How about this scenario?

[sonofccn]

By act of Q, in league with the ASB coalition and various other ROBs of the multiverse, the following Earths are transported from their universe into an "Gladiator Arena" one. As is standard it's a replica of the Milky Way galaxy, including the Galactic barrier preventing anyone from escaping, with each Earth, in addition with a replica of our current Sol system, being displaced randomly across it. In addition since an otherwise barren Galaxy would be boring the league of super beings have also "seeded" the various other habital worlds with various races from the multiverse, Protoss, Klingon, Tau, etc with the catch that technologically they are no higher than "Modern" level and run the gambit down to paleolithic. (IE more or less like Stargate verse)

The Gladiators:

Earth shortly after the Second invasion by the Buggers

Earth shortly before the events of Broken Bow

Earth Shortly after the founding of the Star League.

Earth Roughly at the time of the Broodwars.

The stakes:
Everything. To the victor shall go the spoils of not only the lush and abudent galaxy, restored to pristine conditions following the defeat of all other Earth factions, but any other whim they wish no matter how petty. To the defeated, or if they refuse to play, they are condemed to spend an eternity trapped inside a fan convention being pestered by an endless stream of comic book guy clones.

Rules:

Win. Do it in under or equal to 1000 years, the number Crom picked from the wager hat, or all sides lose by default.

The trick:

A cabal of vicious, mischievious, or downright blood thirsty ROBs have added "spice" to the game by including all Twelve colonies from roughly fifty years before the start of the series(2004 version) with the promise of not condeming them to the Warp for all eternity if they can destroy all of them.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Earth shortly after the Second invasion by the Buggers

Although they have the most powerful WMD, they lack FTL transportation. Also, the Hegemony will disintegrate without the immediate threat of the Buggers.

Earth shortly before the events of Broken Bow

Well studied.

Earth Shortly after the founding of the Star League.

I believe our conclusion previously was that the Star League could kick the tail of "Broken Bow"-era Earth. Their ships have effective combat ranges that meet/exceed the NX's, and although they have a STL mobility disadvantage, being able to teleport 30 light years every week gives them a strategic FTL advantage.

Earth Roughly at the time of the Broodwars.

There's something key here: The UED can travel across the galaxy in a lifetime, something that NX Earth, Star League Earth, and Bugger-killing Earth cannot.

That said, while they have the ability to cross the galaxy, it's not likely that they will be able to find anybody except by sheerest chance. It's going to take a while for these powers to come into contact with each other.

So really, this is more of a contest to see who can develop new technology.

Ender-Earth eventually develops ansible-based transportation technology that allows people to go anywhere in the galaxy in the blink of an eye. They have wonderfully effective power technology, allowing them to reach very high relativistic velocities. However, the timing is an issue: FTL travel is scheduled to be invented several thousand years after the invasions.

I'm not sure how quickly Trek-Earth will advance without friendly advanced aliens sharing technology with them; it's going to take TNG-era charts in order to have a decent chance of discovering the other Earths, randomly strewn across the galaxy.

With no other advanced races in this galaxy, I don't think the Prime Directive will take hold, either. However, they have a decent chance of eventually attaining post-TNG levels of technology on their own as the deadline approaches.

Star League-Earth is one that we know isn't going to make any dramatic technological revolutions in the next few hundred years. The basic capabilities of the jump drive improve very little from the Star League era forward. They may have the most industrial capacity at the start of this, but they're running into trouble with it. Also, their ships are only going to become incrementally more powerful over time.

UED-Earth is the one with the best chance of actually finding another Earth using its current technology. They're starting with the top FTL speeds of the group. This is a major advantage. Their rates of advancement are totally unknown.

If the combatants are frozen to current levels of technology, UED-Earth is the only one with anything resembling a chance. If combatants advance, Trek-Earth just might take it.

[sonofccn]

Also, the Hegemony will disintegrate without the immediate threat of the Buggers.

Interesting point but would the change of threats from Buggers to alternate human factions be that radical of a change? They kept up the military junta style goverment for several years without hide nor hair of the Buggers following the second invasion and I'm just curious why they couldn't do the same against these new foes.

Although they have the most powerful WMD, they lack FTL transportation.

True but they will invent instant comunication device allowing a single general and his staff direct thier entire war fleet, spread over several star systems if I remember correctly. That should be heard and shoulders above all the other factions long rang comunication which is a plus.

Ender Earth also demostrated itself as being quite adapt at salvaging alien technology, most of the really advanced technology they swiped from Bugger hulks from the second invasion, so it isn't out of the realm for a fleet of thier ships to pummel a stray vessel from the other fleets with atomics and back engineer thier propulsion system.

I believe our conclusion previously was that the Star League could kick the tail of "Broken Bow"-era Earth. Their ships have effective combat ranges that meet/exceed the NX's, and although they have a STL mobility disadvantage, being able to teleport 30 light years every week gives them a strategic FTL advantage.

Overall yes but Earth ships should still be able to put up a fight and reduced to the same starting resources keeps the Battletech universe from steamrolling Trek as quickly.

I'm not sure how quickly Trek-Earth will advance without friendly advanced aliens sharing technology with them;

Very, very slow by Trek standards. Light years compared to almost all the other factions. They should began deploying phase cannons and crude forcefields fairly quickly but beyond that I don't think could be pinned down.

UED-Earth is the one with the best chance of actually finding another Earth using its current technology. They're starting with the top FTL speeds of the group. This is a major advantage. Their rates of advancement are totally unknown.

Well the fact that despite having a couple of centuries Kropula sector, who spent half of that just returning to the rough tech level which launched them into deep space, and not possesing a raw technological advantage It wouldn't bode well for thier tech advancement rate. Subject to change should the UED ever return of course.

If the combatants are frozen to current levels of technology, UED-Earth is the only one with anything resembling a chance. If combatants advance, Trek-Earth just might take it.

Tech frozen would make it too lopsided towards two of the combatents so I think advancement should be allowed. Of course I am a heavily biased pro-Trek sort of guy so...yeah.

Out of curosity you didn't give an assement on the BSG verse who start out with a far larger industrial base and fleet. I wouldn't bring it up but you went into some detail for all the other factions and I'm just curious to how you think they stack up.

[sonofccn]

Dusted off my old copy of Ender's Game from my closet shelf and thought I'd dig up a few quotes to help flesh up the faction.

... We've scraped togather everything mankind could producem afleet that nakes the one they sent against us last time seem like a bunch of kids playing in a swimming pool. We have some new weapons too. But it might not be enough, even so. Because in the eighty years since the last war, they've had as much time to prepare as we have.

General refrence to Ender Humanity's ability to advance as well as a specific citing of the Hergomny surving eight decades with out seeing a Bugger.

" This was a treasure trove. If they had known we would win the first war, they probably would never have built this place. We learned gravity manipulation because they increased the gravity here. We learned efficent use of stellar energy because they blacked out this planet."

Mazer Rackman commenting on the windfall taking the Bugger controlled asteriod Eros, and its exploitation by the quick study humans.

"Dr device muc more powerful. Nuclear weapons after all were weak enough to be used on Earth at one time. The little doctor could never be used on a planet. Still I wished we had one back during the second invasion."

"How does it work?"

"...the field spreads out into in a sphere, but it gets weaker the farther it spreads. Except that where it actually runs into a lot of moleculesm it gets stronger and starts over. The bigger the ship, the bigger the new field."

"so each time the field hits a ship, it sends out a new sphere-"

"and if thier ships are too close togather it can set up a chain reaction that wipes them all out. Then the fields dies down, the molecules come back togather, and where you had a ship, you now have a lump of dirt...

The MD weapon. A self-sustaining, or close to it, chain-reaction style weapon of virtually limitless power. Anti-matter eat your heart out.

The little doctor penertrates the shield?"

"As if it wasn't even there...

I don't have even remotely enough knowledge to know if an Ender verse "Escatatic shield" is even remotely similar to the forcefield/shields the UED can generate or which Starfleet could possibly build but I thought it was interesting to bring up regardless.

More later.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Dusted off my old copy of Ender's Game from my closet shelf and thought I'd dig up a few quotes to help flesh up the faction.

... We've scraped togather everything mankind could producem afleet that nakes the one they sent against us last time seem like a bunch of kids playing in a swimming pool. We have some new weapons too. But it might not be enough, even so. Because in the eighty years since the last war, they've had as much time to prepare as we have.

General refrence to Ender Humanity's ability to advance as well as a specific citing of the Hergomny surving eight decades with out seeing a Bugger.

They knew the Buggers were still out there. The chaos following victory is IIRC detailed in the newer books, but I can't say I know too much about that at the moment. Afterwards, there's a fairly loose interplanetary government - loose by necessity, as it takes decades to travel from colony to colony.

" This was a treasure trove. If they had known we would win the first war, they probably would never have built this place. We learned gravity manipulation because they increased the gravity here. We learned efficent use of stellar energy because they blacked out this planet."

Mazer Rackman commenting on the windfall taking the Bugger controlled asteriod Eros, and its exploitation by the quick study humans.

I'm still not convinced they're likely to get anywhere. First, they need to get attacked; second, the attackers need to fail; third, the attackers need to leave behind at least one fairly intact ship with an FTL drive to study; fourth, they need to actually engineer the technology. It's a long chain of events required before Hegemon-Earth can even start to compete in the game, and there are a lot of unknowns. I'm not sure of the effective range, maneuverability, or conventional firepower of their ships; that makes them a long shot at best.

They may even be able to fight quite well, but they're largely an unknown.

"Dr device muc more powerful. Nuclear weapons after all were weak enough to be used on Earth at one time. The little doctor could never be used on a planet. Still I wished we had one back during the second invasion."

"How does it work?"

"...the field spreads out into in a sphere, but it gets weaker the farther it spreads. Except that where it actually runs into a lot of moleculesm it gets stronger and starts over. The bigger the ship, the bigger the new field."

"so each time the field hits a ship, it sends out a new sphere-"

"and if thier ships are too close togather it can set up a chain reaction that wipes them all out. Then the fields dies down, the molecules come back togather, and where you had a ship, you now have a lump of dirt...

The MD weapon. A self-sustaining, or close to it, chain-reaction style weapon of virtually limitless power. Anti-matter eat your heart out.

The little doctor penertrates the shield?"

"As if it wasn't even there...

I don't have even remotely enough knowledge to know if an Ender verse "Escatatic shield" is even remotely similar to the forcefield/shields the UED can generate or which Starfleet could possibly build but I thought it was interesting to bring up regardless.

More later.

Yeah, it's one heck of a weapon.

Also, the Hegemony will disintegrate without the immediate threat of the Buggers.

Interesting point but would the change of threats from Buggers to alternate human factions be that radical of a change? They kept up the military junta style goverment for several years without hide nor hair of the Buggers following the second invasion and I'm just curious why they couldn't do the same against these new foes.

Without any evidence of them, it would be hard, and I think the way this scenario is laid out, it's likely to be quite some time until they run into anybody.

True but they will invent instant comunication device allowing a single general and his staff direct thier entire war fleet, spread over several star systems if I remember correctly. That should be heard and shoulders above all the other factions long rang comunication which is a plus.

That might actually have come from the Buggers.

Ender Earth also demostrated itself as being quite adapt at salvaging alien technology, most of the really advanced technology they swiped from Bugger hulks from the second invasion, so it isn't out of the realm for a fleet of thier ships to pummel a stray vessel from the other fleets with atomics and back engineer thier propulsion system.

Not impossible, but I think relatively unlikely. Capturing an intact ship is tricky.

Overall yes but Earth ships should still be able to put up a fight and reduced to the same starting resources keeps the Battletech universe from steamrolling Trek as quickly.

I'm not sure it's the same starting resources. Hegemon-Earth has a tightly regulated population and a lot of poverty. SL-Earth is the prosperous capital system of a great realm, with enormous well-developed native industries (especially military industries).

It's not quite the steamrolling that the entire SL could provide, but if they came into contact immediately, I think SL-Earth would win. NX-Earth, however, has the long-term edge: Their technology isn't a dead end. Jump drive may give a de facto ~1500 c strategic/exploration level speed, but while NX-era warp drive is limited to around ~100 c, warp drive is superior in the long term.

Very, very slow by Trek standards. Light years compared to almost all the other factions. They should began deploying phase cannons and crude forcefields fairly quickly but beyond that I don't think could be pinned down.

Yeah. It's a little hard. TOS Trek is so far ahead of ENT Trek (something underlined in "In a Mirror, Darkly") and a lot of technology can be presumed to have come from the Vulcans, Andorians, and other friendly aliens. In fact, some probably came from less than friendly aliens as well - Klingons, for example, seemed unable to keep a tight hold on their hardware in the ENT series.

Well the fact that despite having a couple of centuries Kropula sector, who spent half of that just returning to the rough tech level which launched them into deep space, and not possesing a raw technological advantage It wouldn't bode well for thier tech advancement rate. Subject to change should the UED ever return of course.

That's not promising at all.

Tech frozen would make it too lopsided towards two of the combatents so I think advancement should be allowed. Of course I am a heavily biased pro-Trek sort of guy so...yeah.

Out of curosity you didn't give an assement on the BSG verse who start out with a far larger industrial base and fleet. I wouldn't bring it up but you went into some detail for all the other factions and I'm just curious to how you think they stack up.

I actually don't know all that much about BSG; I haven't done very much technical analysis on it yet.

[sonofccn]

True but they will invent instant comunication device allowing a single general and his staff direct thier entire war fleet, spread over several star systems if I remember correctly. That should be heard and shoulders above all the other factions long rang comunication which is a plus.

That might actually have come from the Buggers.

Inspired by might be more accurate. The buggers themselves lack mechanical means of communication, being a hive mind and all. Graff does state it was the most important thing "learned" but it required the physical building of a mechanical device opposed to merely having a couple of telepaths. Actually skimming back over that passage I noted something arguably interesting.

"You see as soon as we had a working ansible we tucked it into our best starships and launched them to attack the buggers home systems"

If Graff is being truthful and straightfoward, which are big ifs I admit, than the 3rd invasion didn't get kicked off until after they built their FTL com. In and of itself no big deal. A little later

"And the ships have been traveling for thirty years-"

"Some of them. And some for thirty years and some for twenty.

So ,rougly speaking, the ansible was back engineered/designed and mass produced in about ten years to allow the oldest ships to have flown for seven decades and the 2nd invasion occuring 8 decades ago. Just my musing just how quickly they can R&D in a hurry of course.

I'm still not convinced they're likely to get anywhere. First, they need to get attacked; second, the attackers need to fail; third, the attackers need to leave behind at least one fairly intact ship with an FTL drive to study; fourth, they need to actually engineer the technology. It's a long chain of events required before Hegemon-Earth can even start to compete in the game, and there are a lot of unknowns. I'm not sure of the effective range, maneuverability, or conventional firepower of their ships; that makes them a long shot at best.

They may even be able to fight quite well, but they're largely an unknown.

Oh I never meant to imply they were anything but the underdogs. I just wanted to stress they are not however doomed from the onset, merely have a very steep uphill battle. As to the particulars:

1. Okay...save for a stray UED cruiser getting lost I admit the Enderverse is likely dead in the water. It made a good addition in my head.

2.This isn't too large of a asumption. Ender-Earth is a highly militant society and likely will have a fleet of warships to pounce on the odd ship which strays into their territory. Space is big after all and while everyone is searching for everyone else they likely can't spare huge fleets to probe the small corners of the cosmos.

3.That's a bit trickier. Atomics do tend to make a mess of things. In fluff Starcraft battlecruisers appeared fairly resielent, one skydived from essentially orbit after being crippled and it mostly survived intact, simiarly the research ship Amerigo was shot down I believe, been a long time since I did the zerg campaing and I could be misremembering the details, and didn't go ka-boom. From another franchise Ent era starships seemed less volitale than their 24th century counterparts. The Enterprise( NX class) was beaten to within an inch of its life in Atzai Prime/Damage (ENT) and was still intact more or less. A little on the less side of things all things considered ;)

As to BSG I can only go on third hand information but I was under the impression, from lurking in another thread, that a fifty megaton strike badly crippled the titular starship ut didn't rupture a "warpcore" and make everything vaporize and smaller yield but more plentiful strikes would increase the odds of salvaging something.

4.Actually think this is the strongest assumption, they are good at figuring out alien tech. If they could get thier hands on a warp drive, by hook or by crook, I do think they could figure it out.

5. As to their fighting ability in Ender's Game, the only novel I read of the series, everything seems very vauge. They use thermalnuclear warheads, they heavily depend on fighters which come 12 to a starship from a newer vessel all the way down to 4 if its a 70 year old hulk and they all appear to be equiped with the MD weapon through the older ships have half the effective range compared to the newer models. For a novel that is about the savior of humanity leading a massive intersteller war against aliens we get almost nothing on the whole war aspect.

Yeah. It's a little hard. TOS Trek is so far ahead of ENT Trek (something underlined in "In a Mirror, Darkly") and a lot of technology can be presumed to have come from the Vulcans, Andorians, and other friendly aliens. In fact, some probably came from less than friendly aliens as well - Klingons, for example, seemed unable to keep a tight hold on their hardware in the ENT series.

Well I would like to think part of it was that humanity is just that good, but yeah. To add to my previous tech suggestions warp seven within the century, primitive by 23rd century standards shields, spun off of thier forcefield technology, over select areas in addition to thier standard armor and perpetually improved upon phase cannons which are likely to greatly outshine torpedos and become the primary and mainstay weapon without the alarmingly quick jump to photonics two years after building phase cannons in the regular verse. My thoughts of course, any critisim or input you wish to add would be greatly appreciated.