United Federation of Planets vs Galacitic Empire

[Kane Starkiller]

There is no reason to split my argument into many paragraphs, it tends to explode the size of each post until they become unreadable.
I have not engaged in strawmaning your argument, you literaly did describe the mission as "hardly improbable, possibly difficult, quite likely [to succeed], completely doable" without providing any numbers on chances of success and the like.
"Moderate" chance of success is completely unacceptable when talking about trying to assassinate the leader of a state which can retaliate with weapons of planetary destruction.
Finally relying on a secret mission and hoping it will cause the Empire to self destruct is merely a tacit admission that Federation has little hope of defending against the Empire in an all out war.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Regarding the "hyperspace lanes" they are not an actual astronomical phenomenon but merely a region of space that is thoroughly mapped and thus allows for high speeds. It is simply a matter of detailed mapping the locations of stars.

If it were just the matter of detailed mapping of the locations of the stars, we would not expect hyperspace lanes to be narrow or change directions quickly.

Instead, I think it has everything to do with interstellar dust concentrations, small stray rocks, and the like, in addition to hyperspace topography - and the variation in speeds that we see doesn't indicate fixed hyperspace speeds.

Remember, we're not just talking about hyperspace lanes because of the mines; we've also been talking about them because speeds vary wildly. In "Tyrant's Test" we were told outright that an Interdictor couldn't possibly travel 91 light years in 4 hours. In "Heir to the Empire" we see the Chimera taking five days to cross 350 light years.

Reaching a 50,000ly distant Mustafar in a matter of hours requires speeds in excess of 100 million c which are the kind of speeds at which "suddenly slamming into a star" start to be a real threat and at which it becomes important to have a detailed map.
As Essential Atlas states without maps exploration consists of 1-2ly "microjumps" and scanning ahead.

Furthermore let's look at the profile of a galaxy it is 100,000ly wide, about 5000ly thick and has 400 billion stars but 180 billion systems since many of the stars are binary.
A system is about 10 billion km wide which means that viewed from the "side" systems take up about 0.1% of projected plane.
Obviously even a 0.1% chances of death are pretty much unacceptable for civilians especially if we are dealing with millions of ships going every which way.
At a rate of 50 long range galactic trips per year the fatality rate wold be about 4900 per 100,000 ships. In comparison fatality rate in US is 15 per 100,000 motor vehicles.
However if we are talking about making a deep strike on Utopia Planitia then a blind jump causing even 10%-20% losses would be militarily acceptable if it means destroying the shipyards.
According to Deep Space 9 Technical Manual Federation "core worlds" are 50ly away from the Bajoran Wormhole. That distance for example would be crossed in a matter of seconds by the Imperial fleet giving Federation no warning or time to regroup its forces if caught unprepared or off system.

At the rate the Chimera flew in Heir to the Empire, that would take the better part of a day.

Now, let's talk about Mustafar. How does Palpatine sense that he's needed on Mustafar? The Force. It is well established that Force premonitions often precede the events they are about. Instead, we must rely on Anakin's phone call back to Coruscant - at which point Palpatine is in his office and has yet to fight Yoda. There are, then, two things going on after the call:

Palpatine fights Yoda and then flies to Mustafar.
Anakin greets Padme, loses his temper, and then fights Obi-wan and loses. Following his loss, Obi-wan leaves, and then Anakin lies there for an unknown length of time.

The duel may have just barely started when Palpatine started flying. How long did the duel last? We're not sure. The duel is spread out across a number of scenes. It even moves around quite a bit of Mustafar.

Now, according to the Atlas - and we have discussed the problems of the Atlas before - it is about 48,000 light years. Do we know how long it took to fly there?

No, we do not. It could have been thirty minutes; it could have been thirty hours. We're talking about one of the most powerful Force users in Star Wars history hanging onto life; it could even have been longer than that.

It seems likely to be fast, yes - but unfortunately, other incidents are much slower (including Endor-Sullust), and we must explain the difference, rather than ignore it.

The technological expertise required to maintain, operate and fuel those bulk carriers

Is all available for the price of a few thousand credits.

Unless Tom Clancy is current Federation president this simply isn't happening. Any number of things can go wrong and if they are captured and a Starfleet vessel is discovered on a freighter deep in Imperial space it's war.

The number of things that can go wrong on a strike mission to destabilize the Empire is actually pretty small, all things considered.

The Empire is in such dire straits on its own that the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order, Section 31, the Maquis, the Duras sisters (after they lost the civil war, even), or just one rogue starship captain could cause it to collapse.

Canonically it took two droids, a Wookiee, and a bus-load of humans - thirty snubfighters and a freighter - to sound the death knell of the Empire by destroying the first Death Star. Endor involved a fleet - which is, so far as we can tell, about the size of the Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order joint fleet sent covertly in "The Die is Cast."

And the Rebellion isn't going to disappear simply because the Federation is on the scene. Assassinating Palpatine isn't the only way they could nudge the Empire into collapse, either - although making him disappear quietly is trivially easy when you have a cloaked ship and a transporter.

presumably because they watched the ending of ROTJ

Which is fully canonical.

The Star Wars hexology isn't some piece of wildly off-base Rebel propaganda; it's the core story of the franchise. When the Emperor died, there were massive celebrations on Coruscant itself.

[sonofccn]

I have not engaged in strawmaning your argument, you literaly did describe the mission as "hardly improbable, possibly difficult, quite likely [to succeed], completely doable" without providing any numbers on chances of success and the like.

Its the bolded part I called strawman on. I never claimed or implied the plan was quite likely to succeed merely that it was perfectly doable and no more prone to failure than any other act of war.

To recap you have repeatedly stated without evidence the plan is all but impossible to carry out and I have have offered a rebuttle which you have gone to great lenghts to avoid discussing.

without providing any numbers on chances of success and the like.

Which aren't needed to see if the plan outline is possible. If you have any evidence which would make it difficult for the mission to be carried out please feel free to share.

Moderate" chance of success is completely unacceptable when talking about trying to assassinate the leader of a state

That is subjective Kane and has no bearing on the feasibility of said plan. Remember you are arguing the plan is practically impossible if carried out, that it requires Tom Clancy style luck to pull off.

which can retaliate with weapons of planetary destruction.

Actually based upon death stars construction time, years, versus their operational lifespan, hours, in all likelood the Empire won't have any planetary destructive weapons at thier disposal. The fact they build such wasteful and vicious weapons however might encourage the belief that the Empire makes a lousy neighbore

Finally relying on a secret mission and hoping it will cause the Empire to self destruct is merely a tacit admission that Federation has little hope of defending against the Empire in an all out war.

1.I was among those who voted for an Imperial victory in this thread.

2. Cutting down your enemy with the least loss to one's own self is virtually a cornerstone to war and is not a tacit admission on any other part of the debate.

[Picard]

I personally can't see either UFP or Empire winning in this. Federation simply stomps Empire in sublight combat (ISD will last 0.04 seconds agains GCS (that is how long its shields can withstand GCS phaser blast), and GCS can withstand anywhere from 200 to 35 000 shots from ISD's guns - that means, at generous 5 shots per second, from 40 seconds to 2 hours of constant bombardment - 1 000 to 180 000 times longer than ISD can withstand its assault - that means that GCS is equivalent from 1 000 to 180 000 ISD's in sublight combat), but Empire has faster FTL drive and thus enjoys strategical advantage which will force Federation to hold its ships constantly near planets to repulse Imperial assaults. Now, if Empire can get Death Star without DS being blown to pieces by Assault Fighters, then it might have chance to win, given that Federation has 1118 ships of GCS-equivalence, and Empire has 25000 ships of ISD-level equivalence; which means that Empire is outgunned from 44.72:1 to 8049.6:1, if we don't count Death Stars. However, only fraction of Starfleet will be avaliable at each planet.

[Kane Starkiller]

If it were just the matter of detailed mapping of the locations of the stars, we would not expect hyperspace lanes to be narrow or change directions quickly.

Instead, I think it has everything to do with interstellar dust concentrations, small stray rocks, and the like, in addition to hyperspace topography - and the variation in speeds that we see doesn't indicate fixed hyperspace speeds.

Remember, we're not just talking about hyperspace lanes because of the mines; we've also been talking about them because speeds vary wildly. In "Tyrant's Test" we were told outright that an Interdictor couldn't possibly travel 91 light years in 4 hours. In "Heir to the Empire" we see the Chimera taking five days to cross 350 light years.

As the atlas states:

They are specifically talking about stars not small stray rocks and such. In Clone Wars cartoon we have seen SW ships exit hyperspace few hundred meters from other ships which means that "hyperspace shadow" cast by asteroids and especially dust is simply too small to present anything but an astronomically small chance of a disaster.
Furthermore:

So even if a ships computer looses all charts a ship can still find its way home or to a nearest port by establishing its location in the galaxy. Again: starcharts increase the maximum safe speed they don't somehow make ships engines intrinsically more powerful. A pilot can still put the pedal to the metal and try his luck.
Obviously not all ship classes will necessarily have the same speed and some regions of space will have dense stellar population or black holes etc. which will lower the speed. It doesn't change the fact that Maul traveled from Coruscant to Tattoine in perhaps 10 hours, that Death Star travelled from Alderaan to Yavin in again no more than few days, that Obi Wan travelled from Coruscant to Kamino (explicitly stated to be 70,000ly from the core in ITW of Ep2) in a small one man fighter again in a matter of days at best etc.
The combination of endurance and speed of hyperdrive engines is orders of magnitude beyond warp drive used by Federation and similar civilizations.

At the rate the Chimera flew in Heir to the Empire, that would take the better part of a day.

Now, let's talk about Mustafar. How does Palpatine sense that he's needed on Mustafar? The Force. It is well established that Force premonitions often precede the events they are about. Instead, we must rely on Anakin's phone call back to Coruscant - at which point Palpatine is in his office and has yet to fight Yoda. There are, then, two things going on after the call:

Palpatine fights Yoda and then flies to Mustafar.
Anakin greets Padme, loses his temper, and then fights Obi-wan and loses. Following his loss, Obi-wan leaves, and then Anakin lies there for an unknown length of time.

The duel may have just barely started when Palpatine started flying. How long did the duel last? We're not sure. The duel is spread out across a number of scenes. It even moves around quite a bit of Mustafar.

Now, according to the Atlas - and we have discussed the problems of the Atlas before - it is about 48,000 light years. Do we know how long it took to fly there?

No, we do not. It could have been thirty minutes; it could have been thirty hours. We're talking about one of the most powerful Force users in Star Wars history hanging onto life; it could even have been longer than that.

It seems likely to be fast, yes - but unfortunately, other incidents are much slower (including Endor-Sullust), and we must explain the difference, rather than ignore it.

Again we don't know what was the stellar density around Chimera during the incident. There is nothing unusual about stellar density in Sol's neighborhood nor do there appear to be any black holes. That was an unusually slow speed compared to standard speed which allows crossing half the galaxy in as little as hours and perhaps days.
As for Corucsant-Mustafar trip, by the time Palpatine requested his ship to fly to Mustafar Anakin and Obi-Wan were already on the bridge that will be severed by lava and collapse into the lava river. It is extremely unlikely that they continued to fight for hours and that Anakin managed to stay alive next to the lava flow which already burned him severely for another 20 or 30 hours and then flew back to Coruscant for another 30 hours.
As for Endor-Sullust trip I already explained that "hundreds of ly" is not explicit and technically million ly does contain "hundreds" as silly as it might sound.
In any case inconclusive evidence that there is any contradiction with numerous EU sources.

The number of things that can go wrong on a strike mission to destabilize the Empire is actually pretty small, all things considered.

The Empire is in such dire straits on its own that the Tal Shiar, Obsidian Order, Section 31, the Maquis, the Duras sisters (after they lost the civil war, even), or just one rogue starship captain could cause it to collapse.

Canonically it took two droids, a Wookiee, and a bus-load of humans - thirty snubfighters and a freighter - to sound the death knell of the Empire by destroying the first Death Star. Endor involved a fleet - which is, so far as we can tell, about the size of the Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order joint fleet sent covertly in "The Die is Cast."

And the Rebellion isn't going to disappear simply because the Federation is on the scene. Assassinating Palpatine isn't the only way they could nudge the Empire into collapse, either - although making him disappear quietly is trivially easy when you have a cloaked ship and a transporter.

Number of things that can go wrong being small is simply a subjective statement. As I said to sonofccn you provided no actual risk analysis. We are supposed to believe everything will go without a hitch because Sisko is a badass or something.
Canonically yes it took a handful of people to bring down the Empire but there was nothing guaranteed about it. If Han Solo changed his mind about helping Luke in ANH 0.3 seconds later Vader would've already destroyed his X-Wing. Vader actually scores a hit on Luke's fighter earlier on and damages R2. The damage could've easily been much greater. One rock from Alderaan debris in the wrong place and they would've been history. And so on and so forth. If you replayed the original trilogy 10 times how many times would it end in a disaster for the Rebellion?
Your statement that it would be trivially easy to make Palpatine disappear because they have a cloaking device and a transporter is yet another unsupported claim. Empire has cloaking devices of its own. Do you have any evidence that ST devices are better? Do you have any evidence that transporters can beam through SW shields, forcefields and energy sources in the Imperial Palace? While the Federation is learning about internal political arrangement of the Empire and trying to secure a bulk freighter that can carry a whole Defiant won't the Empire be busy trying to at least learn about these transporters and some known and simple ways to try and block them? We know that a US carrier block them unintentionally.
Saying that Empire will collapse after Federation assassinates Palpatine because it "canonically" collapsed would be like saying that any Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order assassination attempt will certainly fail because it "canonically" failed against the Founders.
Empire is not the Founders and Sisko is not Luke Skywalker and the events in question are way to complex and too many things are hanging on a thread for any certain predictions to be made.

[Mike DiCenso]

I haven't ignored any evidence. As I noted the course plotted in Year of Hell was not a straight line. Obviously there was room for improvement so incidents in "Hope and Fear" and "Q2" are not surprising. As I already pointed out, however, the plotted course was no more than roughly 20% longer than a straight line would've been therefore we are still talking about on the order of 50 years and speeds on the order of 1500c no matter how good their sensors and data was.
In no way does this support various one liners sprinkled over various series that imply millions of c and which are nullified by the weight of evidence pointing to 1000c. How much time did it take them to cross 500 parsecs in Arena?
In "Where silence has lease" we are again dealing with very short ranges where it might be possible for them to achieve million c.
Even with million c however they are still hundreds of times slower than Imperial ships which means that strategically they will be outmaneuvered even at short distances to say nothing of long range maneuvers across hundreds of ly.
No amount of sensor data will help Federation ships get around SW galaxy since warp drive is simply too slow and even assuming they can travel in straight lines through the galaxy it will still take them decades to even reach the Core.

Your claim of the YoH trajectory chance is not accurate Kane, they made a relatively minor change, not simply a straightening of the path to point a little better at the Alpha Quadrant as far as anyone can tell. You can see the new course being drawn at 4:05 in this video hereon YouTube. Show me how they are simply straighteing the course as opposed to making a better map that accounts for obstacles in their way. You can't.

And no matter how you try to marginalize the rather numerous examples of very fast speeds in Trek, they will always be there. Simply put, a Federation starship is much more capable that a mere few thousand c, they can manage easily 10,000c or considerably better in well-charted space. No matter how much you want to wish away the advantages they get every time they got improved navigational data, it will still be there. That is the truth, Kane. Decades reduced. Up to a million or more c in well-charted areas. It certainly explains how the E-D was able to at top warp speed to make it back from the edge of Federation space in BoBW all the way back to Earth while chasing and fighting the Borg cube in under 6 days. It expalins how the E-D in "Conspiracy" could be on the "outer rim" exploring and patroling and then in a short span of time be back at Earth to confront the alien parasites's invasion. It explains how the E-E in ST:FC could be at the Romulan Neutral Zone more than 150 light years away and still within a short span of time make it back to Earth to fight the second invading Borg cube, and it explains Captain Pike's "I come from a star group on the other side of the galaxy comment in "The Cage" as well as why the E-1701 could in just three years zip from the edge of the galaxy and beyond in "Where no Man Has Gone Before", "By Any Other Name", and "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" without taking decades to go there and back again.

I can just keep citing the examples, Kane. The evidence is overwhelming.
-Mike

[Kane Starkiller]

Your claim of the YoH trajectory chance is not accurate Kane, they made a relatively minor change, not simply a straightening of the path to point a little better at the Alpha Quadrant as far as anyone can tell. You can see the new course being drawn at 4:05 in this video hereon YouTube. Show me how they are simply straighteing the course as opposed to making a better map that accounts for obstacles in their way. You can't.

And no matter how you try to marginalize the rather numerous examples of very fast speeds in Trek, they will always be there. Simply put, a Federation starship is much more capable that a mere few thousand c, they can manage easily 10,000c or considerably better in well-charted space. No matter how much you want to wish away the advantages they get every time they got improved navigational data, it will still be there. That is the truth, Kane. Decades reduced. Up to a million or more c in well-charted areas. It certainly explains how the E-D was able to at top warp speed to make it back from the edge of Federation space in BoBW all the way back to Earth while chasing and fighting the Borg cube in under 6 days. It expalins how the E-D in "Conspiracy" could be on the "outer rim" exploring and patroling and then in a short span of time be back at Earth to confront the alien parasites's invasion. It explains how the E-E in ST:FC could be at the Romulan Neutral Zone more than 150 light years away and still within a short span of time make it back to Earth to fight the second invading Borg cube, and it explains Captain Pike's "I come from a star group on the other side of the galaxy comment in "The Cage" as well as why the E-1701 could in just three years zip from the edge of the galaxy and beyond in "Where no Man Has Gone Before", "By Any Other Name", and "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" without taking decades to go there and back again.

I can just keep citing the examples, Kane. The evidence is overwhelming.

I never said we actually see them straightening the line in the animation but that the line is still not straight hence there is still room for slight improvement as implied in "Q2" and "Hope and fear". The point is that even with a completely straight line the trip would still be no more than 20% shorter.
As Seven states the new mapping technology works by measuring the radiative flux from up to three billion stars and then calculating their position in the galaxy. In other words they are using passive sensors, there is no scanning ahead for any anomalies and indeed a few episode later they come across a huge Mutara class nebula so the crew needs to go into stasis. One would think they would plot the course around it as early as Year of Hell. Finally they are not sure that they will cut the trip by 5 years it is merely Seven's estimation. Where did you find the information that they reduced decades by using sensor data?
In no way does this episode provide evidence for your claim that somehow sensors data would increase the speed by a factor of 1000 or more.

Furthermore it doesn't matter how many individual episodes you can find that imply larger speeds since they will always be contradicted by 180 TNG episodes in which they have not met the Dominion or Borg or Kazons or Hirogen, 150 DS9 episodes in which Dominion didn't bypass the wormhole to strike at Federatio and 180 Voyager episodes in which they have not returned home in a few months using their conventional engines and the Federation failed to send any kind of help.
Furthermore if sensor data somehow magically increased the speed by a factor of 1000 then Kazon, Hirogen, Devore etc. should all be able to run circles around Voyager since they were in their own space so they would have the map. Yet Voyager would often outrun them or have similar speeds.
Not to mention that space is mostly empty so improved sensor data can only shorten the trip over very large distances and then only by a certain percentage which is what we see.
Regarding other episodes: how far was edge of Federation space in BoBW, where is the outer rim, how far was Romulan Neutral zone from Earth and what was the exact travel time.
How does Pike getting to the other side of the galaxy and back within his lifetime agree with your claim that in uncharted areas of space Federation ships can't go more than 1000c? How does that agree with Data's statement that it will take them years to get back to Federation space from J-25? If uncharted regions can decrease speed by up to a factor of 1000 then how can Data or Janeway possibly have any clue how long the trip would take let alone specify that it would take 70 years by maximum warp?
The truth is that those handful of examples cannot possibly be reconciled with the body of evidence and many of them don't affect the episode at all.

[Youngla0450]

I firmly believe the Galactic Empire will be victorious. For one thing, the Galactic Empire ruled over one and a half million member worlds, and at least fifty million colonies, governorships, and protectorates, according to the canon Star Wars factbook The Essential Atlas, written by Lucasfilm. The Empire has 25,000 Star Destroyers, hundreds of millions of star fighters, and hundreds of thousands of other ships and craft.

The United Federation of Planets ruled over one hundred and fifty member systems, and at least one thousand colonies, protectorates, and affliate states, according to Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: The Original Series. The Federation had at the most, 3-5,000 capital ships, hundreds of star fighters, and several dozen shuttles and other minor spacecraft.

[Youngla0450]

I will be writing a story about the Galactic Empire discovering the existence of the Federation, via a wormhole in the Kessel system, in the Outer Rim. In my story, the Rebellion's leadership were executed before they even assembled, and the Empire came to feared by many. Thus a full-strength Galactic Empire against a post-Dominion War, full-strength United Federation of Planets.

[Mike DiCenso]

I never said we actually see them straightening the line in the animation but that the line is still not straight hence there is still room for slight improvement as implied in "Q2" and "Hope and fear". The point is that even with a completely straight line the trip would still be no more than 20% shorter.
As Seven states the new mapping technology works by measuring the radiative flux from up to three billion stars and then calculating their position in the galaxy. In other words they are using passive sensors, there is no scanning ahead for any anomalies and indeed a few episode later they come across a huge Mutara class nebula so the crew needs to go into stasis. One would think they would plot the course around it as early as Year of Hell. Finally they are not sure that they will cut the trip by 5 years it is merely Seven's estimation. Where did you find the information that they reduced decades by using sensor data?
In no way does this episode provide evidence for your claim that somehow sensors data would increase the speed by a factor of 1000 or more.

Furthermore it doesn't matter how many individual episodes you can find that imply larger speeds since they will always be contradicted by 180 TNG episodes in which they have not met the Dominion or Borg or Kazons or Hirogen, 150 DS9 episodes in which Dominion didn't bypass the wormhole to strike at Federatio and 180 Voyager episodes in which they have not returned home in a few months using their conventional engines and the Federation failed to send any kind of help.
Furthermore if sensor data somehow magically increased the speed by a factor of 1000 then Kazon, Hirogen, Devore etc. should all be able to run circles around Voyager since they were in their own space so they would have the map. Yet Voyager would often outrun them or have similar speeds.
Not to mention that space is mostly empty so improved sensor data can only shorten the trip over very large distances and then only by a certain percentage which is what we see.
Regarding other episodes: how far was edge of Federation space in BoBW, where is the outer rim, how far was Romulan Neutral zone from Earth and what was the exact travel time.
How does Pike getting to the other side of the galaxy and back within his lifetime agree with your claim that in uncharted areas of space Federation ships can't go more than 1000c? How does that agree with Data's statement that it will take them years to get back to Federation space from J-25? If uncharted regions can decrease speed by up to a factor of 1000 then how can Data or Janeway possibly have any clue how long the trip would take let alone specify that it would take 70 years by maximum warp?
The truth is that those handful of examples cannot possibly be reconciled with the body of evidence and many of them don't affect the episode at all.

What does any of these strawmen have to do with my points. or the huge body of evidence I've presented? We already know that Romulan space is at least 150 light years from Earth as per ST:ENT's "Dead Stop", so getting back in even a few days suggests speeds of not less than 9,000c. If less than a day, then speeds in excess of 54.000c are possible. You keep ignoring this over and over again so that you can claim low warp speeds, even in charted areas of space, dispite virtually the entirety of TOS, most of TNG, and parts of DS9 and even VOY that say otherwise. The response to the sytem J-25 example or to Janeway and Paris' intital estimates (which actually varied in early dialog between 70 and 75 years), is simply because they are operating with the best information they have available. They are not operating in a total perfect ignorance of the galaxy, you know. So they have some information by which to work from, even Starfleet was able to send some additional data they had on the Delta Quadrant. Also I don't understand how you can be claiming they have galaxy spanning sensors when we know that they read of battles or lifesigns from a star system 15-20 light years away, but nothing more than that in real time. So what does the passive or psossibly passive nature of the astrometrics modifcations have to do with anything? We know that they can send out probes to scout ahead of their path, but obviously that sort of thing takes time carry out and to process the information. Also plotting the course around objects adds time to their journey, which is why they risked stasis in that one particular episode. So actually that is more evidence for the value of good navigational data.


So they didn't run into the Borg or Hirogen earlier? Big deal! It takes time to explore and chart a path. The fact that the map seen in "The Chase" shows a fairly extensive coverageof the Alpha and Beta quadrants means they've done a fairly impressive job in just 200 years of charting the galaxy. And we know from VOY's "Dark Frontier" that the Federation was already aware of the Borg as early as the 2350's, and Guinan's people as refugees reached Federation space as early as the 2290's. So that kind of goes against your little objection there.

Furthermore you keep trying to marginalize the possible improvements they get. Where do you pull this 20% number from, how do you derive this, when you don't know at all what they did when showing the new trajectory since we have no prior means of comparing the old with the new. Again, we do not seem them making the kind of course change you are suggesting, or that they are simply straightening things out. On the other what we do have is that ships in well-charted space can do some amazingly fast speeds, and can even sustain this for weeks or months as need be.


And if you refuse to except the vast body of evidenceI have providedd and continue to provide, then this discussion is over since you have no interest in truth as you claim, you only want to strawman and handwave away anything which does not suit your viewpoint of slow Trek speeds, no matter what. The theory I and others here have provided are far more viable than yours, and take into account all evidence.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

I firmly believe the Galactic Empire will be victorious. For one thing, the Galactic Empire ruled over one and a half million member worlds, and at least fifty million colonies, governorships, and protectorates, according to the canon Star Wars factbook The Essential Atlas, written by Lucasfilm. The Empire has 25,000 Star Destroyers, hundreds of millions of star fighters, and hundreds of thousands of other ships and craft.

The Essential Atlas is not G-level canon. We have already in this thread have hashed out for you that the Empire controls only a small portion of a modest sized galaxy, and the total membership likely does not exceed the original Galactic Republic's membership of no more than 100,000 members, and a million star systems total.

The United Federation of Planets ruled over one hundred and fifty member systems, and at least one thousand colonies, protectorates, and affliate states, according to Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: The Original Series. The Federation had at the most, 3-5,000 capital ships, hundreds of star fighters, and several dozen shuttles and other minor spacecraft.

While the first half of your statement here may be true, you have not provided any source for your 3,000 to 5,000 capital ship statement. Given that the Federation and it's allies fought to a standstill the Domion and it's allies who had at least 30,000 starships, it seems somewhat odd that the Federation would have anything less than 10,000 capital ships of it's own.
-Mike

[Kane Starkiller]

The Essential Atlas is not G-level canon. We have already in this thread have hashed out for you that the Empire controls only a small portion of a modest sized galaxy, and the total membership likely does not exceed the original Galactic Republic's membership of no more than 100,000 members, and a million star systems total.

Level of canon is irrelevant if there is no contradiction and there isn't one. Galactic Repblic had 100,000 systems, Empire million (Atlas specifies 1.75 million full members), 69 million with some sort of representation in the Empire and billion inhabited systems total with a population of 100 quadrillion.
ANH novelization describes the galaxy as "modest". TPM novelization, on the other hand, describes the galaxy as "so vast it could barely be comprehended". Such vague statements are useless and in no way conflict with explicit statements which consistently put the diameter as 100,000ly.

What does any of these strawmen have to do with my points. or the huge body of evidence I've presented? We already know that Romulan space is at least 150 light years from Earth as per ST:ENT's "Dead Stop", so getting back in even a few days suggests speeds of not less than 9,000c. If less than a day, then speeds in excess of 54.000c are possible. You keep ignoring this over and over again so that you can claim low warp speeds, even in charted areas of space, dispite virtually the entirety of TOS, most of TNG, and parts of DS9 and even VOY that say otherwise. The response to the sytem J-25 example or to Janeway and Paris' intital estimates (which actually varied in early dialog between 70 and 75 years), is simply because they are operating with the best information they have available. They are not operating in a total perfect ignorance of the galaxy, you know. So they have some information by which to work from, even Starfleet was able to send some additional data they had on the Delta Quadrant. Also I don't understand how you can be claiming they have galaxy spanning sensors when we know that they read of battles or lifesigns from a star system 15-20 light years away, but nothing more than that in real time. So what does the passive or psossibly passive nature of the astrometrics modifcations have to do with anything? We know that they can send out probes to scout ahead of their path, but obviously that sort of thing takes time carry out and to process the information. Also plotting the course around objects adds time to their journey, which is why they risked stasis in that one particular episode. So actually that is more evidence for the value of good navigational data.

What strawman are you referring to? I have asked you how do you know that Romulan Neutral zone where Enterprise was located in FC is 150ly from Earth and you haven't responded. We know from DS9 technical manual that Cardassian space is 50ly from Earth and Romulans were contacted before Cardassians so they should be much closer.
Could you specify how does "Dead Stop" point to 9000c?
You still haven't answered how uncharted space consistently lowers their speed from million c to 1000c and furthermore you haven't adressed the fact that Janeway specifies that even at maximum warp it would take them 70 years. She is talking about engine capability not sensors.
The fact that sensors were passive means they were simply recalculating their position and using standard stellar radiation to do so. In other words there is no talk about accounting for any anomalies merely redrawing their course in relation to stars. Again: they haven't even accounted for the huge Mutara nebula. They said it's at least 100ly long and that it would take them a year to go around it so it was at least hundreds of ly wide. The value of navigational data is limited, as I said and you ignored the increase of precision of ten times only resulted in 7% decrease in time.

So they didn't run into the Borg or Hirogen earlier? Big deal! It takes time to explore and chart a path. The fact that the map seen in "The Chase" shows a fairly extensive coverageof the Alpha and Beta quadrants means they've done a fairly impressive job in just 200 years of charting the galaxy. And we know from VOY's "Dark Frontier" that the Federation was already aware of the Borg as early as the 2350's, and Guinan's people as refugees reached Federation space as early as the 2290's. So that kind of goes against your little objection there.

Furthermore you keep trying to marginalize the possible improvements they get. Where do you pull this 20% number from, how do you derive this, when you don't know at all what they did when showing the new trajectory since we have no prior means of comparing the old with the new. Again, we do not seem them making the kind of course change you are suggesting, or that they are simply straightening things out. On the other what we do have is that ships in well-charted space can do some amazingly fast speeds, and can even sustain this for weeks or months as need be.

How can it not be a big deal? We are not talking about small civilizations but major galactic powers and they never heard of each other. That is a major plot point and setting for the entire franchise. In no way can a single episode supposedly showing half of the galaxy being reachable in a few months contradict that. I already provided an explanation of the "Chase" map so I won't repeat myself.
The Federation was aware of rumors of the Borg perhaps as stories passed on through several species through the galaxy. It was nothing conclusive as Enterprise was completely clueless about the Borg in "Q Qho". Guinans people reached Federation space through that strange Nexus thing.

As for Voyager's trajectory 20% is simple eyeballing of the ratio between the length of the Year of Hell trajectory and a completely straight line. Since nothing is shorter than a straight line (other than wormholes) then that is the greatest possible extent to which they could've shortened their trip.
You also ignored my point that Voyager should've been by far the slowest ship during the series because all other species in Delta Quadrant were at home.

And if you refuse to except the vast body of evidenceI have providedd and continue to provide, then this discussion is over since you have no interest in truth as you claim, you only want to strawman and handwave away anything which does not suit your viewpoint of slow Trek speeds, no matter what. The theory I and others here have provided are far more viable than yours, and take into account all evidence.

You have no body of evidence. Merely individual episodes which can work just as well with lower speeds. For example if there is a one liner that they crossed 50ly in 2 hours without any further mention than this episode can work just as well with 5ly in 20 hours because it was just an offhand remark. We can rationalize it as a lapsus linguae.
On the other hand the state of affairs when it comes to Federation knowledge of the galaxy and interaction with Gama and Delta quadrant cultures is consistent and a cornerstone of the ST setting.

[Youngla0450]

I firmly believe the Galactic Empire will be victorious. For one thing, the Galactic Empire ruled over one and a half million member worlds, and at least fifty million colonies, governorships, and protectorates, according to the canon Star Wars factbook The Essential Atlas, written by Lucasfilm. The Empire has 25,000 Star Destroyers, hundreds of millions of star fighters, and hundreds of thousands of other ships and craft.

The Essential Atlas is not G-level canon. We have already in this thread have hashed out for you that the Empire controls only a small portion of a modest sized galaxy, and the total membership likely does not exceed the original Galactic Republic's membership of no more than 100,000 members, and a million star systems total.

The United Federation of Planets ruled over one hundred and fifty member systems, and at least one thousand colonies, protectorates, and affliate states, according to Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: The Original Series. The Federation had at the most, 3-5,000 capital ships, hundreds of star fighters, and several dozen shuttles and other minor spacecraft.

While the first half of your statement here may be true, you have not provided any source for your 3,000 to 5,000 capital ship statement. Given that the Federation and it's allies fought to a standstill the Domion and it's allies who had at least 30,000 starships, it seems somewhat odd that the Federation would have anything less than 10,000 capital ships of it's own.
-Mike

Look, you clearly believe the GALACTIC Empire is relatively small. Why? Because you think only the movies count as canon. It's does not matter what level of canon, as long it is canon.

[Mike DiCenso]

Look, you clearly believe the GALACTIC Empire is relatively small. Why? Because you think only the movies count as canon. It's does not matter what level of canon, as long it is canon.

Unlike Kane, it's not what I believe, it's where the evidence leads in searching for the truth. More importantly, you seem to have a difficulty in comprehending that there is a canon hierarchy, at least where Lucasfilm licensing and publication are concerned. G-level canon supersedes EU. You have yet to show me or anyone anything that George Lucas' vision of Star Wars meshes perfectly with the EU, which Lucas considers to be occuring in a parallel universe of continuity. When the movies or their novelizations says the Empire occupies one small part of a modest sized galaxy, then that is what is true because it is the higher canon overrides the EU C-level continuity. I can't understand for the life of me why you fail to understand such a simple concept.
-Mike

[Trinoya]

Look, you clearly believe the GALACTIC Empire is relatively small. Why? Because you think only the movies count as canon. It's does not matter what level of canon, as long it is canon.

Then tell me, how do I deal with one book contradicting another, or a movie?

For example, George Lucas says that Bobba is dead.. yet the books disagree with him? Who is right?

The books claim that fighters are useless but other books claim that they have purpose? Who is right?

The books claim firepower ranges from that of modern battleships to that of giggatons (and dear god even terratons).. which is correct?

The books claim the death star works in several different ways.. which is correct?


Do we simply take the highest numbers? Do we take the lowest numbers? Perhaps I should use the example of an aging star fighter dealing critical damage to a star destroyer? Or a star destroyer unable to go near a sun without having its hull burned off (in fact requiring a special platform to protect it even)...

...

The EU is glorified fanfiction. It needs to be quantified, saying all of it is equal cannon is simply not true..