize.

Replicators have no reason to lose a ship because the new one they tried to infect blows up. Why would that happen? Bugs can cross space, "swim" in the void and form blocks to assemble into larger ships, according to their needs.
It is unclear how they transport from one ship to another when they don't have beaming tech, but I can easily imagine them shooting first, lowering the target's shields, then having bugs crawl on the surface of their first ship, jump and drift through space towards the new one.
Would it be mere plot fiat if the original infested ship juts remained in close vicinity of the one the replicators are boarding?
We have two examples.
The one when a purebug cruiser shot a dart at Thor's science ship. The cruiser was a good distance from Thor's ship. The other example is when Apophis' supership got infested. The original ship wasn't there anymore, not appearing on the scopes at all, nowhere to be seen, when Jacob piloted the Ha'tak back to Apophis' supership.

So obviously the replicators drop "squads" while the main carrier flies off.
Meaning that self-destruction may be of limited value on the long scale.

They take control of any ship, anything that comes with an hyperdrive is doom assured. You can't get them all, and if the bugs form packs, which we know they do, then the blocks themselves will fall through the atmosphere of the planet they decide to attack. From there, the planet will be crawling with newer bugs.

actually blowing ships up has been shown to be effective in killing them, be it rentry burn up or smacking them into a planet or essentially detonating a giant warship sized torpedo. We also know they don't always form up into blocks and AFAIK the first and only time they employed that stratagy was under Fifth who is not in command anymore.

You may only destroy the intruding bugs, not the original ship.

Obviously the Asgards would have tried that

Canonically the Asguard were too smart for thier own good and needed Humans with "stupid" ideas to not overthink the issue.

Because Carter asked them to blow up their unique new generation ship they had. Seeing how the Asgards think, they would have probably blown up Halla if all was lost.
But the Biliskners are not new ships. They're not the advanced type, and the Asgards know they're not that good against Replicators, so it wouldn't baffle their minds that much to think about sacrificing them.

They take control of sensor systems and most likely have those sensors not report bugs. The next phase is to know how sensors work and somehow become cloaked to them, even before having taken control of any system.

That wouldn't make sense to what Thor says. In Nemesis ( SG-1-3)he explains:

CARTER
Why can't I see any bugs on this screen?
THOR
The first thing the replicators do once aboard an Asgard ship is disable the sensors capable of detecting them.
CARTER
But I can still see Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c.
THOR
They are being detected by the thermal sensors which cannot see the replicators.

The Replicators by this point have been on the ship for an indefinate period of time and are famaliar with Asguard technology. Why wouldn't they have adapted by that point or why wouldn't Thor mention this?

New Order Part I wrote: THOR: We must clear the gravitational distortion field of the black hole first. (The Replicator ship fires part of itself towards Thor's ship.) They have fired upon us.

CARTER: Can it penetrate your shields?

THOR: It is more than likely. Brace for impact. (The Replicator weapon hits the ship.) The hull has been breached.

CARTER: Where?

THOR (checking displays): The damage is minimal. The projectile was likely composed of Replicators. They are not visible to my ship's scanners. This is how they have boarded Asgard ships in the past.

Sensors can't even pick them up right after the bugs smash into the ship. So at some point they clearly know how to remain cloaked to sensors built on a technology they know.
Luckily enough, this stage happens relatively *late*.

Funny thing, I had forgotten that they didn't appear on thermal sensors by default.
Wonderful.

This is going to be a hard job. Reese produced a single block from a coffee spoon. You need about 25 blocks, more or less, for one leg. The main torso seems to need 100 blocks.
Let's say around 200 blocks. A spoon is about 20~25 grams. So you need about 4~5 kg of metal to produce one bug.
A rather negligible mass for another bug to gather. They don't waste any visible matter either

But compared to them grabbing hordes of hyperdrive equiped spacecraft having bugs plunk around on a blasted world eating ore is a Godsend. As well we do know they prefer to use the "host's" power when possible. From Small Victories (SG-1-4)

CARTER
So why are the bug's ships traveling so slow?
THOR
In order to generate the subspace field required to travel at hyperspeed, full power of the generators is required. Presently they are using that power to replicate.
CARTER
So, if they did decide to go to hyperspeed it would also mean no shields or weapons.
THOR
Yes. But remember the replicators do not care about time as we do.
CARTER
Right, they're not in a hurry. How did they get control of your ships in the first place?

While they obviously don't need it to replicate, Reese's model built up a sizable swarm without noticable power droppage, they presumbly breed faster when their swimming in power and no matter what else grow slower on a blasted world than one teeming with technology and reactors.

Past a certain point, the cockroach models appear, and they just stack over the power pylons of a ship, multiplying its power. This is exactly what happened in "Enemies". The ship was pumping unimaginable levels of energy into the hyperdrive, allowing it to cover in a few hour what would have taken generations to cross. However, that happened more than ten to eleven hours after the bugs had largely replicated.
So the best moment to get rid of them is when they make numbers. It's a time they're slow, a time when they take control of the ship. But once that is done, they will actually boost any system to get where they want to go.

Won't work, for the simple reason that there won't be a single world to pin them down on before you can even mount such a strategy.

I don't presume to pin them down on a single world. I'm assuming they are going to ensnare several worlds before either sides knows what is truly going on. My intent is to cardon off a rough area of space with a ring of destruction to deny them the ships and technologies and raw energy that entices them.

There are not enough ships in SW to cover all worlds. SW's people simply cannot predict all future destinations and blockade them all. It's downright impossible.
Not to say that the hyperdrives will be boosted by the replicators, allowing to get anywhere faster than what the CIS or GAR can do.
At that point, it's finished. They have to act before replicators get there.

Then send in warships to blow up thier ships and scour all infected worlds of the blighters. The Replicators can either A) fight back which keeps them away from my coreworlds or B) focus on attacking my coreworlds going into the teeth of my defenses while my warfleets sterilize the infected worlds and then come to finish off the Replicator fleet.

Again, you won't have enough ships available to protect all worlds. You can only make guesses and hope that they'll attack the worlds where you placed most of your ships. At this point you're only counting on very dumb luck.

Star Wars mainly uses energy weapons. They'll be as screwed as the Asgards were, minus the fact that the Asgards had higher levels of technology than anything I've seen in Star Wars thus far.

the Goa'uld also use energy weapons, are not nearly as advanced as the Asguard and nothing showed they were completely useless agains the Replicators.

Eh? The Goa'uld never stopped the replicators. At best, at the battle of Dakara, they bought SG-1 some time, and that only because they had superior numbers at Dakara, while the replicators were *only* attacking the whole galaxy.
Other than that, nothing the Goa'uld did proved useful. In fact, Jacob was quite clear about that: the best the Goa'uld could do was to avoid any battle, which would just prevent the replicators from assimilating more ships as fast as if the Goa'uld had sent all their forces against the bugs, which unfortunately for them and the rest of the galaxy, is what they actually did: "Reckoning" has shown that the Goa'uld were falling stupidly fast.

Eventually, if it's a planet like Tatooine, I don't see them doing anything but attempting an interception in atmosphere, which is already too late.
Bugs land their ships, build more of themselves as to be able to beam even more stuff down, and within hours, they have already taken control of the main city of the planet in question, with all its metal and obviously numerous space ships.

Well if we're talking about Tatooine are not a lot of their structures stone/concrete and such not glittery towers of metal? In addition what ships you swipe would hardly be all overpowering but frieghtors and smuggler ships. The MF, even buffed by the Bugs, I'd wager could be taken out by Naboo's defense force.

Sure, if they have only one of such ships goes against a whole planet. But that's not what the bugs do. They still rely on numbers at their core. So any spaceport they loot will actually be used to form packs of ships that will force a planet's defensive force to be stretched. Then, again, with access to starmaps, the replicators will look for the planets which obviously are take-able.

The Asgards were one single force that could apply a clear strategy over its entire territory. Star Wars is not. It's all fractioned, even Moths will do as they wish before anything really smart gets done.

But the armies are not unduly fractured they report straight up the chain to thier respective goverments who are controlled by the same man. The wishes of say the Wookies on if they want to burn worlds is immaterial they don't crew the starfleets, they do not serve at the forefront of the Grand Army. As for the Grand Moffs they are what they are and I don't think they are so incompetent they can't repel an incursion or contribute thier share to the caravan of warships going straight into the infected area.

The moment you speak of an infected area, you've already lots. An area in Star Wars is multiple worlds, which were once full of ships and other cities.
All the CIS/GAR predictions about hyperdrive ranges and speed will be thrown out of the window.

They'll do what the Goa'uld did: send ships to defeat those things, and as we learned in "Reckoning", that is just going to increase the Replicators' numbers exponentially, as stated by Jacob.

But as I think I've demostrated that has less with the Replicators being so great as it does thier opponets having glaring blind spots. Designing a failsafe to pop your ship is not exactly an overly elaborate or difficult procedure that requires substantinal retrofitting.

Sure, but that's not hurting the replicators much. Plus there's always a vast range of ships which won't be able to do that, namely any ship that's not a military ship or which doesn't transport anything like a thermonuclear warhead.
And since Star Wars is literally choke-full of such civilian transports of multiple sizes, even the scorched earth strategy of blowing some warships will be of limited use. If anything, you'll just reduce your own war capable numbers faster than if you had lost them to the replicators in a straight fight, which all things considered, might actually be the best thing to do, since you could at least *hope* dealing some damage.

Plus SW ships are certainly nowhere as good as the Gate ones.

Unknown. You mentioned them being comparable earlier and our argument has largely stemmed on the Replicators Swarming and Assimulation patterns.

Oh no, they're clearly inferior. Goa'uld ships, for example, have automated self repair that allows them to bring hyperdrive and shields online while fiddling with crystals in a single room. They all have internal sensors, which I don't remember seeing in SW. Asgard ships even have supressor fields that help them prevent internal explosions.
And in terms of firepower, it's clear that a single Ha'tak sits way above a Venator. In the hyperdrive department, Asgard ships are just lolz. They also come with beaming tech and disintegration sweeping beams. And frankly, coming from the guys who can build time dilation devices the size of a small watermelon, I have no doubt thinking that their ships just that good.
As for the Goa'uld, they use naqahdah as the source of their power. We know what a small quantity of that stuff can do. For example, look at what Tau'ri could achieve at the end of season 1 of Stargate SG-1: Goa'uld Busters.
As per "Upgrades":

O’NEILL : It takes two guys to carry that?

CARTER : Weapons grade Naquadah is extremely dense. Sir, do you realize how many naquada reactors a single bar like that could power?

The bars. A normal human couldn't carry those.

Where do you see evidence that they would even think of placing superlasers on spaceships

Well they did do it in the original time line. So its completely technologically feasible and fits with thier observed mentality.

Original timeline? When?
I can only think of one piece of evidence, and it's an artwork for one of the CCG supplements. It's quite a rare sight, unique in fact, and was only achieved during the Empire.
In fact, I don't know why I talked about Moffs earlier on, since they wouldn't even be there to begin with.

EDIT: I corrected some typos and added a bit of evidence I forgot about naqahdah use.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Sensors can't even pick them up right after the bugs smash into the ship. So at some point they clearly know how to remain cloaked to sensors built on a techbology they know.
Luckily enough, this stage happens relatively *late*.

I stand corrected, I thank you for the illumination. As to the rest of the post I will attempt to have one ready by Saturday if that is not too inconvient.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: still don't see how it's going to change anything there though. The droids on the core ship will be useless, and the captains, Neimoidians possibly, may just reach for the pods and that would be all. Perhaps they could set some self-destruct, is there's such a thing possible, or if they even think of it or care. For one I didn't see Grievous do anything like that.

Oh I assume the first ship is going to fall fairly easily. I've only been arguing the feasibility of self-destruct keeping additional ships falling into their grasp.

Besides, wouldn't the replicators on the core ship actually try to reactivate the other blocks on the surface since all they're waiting for is energy and a signal?

If I understood the opening post we are talking about a Replicator ship which crashed onto the planet surface and was rendered inert until the Trade ship started poking them. The ones activated onboard may have been the only salvagle ones in the mess.

Anyway, it's then almost taken for granted that the more the bugs are used to a given tech, the faster they are to take control of anything built from it.

To a certain extent yes I would concur. After say deciphering Gu'ald they don't have to sit around wasting minutes and minutes learning the "language" of the main computer again etc.

The story would be very different with one of those big cruisers.
With shields up, the cruiser would have not been threatened much by six O'neils, which I'm sure are quite more potent than the warships in Star Wars.

I'm not sure I follow. We know Thor's says his vessel doesn't stand a chance against it but unless I'm forgetting dialoge its a leap to assume the six warships couldn't have handled it. It just would have been messier than hitting it with its pants down.

They're small critters. Nuking a surface won't be enough. You can't drop a megaton nuke on a small city and consider the job done. A single hole, crack, cave or bit of wall that will protect a single bug and everything will need to be restarted.

and if it restarts its growth will be curtailed compared to if I hadn't bombarded it and I can always blast it again.

I fully understand Replicators are sneaky and resilent, I don't intend to set foot back on any of these worlds for at least decades, but I think you are falling into a trap where a plan must have zero percent chance of failure or you deem it unworkable.

Simply put, you must liquefy a city as deep as the city reaches.

I disagree. While that assures without doubt any survivors its too energy intensive and time consuming to be possible with my likely fleet numbers. Ergo to attempt it would be self-defeating. I'd take a straight forward bombardment with its higher chance of a Replicator surviving, but lower than if I don't open fire, and move onto to cruical battles than be stuck Lord knows how long melting down into the crust.

Droidekas will be a distraction. Ten/eleven hours is enough to have a swarm that's simply beyond manageable, during the discovery phase, the one where replicators get used to conquering the first ships built around a different technology.
In terms of ground battles, that's a short time.

Beyond the managment of a starship. Stargatewiki suggests 2000 jaffa soldiers are carried by a normal Ha'tak.A battle for a planet will take considerably longer. As well one can be free to use more powerful weapons on a planet's surface than on a starship since you don't have to worry about breaching your "hull" and venting yourself into the void.

For instance take the proton torpedo. Not overly rare or exotic, Naboo's fighters carried them, Pirate forces, the Rebellion. Equip a strikecraft squadron with them and strafe a city falling to the Replicators and you just deposited little boy, distrubted more effectivly than a single omni-bomb as well, which should kill a few Repliactors at least. Repeat as needed until victory or a warship arrives to finish the job.

Can't tell. Still, with access to maps and strategical information, I doubt the Replicators would be dumb enough to attack a target they can't deal with.

But that does slow your infection down you have to group more ships togather to succesfully spread your contagion buying more time for everyone else to react and understand the threat.

There are enough spaceports and stations in that galaxy for the Replicators to attack before anything can come to threaten them

To steal the docked spaceships I presume or as a snack?

But if the replicators take control of any space port, then the problem is close to be sealed in favour of the bugs.

I'm not sure I agree with this. We are talking of thousands of worlds I have sever doubts a random station is going to have even a small fraction of that. They can use it to help secure thier growing beachead but thats far from certainty of victory.

Correct. That's why they'll obviously go looking for targets which can be dealt with. Find me one case of replicators going against a target that what clearly out of their league, and you'll have a point.

You appeared to be arguing the infected ships should set sail across the galaxy depositing Replicators, and either pushing on to repeat the process or staying to guard, who than capture starships and fly off to start the process again. I'm arguing that by focusing on expansion at the cost of all else you are stretching yourself thin regardless if you win every battle you engage in. That the Republic and the Confederacy have warships that can follow after your trail while your still struggling to digest your worlds in question and pulverise the infected sights.

That's if the local political powers understand what they're dealing with, and are ready to burn their own world down to the ground, potentially resulting in hundreds of billions of victims.

Well if they have already taken time to build up numbers it increases the odds of someone in charge realizing they are dealing with self-replicating droids and the juicy target such a large swatch of them provide.

But if they manage to eat a planet like Christophsis and cover it with blocks, then no firepower that SW has demonstrated will save them. When it was suggested to overload Prometheus' hyperdrive to destroy the only remaining structure on Halla housing the time dilation device, Carter said that it would most likely end feeding the replicators with more energy.
We know that the blast itself would have been devastating, enough to obliterate the entirety of Nevada, even possibly leave a near a huge crater in the middle of this state.

But they were on that world for a very long time. We, as far as I know, do not have a rough idea of how long it takes for them to obtain that.

The problem is not about how long it would take to spread the info once up, but for the mattering intel to actually reach higher levels. A sector of the CIS may hear of an outburst of odd droids and not realize that those "droids" are not of the same vein SW inhabitants are used to see.
As usual, the better the information is, and the quicker it goes up the ladder, the more chances SW forces stand.

True. Initially they are going to be caught with their pants down however the Republic at least employs Jedi as commanders and they do have an "odd" way of seeing/sensing things. That might give the Republic a miniscule advantage.

The largest fleets I've seen dispatched in emergency, in TCWS, still remain small, and that on both sides. It all boils down to how many large ships the replicators have. For example, I can't remember more than 3 to 4 Venators being dispatched at once in the middle of the war. If the replicators already control two coreships or one coreship and another warship of similar volume or at least on par with a Venator, it won't suffice.

Well how about four Venators and three Munificent starfrigates? :)

To be fair to the TCWS they are engaging across a galaxy, with a cease fire if not an alliance they might be able to spare more ships for a battlegroup.

Replicators have no reason to lose a ship because the new one they tried to infect blows up. Why would that happen? Bugs can cross space, "swim" in the void and form blocks to assemble into larger ships, according to their needs.

I would beg to differ. At Reckoning part I at roughly six minute mark we see an infected Ha'tak infect another and it is not astronomicaly far away as well we have no information that it ever leaves. Daniel is simply beamed up and the main cast escape down to the planet to use the stargate which is differnt from Thor's example who was able to pursue Fifth's ship.

In addition Reckoning part II shows us Ba'al's fleet engaged with the Replicators they appear to be holding steady blasting at them not depositing "eggs" and jumping away.

It is unclear how they transport from one ship to another when they don't have beaming tech, but I can easily imagine them shooting first, lowering the target's shields, then having bugs crawl on the surface of their first ship, jump and drift through space towards the new one.

I would imagine they simply fire "torpedoes" of blocks which "unravel" into more Bugs once inside the ship.

The one when a purebug cruiser shot a dart at Thor's science ship. The cruiser was a good distance from Thor's ship.

That ship merely wanted Carter and had no interest in assimulating Thor's vessel.

The other example is when Apophis' supership got infested. The original ship wasn't there anymore, not appearing on the scopes at all, nowhere to be seen, when Jacob piloted the Ha'tak back to Apophis' supership.

I always presumed Apophis won the battle but had become infested in the process.

Because Carter asked them to blow up their unique new generation ship they had. Seeing how the Asgards think, they would have probably blown up Halla if all was lost.
But the Biliskners are not new ships. They're not the advanced type, and the Asgards know they're not that good against Replicators, so it wouldn't baffle their minds that much to think about sacrificing them.

You are talking about guys impressed by projectile weapons propelled by gunpowder. They could just as easily dismissed the idea as not practical because you can't be certain you will take anybody else with you. After all Carter's plan was only foolproof because the Replicators diverted power to hyperdrives shutting down thier shields. In short its an ugly, brutal and savage way of war and I am skepetical the Asguard would consider it.

There are not enough ships in SW to cover all worlds.

All worlds no but I have never said every planet gets its own personal cruiser to defend it. Beef up the planets' your keeping defense, put local warships under some form of sector command to response on a per incident crisis and let it be.

Again, you won't have enough ships available to protect all worlds

Well we really don't know how many ships the Republic-Confederacy have. We know the Empire had twenty-five thousand star destroyers to its name as well as additional lighter crafts like the Carrack cruiser but to the Clone Wars era we could only make very crude estimates.

Eh? The Goa'uld never stopped the replicators.

But they fought them and no one suggested thier weapons were worthless, that they'd be better off converting thier ships to kinetic kill weapons. That is all I'm pointing out.

while the replicators were *only* attacking the whole galaxy.

I didn't get any sense they were attacking the whole freaking galaxy. They attacked Earth but thats about it. Jacob even suggested Ba'al holding back to try and buy time for the galaxy hardly a suggestion if the only thing even slowing them down devouring the cosmos are the Gu'ald

Sure, if they have only one of such ships goes against a whole planet. But that's not what the bugs do. They still rely on numbers at their core. So any spaceport they loot will actually be used to form packs of ships that will force a planet's defensive force to be stretched. Then, again, with access to starmaps, the replicators will look for the planets which obviously are take-able.

Naboo represents the low end of defense. Short of a two-bit smuggler colony or some such I think just about any world will be able to offer you at least a few fighters in retaliation. You can of course overwhelm them fairly easy but that takes more ships which means a slower expansion which means more time.

The moment you speak of an infected area, you've already lots. An area in Star Wars is multiple worlds, which were once full of ships and other cities.

And Starwars has more worlds, more cities and more ships. They have the reserves to spare to buy time to learn about this threat and fight back.

Something to bear in mind the system lords were expected to lose in weeks in Reckoning and they have fewer ships, less developed worlds and are more technologically inflexiable than Star Wars.

Sure, but that's not hurting the replicators much. Plus there's always a vast range of ships which won't be able to do that, namely any ship that's not a military ship or which doesn't transport anything like a thermonuclear warhead.

I presume most civilians ships will be captured yes. If all civies could be expected to proper resiest, instantaniously realizing the threat, than the Replicator threat would never materliaze. They'd be a lone ship quickly outgunned and outnumbered who'd be blasted to bits and the infected world sterelized. Turned to slag if need be but the threat would be destroyed.

And since Star Wars is literally choke-full of such civilian transports of multiple sizes, even the scorched earth strategy of blowing some warships will be of limited use.

Stargate verse is choke full of interconnecting "portals" that allow you to cross from world to world as well as smaller hyperdrive equiped "shuttles" and the Replicators still were to take weeks.

If anything, you'll just reduce your own war capable numbers faster than if you had lost them to the replicators in a straight fight, which all things considered, might actually be the best thing to do, since you could at least *hope* dealing some damage.

I think you are still misunderstanding. The idea is to engage the Replicator ships who will presumbly fire blocks to infect my ships. My ships then close to blast the living hell out of them while dedicated soldiers onboard battle the Replicator threat and at the last minute the ship tries to charge even closer to the enemy ships and self-destructs.

Oh no, they're clearly inferior

Well if the Replicators' ships can go all Borg and eat swarms of ships they win. My argument is based on rough parity with Star Wars.

Original timeline? When?
I can only think of one piece of evidence, and it's an artwork for one of the CCG supplements. It's quite a rare sight, unique in fact, and was only achieved during the Empire.

Eclipse proving it is feasible with Star Wars technology to fit a superlaser onto a SSD frame. The Empire accomlished this feat and the same people would still be available in the Republic. Difficult to pull off yes but doable if given enough years.

sonofccn wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote: still don't see how it's going to change anything there though. The droids on the core ship will be useless, and the captains, Neimoidians possibly, may just reach for the pods and that would be all. Perhaps they could set some self-destruct, is there's such a thing possible, or if they even think of it or care. For one I didn't see Grievous do anything like that.

Oh I assume the first ship is going to fall fairly easily. I've only been arguing the feasibility of self-destruct keeping additional ships falling into their grasp.

Again, how long it takes before this measure gets implemented, say, at least, sector wise?
My point is that unless you're damn lucky, by the time any chain of command has managed to issue such a protocol, it's already too late. Especially if the original ship's crew barely made it out alive, they'll clearly not be capable of reporting the information fast enough. And that is if anyone survives, because going by the way replicators work, the bridge of the coreship will be surrounded before the fleshy captains will realize it's too late. Besides, as I said, no one in his sane mind would say that a ship must be outright nuked the moment those droids come onboard. First they'll try to deal with them on a case by case basis, with superior firepower if necessary.

The story would be very different with one of those big cruisers.
With shields up, the cruiser would have not been threatened much by six O'neils, which I'm sure are quite more potent than the warships in Star Wars.

I'm not sure I follow. We know Thor's says his vessel doesn't stand a chance against it but unless I'm forgetting dialoge its a leap to assume the six warships couldn't have handled it. It just would have been messier than hitting it with its pants down.

Here's what the episode says:

New Order Part I wrote: THOR: I have managed to send advance warning to Orilla. By providing them with the Replicator ship's course and speed, they should have a fair approximation of where it will drop out of hyperspace. What ships we have available will be waiting in ambush.

TEAL'C: You believe the Asgard ships can destroy the Replicators before they can raise their shields.

THOR: They will only be defenceless for a few moments, but if my calculations are accurate, that should be sufficient.

Certainly nothing says for sure that the 6 O'neills would be impotent even against the shielded ship, but it's also made very clear that the success of the interception hinges on the necessity of catching the replicator cruiser pants down, and we've seen that even in such a state, the cruiser still tanked several shots before going down. At least each O'neill fired once, and I doubt they were firing poppers. And even that didn't entirely destroy the ship, so much that plenty of functional debris fell onto Orilla, and a humanoid replicator was found drifting in space and only needed a bit of a nudge to become functional again (and got zapped with a disintegrator weapon).

So I insist. That kind of ship would steamroll any warsian ship of the same tonnage, and easily take on a fleet, considering I see SW ships inferior to SG ships.
Plus blasting one over a planet is only dooming said civilized planet. If you don't have the guts nor the will to level an entire section of a planet, you're dooming the galaxy.
Ultimately it takes little time for replicators to assemble a ship that's capable of FTL travel. They can also directly go to FTL while in atmosphere.

They're small critters. Nuking a surface won't be enough. You can't drop a megaton nuke on a small city and consider the job done. A single hole, crack, cave or bit of wall that will protect a single bug and everything will need to be restarted.

and if it restarts its growth will be curtailed compared to if I hadn't bombarded it and I can always blast it again.

I fully understand Replicators are sneaky and resilent, I don't intend to set foot back on any of these worlds for at least decades, but I think you are falling into a trap where a plan must have zero percent chance of failure or you deem it unworkable.

Simply put, you must liquefy a city as deep as the city reaches.

I disagree. While that assures without doubt any survivors its too energy intensive and time consuming to be possible with my likely fleet numbers. Ergo to attempt it would be self-defeating. I'd take a straight forward bombardment with its higher chance of a Replicator surviving, but lower than if I don't open fire, and move onto to cruical battles than be stuck Lord knows how long melting down into the crust.

If you intend to merely blockade the planet, good, but there are two problems with that.

1. Since you don't try your best to actually make sure no replicator survives, you're leaving yourself open to them reproducing.
2. As you nuked the planet, the atmosphere will be full of ionized particles and, depending on the severity of the action, you may also kick up a few storms here and there. Basically, you'll be incapable of spotting anything on the surface, especially not small robots that naturally don't show up on thermal scanners and can quickly adapt to become automatically cloaked to your other scanners.
3. You're leaving yourself open to any unpleasant surprise, as you expect the bugs to take off the planet is some obvious fashion, as well as you expect them to behave the same way. But we know that they adapt : that's stated in the show that they form any shap/tool that would meet their needs, as since they're not totally dumb, after noticing that they're pinned on the ground, you'll have to be ready to have to deal with a shot solution out their sleeves.
4. You are assuming that the bugs, in the vicinity of any nuclear bombardment, won't decide to form packs as a nuke detonates. The light will just empower them, while they'll have time to assemble to deal with the overpressure. Since we've seen, from the incident at Orilla, that blocks can survive reentry and resume reproduction, your nuke-a-ton plan will soon prove worthless.

With all this in mind, it will dawn on any dude leading a fleet in orbit that it's either all or nothing. There won't be any half meaures.

Droidekas will be a distraction. Ten/eleven hours is enough to have a swarm that's simply beyond manageable, during the discovery phase, the one where replicators get used to conquering the first ships built around a different technology.
In terms of ground battles, that's a short time.

Beyond the managment of a starship. Stargatewiki suggests 2000 jaffa soldiers are carried by a normal Ha'tak.A battle for a planet will take considerably longer. As well one can be free to use more powerful weapons on a planet's surface than on a starship since you don't have to worry about breaching your "hull" and venting yourself into the void.

For instance take the proton torpedo. Not overly rare or exotic, Naboo's fighters carried them, Pirate forces, the Rebellion. Equip a strikecraft squadron with them and strafe a city falling to the Replicators and you just deposited little boy, distrubted more effectivly than a single omni-bomb as well, which should kill a few Repliactors at least. Repeat as needed until victory or a warship arrives to finish the job.

An attack on a planet will not be limited to the confines of a ship's volume either.
If you're wanting to use powerful weapons against a planet, good, but you'll have to carpet bomb the entire infested site and beyond, and do this so thoroughly that no bug could ever hope survive after falling into a crack or under a slab of a wall. In a city, you will be condemned to level the city to the ground and even pulverize its foundations, because this is all the more places the critters can find haven in.
But we get back to the point that after such a bombardment, the zone will be so messy and polluted that getting a clear reading through all that crap will be impossible.
It doesn't matter if you use proton torpedoes, LCs or TLCs. You have to be complete in the destruction.

Can't tell. Still, with access to maps and strategical information, I doubt the Replicators would be dumb enough to attack a target they can't deal with.

But that does slow your infection down you have to group more ships togather to succesfully spread your contagion buying more time for everyone else to react and understand the threat.

Look at it the other way. Instead of grouping whatever ships you have under your hand, you can split them up into small groups and make it even harder to stop, especially since they're to be sent to less defended worlds.
Plus you won't have much time to deal with the bugs once they appear in your system. In "Nemesis" we saw that they had no qualms about entering a planet's atmosphere full throttle. The ship and the debris literally crashed at more than 90 km/s into the ocean and one big still made it out. I'm pretty sure that that they could handle something less extreme than that.

There are enough spaceports and stations in that galaxy for the Replicators to attack before anything can come to threaten them

To steal the docked spaceships I presume or as a snack?

They take the ships, improve them and eat whatever can be eaten.

But if the replicators take control of any space port, then the problem is close to be sealed in favour of the bugs.

I'm not sure I agree with this. We are talking of thousands of worlds I have sever doubts a random station is going to have even a small fraction of that. They can use it to help secure thier growing beachead but thats far from certainty of victory.

Small fraction like what? All they need to do is get a handful FTL capable crafts and head for random directions, preferably worlds which are not seen as largely defended.
You know, even one single warship plus a small fleet isn't going to do shit against one single FTL capable craft that decides to head for a planet and eventually crash in the middle of a city.
Take Naboo. Their defense force. Let's say that what they launched in the movie is a force that you find in each city. What are they going to against a craft that comes into the atmosphere with reinforced shields? The N-1s have weak guns, inaccurate ones, and their torpedoes are just good enough to hit very large and slow targets.
By the time they can do anything, the replicators will already be spreading through Theed. By the time the authorities realize what is going and that they're dealing with more than a mere rogue crash, they'll have, if they still can and still have access to communications, declare a state of emergency and order evacuation.
Eventually this may even lead into civilians taking off with their own ships if they had any, unwittingly taking some unwanted passagers with them.
Nuking the city is a completely ridiculous option so we won't even consider it until some major army crack head appears and weighs all pros and cons and thinks that something needs to be done. And what to do?
Will anyone have the idiocy of saying "oh well, let's nuke the city"? No, they'll most likely try to get more data and see how they can contain the threat and defeat it naturally.
Or heck, take Tatooine. This place is impossible to rule, only crime keeps people in check, and it's full of ships.
Or imagine a place like Bespin, with a ship like the Millennium Falcon full of bugs. Security forces intercept the ship with some cloudcars. The moment they open fire, they'll get smocked out of the sky with the MF's increased systems. Looking at how a juggernaut it was in ROTJ tells us how hard it will be take down an improved cargo. The hsip is fast crashed into a tower or plaza, and through its cracks replicators begin to pour.

Correct. That's why they'll obviously go looking for targets which can be dealt with. Find me one case of replicators going against a target that what clearly out of their league, and you'll have a point.

You appeared to be arguing the infected ships should set sail across the galaxy depositing Replicators, and either pushing on to repeat the process or staying to guard, who than capture starships and fly off to start the process again. I'm arguing that by focusing on expansion at the cost of all else you are stretching yourself thin regardless if you win every battle you engage in. That the Republic and the Confederacy have warships that can follow after your trail while your still struggling to digest your worlds in question and pulverise the infected sights.

Replicators move on to the next target when they deem they can. The infecting ship doesn't need to stay close to the targeted ship for example once the bugs on the target ship have reached a level where they're doing fine on their own. But that's not what I'm asking for.
My question is to show me proof that the replicators are known to go against targets which were too big for them to take on.

That's if the local political powers understand what they're dealing with, and are ready to burn their own world down to the ground, potentially resulting in hundreds of billions of victims.

Well if they have already taken time to build up numbers it increases the odds of someone in charge realizing they are dealing with self-replicating droids and the juicy target such a large swatch of them provide.

For some reason, I doubt that they'll immediately go for the uber BDZ option right off the bat. Especially when what you're asked to do is return to bring back to the dark ages one of the most singualr planets of the galaxy.
And if they do, ocnsidering the worlds I took as examples, it will surely greatly disrupt governing power and economy on large scales, perhaps even the galactic scale.
Of course, an attack on such worlds will likely take place at a time in the bug's evolution in the SW galaxy when they have reached a level that allows them to control tech and replicate within ten minutes, as per AoT.
These places might have gotten more protected by decree, but that will only happen at the expense of other worlds, since SW's resources aren't infinite.

But if they manage to eat a planet like Christophsis and cover it with blocks, then no firepower that SW has demonstrated will save them. When it was suggested to overload Prometheus' hyperdrive to destroy the only remaining structure on Halla housing the time dilation device, Carter said that it would most likely end feeding the replicators with more energy.
We know that the blast itself would have been devastating, enough to obliterate the entirety of Nevada, even possibly leave a near a huge crater in the middle of this state.

But they were on that world for a very long time. We, as far as I know, do not have a rough idea of how long it takes for them to obtain that.

Let's take an example with Earth.
The crust is about 0.374% of Earth's mass, which is 5.9736 e24 kg.

The crust's mass is therefore about 2.2341264 e22 kg.
Based on my quick estimate from the spoon turned into a block in "Menace", I got a topmost bug mass of 4~5 kg.
It's extremely excessive. Nothing indicates that they weigh that much. If it were the case, the bug that slammed into the Russian's face in "Small Victories" would have kicked him on his back.
Plus they'd have harder times to climb on walls (although the big bugs don't have any problem to climb on walls as well, so they probably generate some strong contact force fields).
Really, I wish I had found a figure closer to 1 kg, but that would require assuming that Reese wasted some material.

The solution is that there's an "empty" bug model. This bog standard bug has to weigh around 1 kg, preferably less.
Since I think the acid is nanites at work, the bug has to use some of its own mass for this tool. Perhaps a good percentage of its own mass can be expanded as this dissolving agent.
But then, how, or more precisely why would some blocks be heavier?
Aside from allowing the bug to spray more of this "acid", there's the fact that replicators carry materials back to the queen.
Thankfully, nano technology would allow them to organize molecules in an efficient way. This is absolutely needed anyway, since we never see a single bug carry anything, and that's the most obvious explanation unless we explore the realms of timespace manipulation, which is not wished. Besides, most of the bugs we see moving back towards a queen are moving on the floor.

I also found a spoon at ~15 grams. But with 200 blocks, that's still gives a 3kg bug, which is just too heavy for the basic model.
So I think the basic bug would weigh around 1 kg or less, and when fully loaded, could weigh up to 3~5 kilograms.

Let's say that the bugs that will be produced will be 5 kg heavy and already carry a good stock of matter to work with.
From the crust's mass, that's about 4.4682528 e21 bugs.

Almost 4.5 sextillion bugs.

In full production, based on "Small Victories", a queen takes about 0.88 seconds (22 frames) to release two new blocks.
If we assume that 200 blocks are needed (this could easily be an overestimate, I was optimistic on the count of main body blocks, plus there doesn't seem to be that much that coalesce into a bug), it would take about 176 seconds to build one. That's almost three minutes.
At such a rate, there could be only 20 bugs produced per hour.
Considering how fast the queen appeared in AoT, there clearly is something odd there.
At such a rate, there would have not been any swarm aboard the Odyssey, even less the huge swarm we saw aboard Apophis' Lok'ha'tak after something like one hour of production, or the equally huge swarm aboard Cronos' Ha'tak after 10~11 hours of work.

Using a queen has to present an advantage over letting each bug duplicate itself.
We know that a bug becomes a queen by increasing its mass with more blocks. Based on pictures of said queens, we know that a queen is easily worth several bugs in terms of blocks. Its legs are considerably thicker, there are some other bits added here and there, plus a whole large carapace and even a sort of ribcage that protects the original bug. We would easily be around 5 bugs or more.

Each bug has to have the capacity to reproduce itself to such numbers.
What is not known if a bug can do that right off the bat or if it has to produce the "acid" and take some time to do so. We can't tell for example if the two bugs that infested the Ha'tak and the submarine hadn't collected enough whatever they collect to melt materials to produce two more of themselves.
However, the bug in AoT didn't seem to have that much problems to do so, but then perhaps it was coded to be fully operational at the moment it would be created.
It is unclear though what a queen would gain in not equipping each new bug with enough nanoacid.

The queen is very important to the bugs.
If a queen doesn't present an advantage regarding the nanite acid, then we have to look elsewhere. As such, another possibility for why a queen would be needed is to properly energize each bug.
A fully energized bug would be capable of manipulating its nanites to spit the nanodisasembler (the "acid").
But then again that doesn't work very well, because we're not solving the problem that each bug has to keep duplicating itself at least once to reach observed numbers, unless each bug produced by the queen is fully capable of reproducing another queen elsewhere, while a bug produced by another bug has a limited potential and will carry minimal reserves until it gathers more on its own.
That, mind you, would explain a great deal of things, from the bugs looking for energy spots to masses of bugs producing exponentional levels of energy to most bugs taking one shot to go down (although for that one you'd consider that the bugs disgorged from one of those small ships such as those at Dakara would have been fully charged before hand).

Still, I think we can stick with that model, where bugs duplicating themselves do it at the expense of their own resources, and only fully charged bugs such as those that took time to gather resources beforehand, or those produced by queens, can produce more bugs more often and in greater quantities.

Now, if bugs need to be charged with energy (they don't have to provide raw materials), where does this energy come from?
At least, we know that they can create energy "out of the blue", in that they don't burn fuel at all. It could be an advanced form of subspace tap for example. Greater numbers allow bugs to produce some impressive reactor. Each block has to have a potential, and eventually, only the addition of several blocks to form a bug allows for the emergence of a form of reactor "inside" the bug.
Meaning that each bug can continuously produce more bugs, but at a much slower pace if one bug doesn't evolve into a queen, since it will then have to pause a while to gather energy.

It is also possible that queen generates energy for the whole hive, and the bugs either get charged at a distance, or recharge themselves by coming into contact with the queen, which we see them do. So contrary to what is usually thought, the bugs wouldn't exactly be limited to gathering resources for the queens, but would actually resupply in energy to also become autonomous.

Since we have never seen the structures around a queen to be damaged, it's clear that whatever material a queen gets is taken from somewhere else. With the queen being immobile, the bugs obviously are the prime candidate in the role of gatherers. But it's also possible that the queen gets materials differently. For one, it may extent nano tendrils into a superstructure and gather materials over a long distance, like some kind of tree. It may even beam them up, although there's no evidence of later twos.

Based on AoT, the bugs must be able to produce bugs faster. That's quite unexpected and counter intruitive at first hand, but not if you think in broader terms as presented above and avoid limiting the queen's advantage at a mere question of production rate, but one of quality and accessory roles like energy production.
In a way or another, it is absolutely clear that the production rate displayed by a queen would have never allowed the Odyssey to be overrun so soon with a single bug at the origin of the infestation. Same goes for Reese's own infestation.

In a way or another, the sheer rate of production taken from a queen alone would not be an accurate representation of their reproduction capacity.

All of this would also explain why more than one queen isn't exactly necessary, until numbers reach a certain point. Arguably, the only times we've seen a queen was at the beginning of an infestation.

What we can establish is a basic model as follows:

1 bug produces the equivalent of 4 more bugs (or more) and turns into a queen. This has to take place within a few minutes at best.
It has to produce at least one more bug that will fetch some materials.
Eventually, the queen starts producing more bugs. Each of these new queen-made bugs is totally capable of producing the number of blocks to turn into another queen and produce some extra gatherers, or at least have a stock to begin producing more blocks until the first gatherer returns with raw materials. In a way or another, this clearly has to be a capacity to produce 7 bugs or more.
Future bugs will occupy different roles: some will be gatherers for raw materials, some will assume exploration and defense, while others will construct more of themselves elsewhere.
Eventually, some if not all of them will return to the queen at some point for some superfast energetic recharge (although we could still asume that some non-solid can exist and allow for a distant recharge). At least the gatherers and reproducers and the first that will need to be recharged. I'm not saying they can't produce their own energy, but the model places the queen as far superior in that department, so much that it can cover the needs of a whole small to medium hive on its own.
Then, again, it is not impossible, considering how a stack of perhaps three to four dozens of cockroach models (roughly similar and appearance in size to queens) completely cracked the power levels of Cronos' Ha'tak.

The result of this model is that 1/3 of the produced bugs should be considered capable of producing six times their own numbers under a handful minutes.

Let's get a low end here and assume that it takes 3 minutes for normal bugs, as produced by a queen, to build another bug.
You notice that I take the queen's reproduction rate, although we do know it's too slow to correspond to facts.
Let's say that a third of the produced bugs will then return to the queen, fully charge up and assume a reproduction task.
Let's say it takes each bug like an average of 5 minutes to return to the queen, then 5 more minutes to move to another spot for further bug production.

We start with one queen, plus three bugs, one of which will go reproduce elsewhere. We follow this last bug's life. :)
To get nice numbers, I'll assume a fully charged bug can produce 9 bugs, each dedicated to one of the three different duties in a cyclic way, so the 1st, 4th and 7th return to the queen to be capable of reproducing at full.

T+xx minutes, over a full hour, building replicators in green

• T+00, bug alpha is constructed by the queen. It goes off to build 9 more bugs.
  +1 replicator; total = 1
• T+05, alpha reaches a new construction spot and starts eating stuff.
• T+08, it has produced a new bug. This new bug (bug 1) returns to the queen for a recharge (5 minutes trip). This one will be a constructor (/builder/reproducer).
  +1 replicator; total = 2
• T+11, alpha completes a second bug (bug 2). This one will be a gatherer and will take some materials and return to the queen. Gatherers will be further ignored.
  +1 replicator; total = 3
• T+13, bug 1 reaches the queen and is supercharged. It goes on to find a spot for reproduction. It will reach said spot in 5 minutes.
  +1 replicator; total = 4
• T+14, alpha completes a third bug. This one will be a scout/defender. This class will be further ignored.
  +1 replicator; total = 5
• T+17, alpha completes a fourth bug. This new bug returns to the queen for a recharge (5 minutes trip). This one will be a constructor.
  +1 replicator; total = 6
• T+18, bug 1 finds its own nice spot and begins production of 9 bugs.
  +1 replicator; total = 7
• T+20, alpha completes a fifth bug.
  +1 replicator; total = 8
• T+21, bug 1 has produced a new bug (bug 1.1) which will be a constructor. This one returns to the queen.
  +1 replicator; total = 9
• T+22, bug 4 reaches the queen and is supercharged.
  +1 replicator; total = 10
• T+23, alpha completes a sixth bug.
  +1 replicator; total = 11
• T+24, bug 1 finishes producing its second bug.
  +1 replicator; total = 12
• T+26, alpha completes a seventh bug. This new bug returns to the queen for a recharge (5 minutes trip). This one will be a constructor. Bug 1.1 is recharged.
  +1 replicator; total = 13
• T+27, bug 4 finds a spot and begins production. Replicator 1 produced a third bug (1.3).
  +1 replicator; total = 14
• T+29, alpha completes an eighth bug.
  +1 replicator; total = 15
• T+30, bug 4 has produced its first bug, 4.1. Bug 1 has produced its fourth bug, bug 1.4. All constructors. Bugs return to the queen.
  +2 replicator; total = 17
• T+31, bug 1.1 begins production.
• T+32, alpha completes a ninth bug. The original bug returns to the queen. Bug 7 has reached the queen and is charged.
  +1 replicator; total = 18
• T+33, bug 1 completes its fifth bug. Bug 4 completes its second bug.
  +2 replicators; total = 20
• T+34, bug 1.1 has produced its first constructor; bug 1.1.1.
  +1 replicator; total = 21
• T+35, bug 1.4 and 4.1 are recharged.
• T+36, bug 1 completes its sixth bug. Bug 4 completes its third one.
  +2 replicators; total = 23
• T+37, alpha is recharged. Bug 1.1.2 is completed.
  +1 replicator; total = 24
• T+39, bug 1 completes its seventh bug. Bug 4 completes its fourth bug. Both bugs 1.7 and 4.4 will be constructors. They head back to the queen. 1.1.1 is recharged.
  +2 replicators; total = 26
• T+40, bugs 1.4 and 4.1 begin production. 1.1 completes its third bug, 1.1.3.
  +1 replicator; total = 27
• T+42, alpha finds a spot and resumes its production. Bug 1 completes its eighth bug and bug 4 finishes its fifth bug.
  +2 replicators; total = 29
• T+43, 1.1 completes bug 1.1.4, bugs 1.4 and 4.1 complete bugs 1.4.1 and 4.1.1. All constructors.
  +3 replicators; total = 32
• T+44, bug 1.1.1 finishes a constructor, bug 1.1.1.1. This new one heads back to the queen.
  +1 replicator; total = 33
• T+45, alpha builds another constructor. It's the tenth bug, or bug 10. Bug 1 completes its last bug, while 4 finishes its sixth. Bug 1 joins the new bugs and return to the queen.
  +3 replicators; total = 36
• T+46, bugs 1.1.5, 1.4.2 and 4.1.2 are finished.
  +3 replicators; total = 39
• T+47, bug 1.1.1 finishes bug 1.1.1.2.
  +1 replicator; total = 40
• T+48, alpha completes bug 11. Bug 4 completes its seventh bug (bug 4.7), another constructor, which will return to the queen. 1.4.1 and 4.1.1 are recharged.
  +2 replicators; total = 42
• T+49, bug 1.1.1.1 joins the queen and is recharged. Bugs 1.1.6, 1.4.3 and 4.1.3 are finished.
  +3 replicators; total = 45
• T+50, bug 1 has joined the queen and is charged up. Bug 1.1.1.3 is completed.
  +1 replicator; total = 46
• T+51, alpha completes bug 12. Bug 4 builds bug 4.8.
  +2 replicators; total = 48
• T+52, bugs 1.1.7, 1.4.4 and 4.1.4 are completed. They're constructors.
  +3 replicators; total = 51
• T+53, bug 4.7 is recharged. 1.4.1 and 4.1.1 begin building new replicators. 1.1.1.4 is finished.
  +1 replicator; total = 52
• T+54, alpha completes bug 13, bug 4 completes bug 4.9 and returns to the queen. Bug 1.1.1.1 begins production.
  +2 replicators; total = 54
• T+55, bugs 1 and 10 have found their own spot and begin building bugs. Bugs 1.1.8, 1.4.5 and 4.1.5 are completed.
  +3 replicators; total = 57
• T+56, bugs 1.1.1.5, 1.4.1.1 and 4.1.1.1 are completed.
  +3 replicators; total = 60
• T+57, alpha completes bug 14. Bug 1.1.1.1 completes 1.1.1.1.1. Bugs 1.4.4 and 4.1.4 are recharged.
  +1 replicator; total = 61
• T+58, bug 1 completes bug 1.10 while bug 10 finishes building its first constructor bug, bug 10.0. Bugs 1.1.9, 1.4.6 and 4.1.6 are also finished. Bug 4.7 begins production. Bug 1.1 returns to the queen.
  +5 replicators; total = 66
• T+59, bug 4 is recharged. Bugs 1.1.1.6, 1.4.1.2 and 4.1.1.2 are finished.
  +3 replicators; total = 70
• T+60, alpha completes bug 15.
  +1 replicator; total = 71

Boy, I probably missed a few of them down there! :D


Notice that constructor bugs may also carry some matter with them to resupply the queen.
Each three minutes, the queen also creates a new "alpha" bug. Which means that each three minutes, you can pick the total at T+(60-n) and add it, since it's a new alpha branch that begins.

Simply put, there will be 20 alpha produced in total.
So that's a total of 71 +61 +54 +48 +42 +36 +29 +26 +23 +20 +17 +14 +12 +9 +7 +5 +3 +2 +1 +1.
481 bugs, over one hour, that seems about right.

But perhaps I should leave AoT. The queen had access to more data than the average bug about Odyssey (it was all already crammed in) and she had set up shop next to a power conduit.
Plus the queen in AoT was not the same as in "Small Victories". It had a different structure and was quite bigger; another proof that the bugs also assemble as they need, and perhaps this queen model was a more efficient one. It tapped one of the Odyssey's power conduits, contrary to the one in "Small Victories" where the queen didn't have much to rely on safe perhaps the diesel engines of the submarine (or was it nuclear? anyway, that would be in the MW range, compared to what would be available on a 304).

The obvious problem towards the end is some sort of over crowding around the queen. Only a cordless/contactless transmission of energy would solve that. Thankfully, we know that the bugs can do it, since we don't see any physical appendage linking several blocks working together. We also know that stargates and DHDs are linked via such an advanced system (there's no tangible link, most likely all is based on subspace, which also is what the bugs use to communicate).


Let's say that every ten minutes, the replicators increase their forces by 10%. Quite absurd, but we're trying to get an idea here.
With the queen being about 5 bugs and so on, let's start from there.

Let's treat each ten minutes as a pack of one time unit n.

Quantity of replicators = x
Quantity of replicators at n+1 = x + x * 0.1

So each ten minutes, the quantity of replicators is multiplied by 1.1.

This is completely absurd because you still only get 8.86 bugs after one hour, and that after starting with already 5 of them, not one!
Still, let's proceed and observe how much time it takes at this rate to eat the crust.

[initial quantity]*1.1^n

Earlier on I got 4.5 e21 bugs based on Earth's whole crust mass.
Now, let's hope I don't get this wrong. It's been ages since I did that stuff at school.

5 * 1.1^n = 4.5 e21
1.1^n = 9 e20

ln(1.1^n) = ln (9 e20)
n ln(1.1) = ln (9 e20)
n = 506.230

n was a pack of ten minutes. So it takes 5062.3 minutes to eat the crust, or 84.3718 hours.
That's roughly more than 3.5 days.

Of course, that's with using an absurdly slow rate. As we've seen, they obviously need to have a much higher construction rate. For one, they have to come with more than a hundred bugs after one hour. If we start with 5 bugs (instead of just one), that's multiplying their numbers by 20 over one hour.
At such rates, they would eat an entire crust in a matter of a couple hours.

Obviously, this planetary crust should be devoured in short order if we used a factor that would fit with the early production rates seen in the show. However, it would be wise to try to establish some limits so as to find an excuse as to why replicators wouldn't eat a crust that fast.
Well, if the crust was made of metal, I'm quite sure that they could eat it about that fast. New queens would appear, possibly new forms would also be completed to better fit the greater requirements, and obviously the bugs, as their mass would increase, would be able to become their own super duper generators.

Now a normal crust is not full of metal. It contains some, and we've seen that at least an area of Halla's surface was rendered flat, but there's going to be something to be done with the silicates and other things which I'm not sure the bugs would use, although we don't know, since it was stated that they pick the materials they find, and the quartz that composes most of Earth's crust for example contains silicon, which is a metalloid. Its properties are good enough to form blocks, although quite brittle. But then, it comes down to how the bugs can assemble and arrange molecules. They could possibly reinforce their own structure out of such materials with micro force fields (derived from the keron pathways).
Anyway, those oxides contain metals, so it's good for them, although some interactions between some metals might be hazardous: I'm not too hot on metal chemistry so that's up to determine.
They'll just dispose of the oxygen and that's all. Calcium would be useless, but I figure that carbon might be used alongside other metals. But there's no proof they'd do so. That said, perhaps that would be down the "to do" list of evolutions, that is, be capable of making alloys instead of simply relying on what they have access to under its basic form.
In fact, if they don't even have a way to extract the metal from the various oxides, then most of the crust would be difficult to use.
However, since they flattened the visible surface around the building, up to the horizon (and Carter's words imply that the same occured all over the planet), it is clear that the bugs will eat rock and do something out of it.

Other ideas? Let's see.
What would slow down the rate would be the number of bugs itself, covering just too much territory for the ground to remain easily accessible.
But that's only if they eat the crust by first covering it and then going deeper, with each new layer of blocks being more or less hampering an efficient extraction of the material beneath. It's said that several blocks need to work together for the bugs to replicate. But then perhaps a mere layer of blocks can actually, by sheer virtue of being in contact with the newly exposed ground, dissolve it and produce more bugs. After all, the whole ground would be covered by a giant mesh, which would just be one single planetary "bug".
That, or they dig a deep conical hole, and the deeper they go the larger it becomes. At some point, they stop digging and only work on eating the walls until they go round the entire planet. That would be much more doable with the basic bugs, since the old bugs can easily move out of the way and go fill the bottom of the ever expanding cone while the newly produced bugs begin to eat the cliffs of the whole, ad lib.

But in a way or another, there's no real reason why they'd be having a considerable issue managing new numbers. I mean, even in the first case, with the layer going deeper and deeper, eventually what the "older" bugs need to do, if there really is a problem of space, is to move out of the way and pile up vertically on some towers. They can form spaceships of any form with their own force fields and sizes, and own power cores, so the bugs could create "mounds" of any form, even inverted cones with the smallest base possible, making giant archways connecting high above in the atmosphere, like if there were some convection going on. Or they could just form enough packs to become ships and go hovering. Perhaps all we'd see would be blocks of bugs lifting up like floating asteroids above the surface of the planet, at different altitudes. There could be plenty of different forms wandering on the surface or floating above the surface. There could be spots on the surface where columns of (purple) energy would reach for the stars, and where bugs, or even blocks as we know they can move on their own either to assemble bugs or form other structures, would be swallowed up, entering the equivalent of high orbit elevator to become part of a tornado-like swirling swarm of ever rising bugs or blocks. That would be quite a sight!

Plus they can always beam themselves elsewhere. We've seen purebug ships do it twice.

I think I could make some quick estimations based on volumes. We know that block models have been sold on auction, dimensions were given, and I must have a picture made by a fan somewhere in my folder that I think is accurate enough to be used. I'll probably check one or two measures and since if the rest fits with the known proportions.
Although knowing the exact number of blocks I something I may also attempt, but the picture I used wasn't clear enough, and showed odd pieces at the legs' joints.
I'll probably try to work from the physical model that we saw in "Small Victories".

Also, I'll eventually take a picture of the mini-bug. I've been talking about them since Enemies aired the first time, but I've been quite lazy to go fetch the screencaps and upload them.

Most obviously, at some point, they'll either produce more queens or present a greater and more capable model, a sort of stronger nexus.
The thing is, if they're totally dedicated at eating a planet and don't have to care about structural integrity as it happened in all other cases, they can theoretically put all their energies into devouring and replicating.

With such rates, it is understandable how the bugs could actually take on an entire galaxy. The only question would be how the Asgards managed to contain them all that time. One would say that they abused time dilation fields, black holes and other things that make big explosions.
Asgard technology is absurdly potent and extremely automatized for its size.

I think that we can agree that the bugs will not focus on eating a planet at first. They'll try to build numbers and enhance themselves, understand technology and infiltrate more structures. But once a planet is completely "understood" and controlled, that they're only dealing with a waste land, they can moving.

Large bodies of water would obviously be a problem of some sort until a point the replicators could simply use it to produce more energy, propel it into space or beam it up bit by bit, multiplied by like millions of beaming nodes.
That's if they want to eat the planet. They could just do as they did in "Unnatural Selection", cover it with blocks and do something else, like evolve. All depends on their current goals.

The largest fleets I've seen dispatched in emergency, in TCWS, still remain small, and that on both sides. It all boils down to how many large ships the replicators have. For example, I can't remember more than 3 to 4 Venators being dispatched at once in the middle of the war. If the replicators already control two coreships or one coreship and another warship of similar volume or at least on par with a Venator, it won't suffice.

Well how about four Venators and three Munificent starfrigates? :)

To be fair to the TCWS they are engaging across a galaxy, with a cease fire if not an alliance they might be able to spare more ships for a battlegroup.

There won't be any cease fire brought into exercise in the middle of the Clone Wars. The CIS will already lose plenty of time trying to convince the Republic that they're dealing with some very dangerous enemy that requires the GAR to abandon hostilities.
Obviously, the Republic will see that as an attempt to gain time and build up resources.
They will, at best, find a deal that doesn't threaten the Republic, and therefore only send a few people to see if things are true. And then they'll be ah yes, that is true, and then they'll be stuck in endless babbling before finding anything useful to do. Meanwhile, the Replicators will just be moving an multiplying.

Oh wait, it will actually be even funnier. Since the coreship will have been lost in a way that's most impossible to analyze, if at best all they know is that droids attacked them, their first response will be to use and abuse ion weapons.

Replicators say yummy. Just what they need.

Replicators have no reason to lose a ship because the new one they tried to infect blows up. Why would that happen? Bugs can cross space, "swim" in the void and form blocks to assemble into larger ships, according to their needs.

I would beg to differ. At Reckoning part I at roughly six minute mark we see an infected Ha'tak infect another and it is not astronomicaly far away as well we have no information that it ever leaves. Daniel is simply beamed up and the main cast escape down to the planet to use the stargate which is differnt from Thor's example who was able to pursue Fifth's ship.

Please define far away. I can't see Hulu stuff and if I think what you're pointing out is a scan, we have no way to know how close ships were. Since it's Part I, I'm pretty sure you're looking at the realtime map obtained with the transceiver Jacob brought back.
It's a schematic view. The distance between points is measured in countless light years.

In addition Reckoning part II shows us Ba'al's fleet engaged with the Replicators they appear to be holding steady blasting at them not depositing "eggs" and jumping away.

We don't see everything of the battle. We don't see all the replicator ships either, yet we know that they came with several spider ships.
But we have two clear examples of isolated ships being infected and there's clear evidence that blowing one may very well fail to damage the originally infected ship.

The one when a purebug cruiser shot a dart at Thor's science ship. The cruiser was a good distance from Thor's ship.

That ship merely wanted Carter and had no interest in assimulating Thor's vessel.

Does not matter. The bugs could have completed their infestation procedure. The only thing that I find surprising is how the bugs more or less let themselves be taken down by Teal'c. He cleaned the zone, despite the size of the missile fired.

The other example is when Apophis' supership got infested. The original ship wasn't there anymore, not appearing on the scopes at all, nowhere to be seen, when Jacob piloted the Ha'tak back to Apophis' supership.

I always presumed Apophis won the battle but had become infested in the process.

Apophis fired bolts but they were intercepted, while the other ship finally managed to pierce the Lok'ha'tak shields.
There's no doubt as to who won this battle.
Apophis was already getting steamrolled within the opening seconds.
Which is quite interesting to know considering how that superior Ha'tak was supposed to be exceptional itself.

Because Carter asked them to blow up their unique new generation ship they had. Seeing how the Asgards think, they would have probably blown up Halla if all was lost.
But the Biliskners are not new ships. They're not the advanced type, and the Asgards know they're not that good against Replicators, so it wouldn't baffle their minds that much to think about sacrificing them.

You are talking about guys impressed by projectile weapons propelled by gunpowder.

They were not impressed. They simply didn't consider using such a primitive weapon. And as I said many times to anyone who presented that argument, the rifles on the ground never won the humans any battle. As for a large scale mass driver, beyond a certain size the replicator ships generate shields. The ships they infest also have shields.

They could just as easily dismissed the idea as not practical because you can't be certain you will take anybody else with you.

No, they dismissed it because they were a split fair from finishing a ship that would let them stand a much greater chance against the bugs. Honestly, the whole plan seemed suicidal since there was no guarantee that all the bugs would take the bait. Had they not, the Asgards would have both lost Halla and their only unique prototype ship.

After all Carter's plan was only foolproof because the Replicators diverted power to hyperdrives shutting down thier shields. In short its an ugly, brutal and savage way of war and I am skepetical the Asguard would consider it.

No need to overdo it. There is nothing brutal or savage about that. Or perhaps luring all bugs into their home system which they'd crush into a black hole wouldn't be brutal and savage enough for you?

There are not enough ships in SW to cover all worlds.

All worlds no but I have never said every planet gets its own personal cruiser to defend it. Beef up the planets' your keeping defense, put local warships under some form of sector command to response on a per incident crisis and let it be.

And you count on how many weeks or months, in the middle of a war, before this gets effectively implemented?

Again, you won't have enough ships available to protect all worlds

Well we really don't know how many ships the Republic-Confederacy have. We know the Empire had twenty-five thousand star destroyers to its name as well as additional lighter crafts like the Carrack cruiser but to the Clone Wars era we could only make very crude estimates.

Anything we've seen doesn't speak of large numbers per a given section of space that covers several systems, be they key or not.
Didn't the last super battle at Coruscant involve like a couple thousands

Oh wait, the lolz. I completely forgot that in SW, if you surprise an enemy, you can actually land on their planet quite unmolested, as it happened at Geonosis and Coruscant.
With Geonosis, it's so pathetic that while their planet was effectively attacked by the Republic's fleet that deployed tanks on the ground, Dooku and pals were enjoying some festivities in the arena, and suddenly all were surprised that Jedi knocked on their door and spoiled the party.

And I can totally imagine the pathetic defense force of Naboo trying to nudge the coreship. Any planet that is similarly defended will be a snack fest for the reps.

Eh? The Goa'uld never stopped the replicators.

But they fought them and no one suggested thier weapons were worthless, that they'd be better off converting thier ships to kinetic kill weapons. That is all I'm pointing out.

For the reason pointed above, the strategic value of kinetic weapons on the ground is totally zero, and changes nothing in space because of the shields.
The numbers that get downed by firearms, they're expandable numbers that the replicators can send.
The only one thing that stopped the replicators was their craving for super tech and the Dakaran weapon, the equivalent of the rings in Halo, as a Deus Ex Machina.

while the replicators were *only* attacking the whole galaxy.

I didn't get any sense they were attacking the whole freaking galaxy. They attacked Earth but thats about it. Jacob even suggested Ba'al holding back to try and buy time for the galaxy hardly a suggestion if the only thing even slowing them down devouring the cosmos are the Gu'ald

It is pretty much stated in the episode that the replicators launched an attack against the entire galaxy. If you watch the episode you found on Hulu, you'll see for example that Goa'uld ships were being lost in some quadrants, and Jacob said similar battles were taking place across the galaxy.

Sure, if they have only one of such ships goes against a whole planet. But that's not what the bugs do. They still rely on numbers at their core. So any spaceport they loot will actually be used to form packs of ships that will force a planet's defensive force to be stretched. Then, again, with access to starmaps, the replicators will look for the planets which obviously are take-able.

Naboo represents the low end of defense. Short of a two-bit smuggler colony or some such I think just about any world will be able to offer you at least a few fighters in retaliation. You can of course overwhelm them fairly easy but that takes more ships which means a slower expansion which means more time.

And there are countless worlds like Naboo, barely protected at all, completely at the mercy of a warship, even more of a Lucrehulk that doesn't even have to transport living beings anymore, which will be enhanced and which can allow itself to crash to degree on the planet.

The moment you speak of an infected area, you've already lots. An area in Star Wars is multiple worlds, which were once full of ships and other cities.

And Starwars has more worlds, more cities and more ships. They have the reserves to spare to buy time to learn about this threat and fight back.

Not really. The problem with replicators is that you can't allow yourself to lose whole worlds. Intergalactic transit in SW is so mundane that thinking you can contain the replicators once they put fut on a world with even like a dozen FTL capable starships is absurd.
Oh, wait, two more examples -just to emphasize how even the highest CIG HQ of all times was just as open as a hooker during hot spring- both Padmaé and ObiWan had no issue to land their ships on Geonosis.

Something to bear in mind the system lords were expected to lose in weeks in Reckoning and they have fewer ships, less developed worlds and are more technologically inflexiable than Star Wars.

Losing the entire galaxy within a month tops, not bad, eh? And their inferior numbers is precisely what made the conquest projection so long, for the more you give to the replicators, the faster it goes. Jacob pretty much said it: the less you fight, the slower the replicators spread and conquer. Otherwise, their growth is "exponential" (as he said).
There's even more stuff and variety in the SW galaxy than in SG's Milky Way.
So there are actually much more reasons as to why the replicator campaign would be speeded up!

Sure, but that's not hurting the replicators much. Plus there's always a vast range of ships which won't be able to do that, namely any ship that's not a military ship or which doesn't transport anything like a thermonuclear warhead.

I presume most civilians ships will be captured yes. If all civies could be expected to proper resiest, instantaniously realizing the threat, than the Replicator threat would never materliaze. They'd be a lone ship quickly outgunned and outnumbered who'd be blasted to bits and the infected world sterelized. Turned to slag if need be but the threat would be destroyed.

Citizens in Star Wars, like pretty much any citizen anywhere safe in Grim Dark Uhr Dur, will not want to gloriously die like heroes, nuking their ships with nukes they don't have.
No, they'll just run away, most ladies will do what they do best: screaming at the little critters, and that is all.
If eventually, with lots of bending, you may convince one or two people that some super efficient and well organized army would be able to contain the replicators despite them or their enemies being completely taken by surprise, you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that civilians will be capable of doing anything worthwhile.
Civilians are the complete trojan horse in this scenario.

And since Star Wars is literally choke-full of such civilian transports of multiple sizes, even the scorched earth strategy of blowing some warships will be of limited use.

Stargate verse is choke full of interconnecting "portals" that allow you to cross from world to world as well as smaller hyperdrive equiped "shuttles" and the Replicators still were to take weeks.

To take over a whole galaxy, hardly damning. Plus we saw them come through some stargates. It happened right at Earth, in the SGC.

If anything, you'll just reduce your own war capable numbers faster than if you had lost them to the replicators in a straight fight, which all things considered, might actually be the best thing to do, since you could at least *hope* dealing some damage.

I think you are still misunderstanding. The idea is to engage the Replicator ships who will presumbly fire blocks to infect my ships. My ships then close to blast the living hell out of them while dedicated soldiers onboard battle the Replicator threat and at the last minute the ship tries to charge even closer to the enemy ships and self-destructs.

And as you pointed out earlier on, the only reason Carter's plan worked at Halla was because the Replicator ships were caught shields down in the blast of the O'neill.
Replicator ships won't have to lower their shield when shooting whatever they want to shoot.
Asgard ships have shields which can withstand a reentry at several dozen km/s. Ha'taks need their shields down to properly destroy two at once by collision.
A Ha'tak can withstand the energies of a close blue giant for one hour without shields and ten with shields, and can crach in an ocean at a free fall speed with shields and inertia dampening at full (the later to protect the crew) and suffer minimal cracks at the bottom.
Apophis' ship was said to have weapons powerful enough to penetrate the shields of Cronos' Ha'tak at full power, meaning that contrary to other ships, the shields would just get holed the moment the other ship would begin firing (otherwise the statement makes no sense because all Ha'taks have enough firepower to bring another Ha'tak's shields down).

All those ships, the replicators were stomplolroflin' them.
It is not a nearby self destruct that will hurt a replicator ship.
There is no rough parity with SW.
SW only had greater number, but it has lag, it has a bureaucracy, it has two sides that don't trust each other, it has some level of incompetence crammed in between, it's stuck in the middle of a war and it has countless planets which will simply have nowhere the resources to repel a single buffed coreship, les a small fleet of warships.

Original timeline? When?
I can only think of one piece of evidence, and it's an artwork for one of the CCG supplements. It's quite a rare sight, unique in fact, and was only achieved during the Empire.

Eclipse proving it is feasible with Star Wars technology to fit a superlaser onto a SSD frame. The Empire accomlished this feat and the same people would still be available in the Republic. Difficult to pull off yes but doable if given enough years.

The Eclipse is post ROTJ. It's a bit far in the future. :D