Mith vs Oragahn--Star Trek vs. Star Wars

[Mith]

Recently, me and Oragahn had a bit of a debate in regards to a more plausible war effort between the UFP and the Empire--and an argument that I think had much, much more merit than any I've seen before.

So, I want to see if Oragahn will do a proper, formal debate on the subject. I'd like to touch ground on as man subjects in regards to this as we can, though without it getting to unwieldy. Oragahn, if you'd like, I'd be happy if we can decide on the sort of rules for the debate.

EDIT:

Some things to think about:

Battle Conditions
I want each side to have their best chance of winning (within reason). Not during a time when one or the other are at their low-points, but not too powerful that they'd steamroll the other side within days.

Factions
What sort of factions you want to allow (Klingons, UFP, Romulans, Tholians...that sort of thing) and which ones you think will be benificial from other universes to the other side (ie, the Orion Syndicate for the Empire and the Rebels for the UFP).

This in a way, is more of a discussion than an actual vs, since I'm more interested in Oragahn's ideas than I am in beating him or proving I'm right. He's actually given me the idea that the Empire could actually, at some point in time, defeat the UFP and possibly the entire Alpha-Beta Quadrant. So, I want to go into greater details on this with him.

[User1619]

You really need a moderator for this type of debate, otherwise it's limited to mutual agreement-- in which case you might as well stay home. Just look at the entire history of the vs. debate.

Likewise, it's only fair to use both sides at their strongest, since if they went to war, then obviously they'd both use everything they had.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I was thinking about how to deal with our little off topic thing. This discussion was starting to drag in length, it was kinda discouraging to pursue that discussion. Besides, at some point it really entered the complete domain of speculation, extrapolation and fan fiction.
As it is, I realize that I was starting to paint an evil, more twisted, pragmatic and manipulative Empire than what we had at hand.
While George Lucas tried to spin the rebellion into a tool used by Palpatine as a new enemy to bind his domains and have an excuse to throw even more tyranny all around, you had Tarkin doing some truly dumb things just because he was teh evil, like that squishing of some plebe two years or so after the Clone Wars, called the massacre of planet wawababa.

My other point was that after weighing all elements, it was clear to me that the best moment to pick the Empire was well before ANH.
An already established Alliance would help spreading the UFP's influence on the borderlands, and spread the tech buffs as well.

Besides, the intrusion of the UFP some few years or months before ANH would kinda really put a twist onto the Death Star project and, globally, risk to alter the timeline and end with the Death Star never destroyed, its use changed and its own defense altered along the security checks and else. And yet, with beaming tech and other funnies, a UFP+rebel sabotage could effectively completely ruin the station very easily before it gets put into service.

So to avoid that complicated nest of threads, I focused on an earlier GE.

A new, real enemy like the UFP could effectively convince the Emperor to postpone the Death Star project and focus on more traditional navy. He'd be able to count on the old naval guard that still liked the Republic but simply thought more order was required. In other words, a less despotic empire. Plus the senate would still be around to confuse the populace about the true political nature of the empire.

The other crucial point is that I easily refuted the visuals of TCWS, because they're silly, inconsistent at times and certainly not designed at to be taken that seriously, contrary to the movies.
And that has a very direct effect on the firepower calcs : while visuals really cap the firepower at some low terajoules, the movies and TCWS' dialogue leave enough leeway so that the Empire's heaviest warships don't lag that much behind the UFP's best ships, although the range still remains a problem. This is one of those cases where, after talking about torpedoes and phasers, I started to paint an Empire that would start using kitbashed ships and some other retrofitted destroyers until it could produce its own sufficiently well armed ships, by virtue of exploiting the tech it would acquire from the ST side.

It actually turns out to be an interesting spin on that oooooooold debate, but strays too far from facts.

Mmm, perhaps we can continue the discussion here -would a mod cut the relevant posts and place them there?
I have some things to point out after all, and a suggestion to make which might spice things up to some significant degree! :D

[Mith]

I was thinking about how to deal with our little off topic thing. This discussion was starting to drag in length, it was kinda discouraging to pursue that discussion. Besides, at some point it really entered the complete domain of speculation, extrapolation and fan fiction.

Well, one tends to run into that problem when you use the resources of the Empire better than most the writers of the series.

As it is, I realize that I was starting to paint an evil, more twisted, pragmatic and manipulative Empire than what we had at hand.
While George Lucas tried to spin the rebellion into a tool used by Palpatine as a new enemy to bind his domains and have an excuse to throw even more tyranny all around, you had Tarkin doing some truly dumb things just because he was teh evil, like that squishing of some plebe two years or so after the Clone Wars, called the massacre of planet wawababa.

Well, Palpatine approved of the Death Star since day one, so I think he honestly believed that as long as he had that, he wouldn't need a rebellion or anything like it to maintain power ever again.

We could agree to use a sort of reasonable standard for both sides; that within reason we can assume competent use of weapons, ideas, and resources. Of course, that would require that we don't get silly like you looking for their multiple silly star busters or me looking for ST's multiple deus ex machina's stored in Data's closet.

That would allow us a more liberal interpretation of their methods; ie, Stormies being competent in the use of their technology and Starfleet actually using theirs (flake jackets, photon grenades, mortar launchers, camp fields similar to the one seen in Generations, possibly prototype personal force fields mentioned in Homefront, and so forth).

My other point was that after weighing all elements, it was clear to me that the best moment to pick the Empire was well before ANH.
An already established Alliance would help spreading the UFP's influence on the borderlands, and spread the tech buffs as well.

Besides, the intrusion of the UFP some few years or months before ANH would kinda really put a twist onto the Death Star project and, globally, risk to alter the timeline and end with the Death Star never destroyed, its use changed and its own defense altered along the security checks and else. And yet, with beaming tech and other funnies, a UFP+rebel sabotage could effectively completely ruin the station very easily before it gets put into service.

So to avoid that complicated nest of threads, I focused on an earlier GE.

A new, real enemy like the UFP could effectively convince the Emperor to postpone the Death Star project and focus on more traditional navy. He'd be able to count on the old naval guard that still liked the Republic but simply thought more order was required. In other words, a less despotic empire. Plus the senate would still be around to confuse the populace about the true political nature of the empire.

Hmmm, would he really postpone the project? I can understand why you'd say that, but my first instinct is that he'd want something like the Death Star to try and intimidate the UFP into being subjugated. Hmmm, depending upon how far along the Death Star is, could it be possible he might just try and cut the budget and run it with what it has? Similar to the DS II idea, except mobile and still mobile.

The other crucial point is that I easily refuted the visuals of TCWS, because they're silly, inconsistent at times and certainly not designed at to be taken that seriously, contrary to the movies.

I refute most of them in regards to weapons range, firepower, and other things. However, I think plot points and some visuals are usable. I think for example, the large asteroids we see in Downfall of a Droid that were passed off as obstacles would still be fair play.

And that has a very direct effect on the firepower calcs : while visuals really cap the firepower at some low terajoules, the movies and TCWS' dialogue leave enough leeway so that the Empire's heaviest warships don't lag that much behind the UFP's best ships, although the range still remains a problem. This is one of those cases where, after talking about torpedoes and phasers, I started to paint an Empire that would start using kitbashed ships and some other retrofitted destroyers until it could produce its own sufficiently well armed ships, by virtue of exploiting the tech it would acquire from the ST side.

Going over some of my sources, there are powers that would be willing to sell, but how even they could supply the sort of demand that the Empire needs is going to be difficult to argue. The ships would in effect, be little more than deterrents until Palpatine could jumpstart his own process or something.

Still, depending upon how we set it up, it may be possible.

It actually turns out to be an interesting spin on that oooooooold debate, but strays too far from facts.

Mmm, perhaps we can continue the discussion here -would a mod cut the relevant posts and place them there?
I have some things to point out after all, and a suggestion to make which might spice things up to some significant degree! :D

Honestly, it's the sort of debate people probably got into debating for in the first place--until they realized the dick waving contest it really was.

But we do need some setting rules. How are the two galaxies going to be connected, for example? I would suggest each side has their own wormholes. Star Trek has one just inside the bad lands--it's not too dangerous for their ships, but it would make it absolutely lethal for a large amount of Star Destroyers. It would also I think, link to say 15 light years from Aldeeran? In a nebula? Possibly the same one that Grievous had to navigate through to get to that medical base?

On the other hand, the Empire has one that's say, 500 light years away from the closest major power outpost. So any sort of assault would take around six months to reach the wormhole--assuming they knew where it was. We'll also assume that the Empire will have time to properly protect it with antimatter mines bought from some sellers and that the Empire has a direct lane to half a dozen ST sectors where it could purchase ST materials.

This would thus mean the Ferengi Alliance, the Orion Syndicate, and possibly the Naussicans.

Now we need to pick an ST place of war--and who'll be a part of that war.

Year 2370
2370 is after Wolf 359 (2366) and so Starfleet is more organized and with a larger fleet, but we wouldn't see as much of the advanced technology that they might have from 2380 after Voyager returns. Starfleet wouldn't also have taken all the heavy casualties that it did during the war.

On the other hand, 2370 UFP might be more willing to settle for a peaceful agreement than it would after the Dominion War--where absolutely no power would accept an Imperial foothold in their galaxy. However, the Dominion could be available to help, since they haven't engaged in full blown war yet and their services could be an asset to the Alpha-Beta Quadrants if a full blown war with the Empire did occur.

Of course, they could just make it worse.

Year 2380
Going by the HIN numbers for Starfleet in regards to ship production ranging from the UFP's NX-2000 Excelsior in 2285 to the USS Galaxy in what we'll assume to be 2364 (the same date as the Enterprise D's launch), we have 68,637 ships being produced since that time to current era (though just before Starfleet started building smaller ships like the Runabout). That's 79 years of building for the UFP. This comes out to roughly 868.8 ships per year for Starfleet. This being five years since the Dominion War (ie, Voyager's return), we'd have 4,344 ships to add to the fleet.

Assuming that the UFP, Klingon, and Romulan alliance had an equal number to the Dominion's 30,000 and it was split evenly (unlikely I'd add, since the Klingons were stated to require ten years to rebuild from the losses in their war), that would give Starfleet ~14,344 ships to use in a war effort.

That's a little less than half of what their fleet was before the war, but if one includes mouthballed ships and old gals like the Miranda, Constitution, and Excelsior, that's not really a bad thing when you have newer, much more powerful ships like the Prometheus, Defiant, and Sovereign class.

So I'd like to start at the beginning of 2381. That I think, puts us at the best place for Starfleet, who is far more mobilized and probably better off with their more top of the line ships than their older, more numerous ships. Especially given in this case that Starfleet can't outproduce the Empire.