Could the Federation defeat Star Wars' Empire in an all-out war?
Would a Federation warship like the Defiant out gun a Star Wars Star Destroyer? Who has a bigger armada? Who has the tactical advantage? Don't forget that The Federation includes the Klingons, who love warfare and have fast, agile, heavily armed ships, with cloaking devices, and the Vulcans with superior logic and tactical planning.
In case anybody is wondering, yes this is the nerd version of the "my dad can beat up your dad" debates.
it makes me happy that Batdad got to voice Batman later.
You're very right... and yet I gleefully wade into it every time...
Considering the SW universe doesn't have transporters, it's probably safe to assume their shields aren't modulated to block transporters. So they could just beam torpedoes through.
Transporters block shields regardless of modulation. You can modulate weapons to penetrate shields, but transporters are trickier. "We can't get the away team back because shields are up!" would be a non-issue if the shields could be modulated to block weapon fire but allow transporters.
How many torpedoes do you estimate the Federation has?
How many torpedoes do you estimate it would take to destroy a Super Destroyer?
How many Super Destroyers do you think the Empire has?
That last number is about a hundredth of how many regular destroyers they have, which is about a thousandth of how many tie fighters and bombers they have.
How many torpedoes do you estimate it would take to destroy a Super Destroyer?
One. Quantum torpedoes are many magnitudes more powerful than nuclear bombs. Even if that's not enough to completely destroy a star destroyer, its certainly enough to destroy its power core (or whatever they call the power source in Star Wars).
Just beam random chunks out.
Bean random chunks in. Not a typo.
Well voy had a conpl8pf 96 by series end so a shit load
They don’t have transporters but apparently Jedis can just teleport shit through the Force? Didn’t Rey teleport a lightsaber at some point? Presumably this is a skill that could be picked up by the Empire.
Yeah, anyways that happened. Somehow, Force teleportation.
You should be ashamed that you left out the true fighters of the Federation:
But let's be honest, the UFP would win. The UFP have that bomb that Soran used to explode a sun in Generations. The Empire destroyed a few planets. Sun destroying civilization beats planet destroying civilization.
I mean, are we not counting the New Order Starkiller base? I'm OK if we are, but they did blow up a sun.
I totally forgot about that scene. But the new empire sucked up a sun with a planet sized base. Soran blew up a sun with a missile barely bigger than a car. I still give the UFP the win.
There was a similar weapon in the extended universe, not that Disney cares.
I dunno', IMO it's kinda' an orthogonal question to both universes.
Star Wars is about a struggle for what's right despite what space-fantasy crazyness you'll have to face. Star Trek is about trying everything short of violence before resorting to violence.
The overwhelming power in Star Wars is more about opressive threat and allegory (like what's her face that has to get trapped in a cluster of black holes) than raw power, and in Trek, their extreme ability to do violence is to highlight how important the other options are. They almost always easily win the gun show, but they're almost never happy for doing it.
So in the end, they both have very different forms of power represented. Star Wars is probably more capable of destruction over time since it's always the whole galaxy at risk, but obviously Trek vaporizes plenty of things in one blast in any specific encounter. Hence why the Borg and Q, and shape shifters, and black puddles of sentient death, and such extreme entities have to show up when they want a classic threat to stay a threat.
In SW, it's all fantasy that's powerful. The setting itself is rugged, and only the powerful are powerful, so it has a much bigger hill to climb when pitting the few things with any kind of statistic against each other. Both universes have any number of means to defeat the other depending on what's available and what actually works, who gets the jump, etc. Some things in both universes are insanely destructive by statistic, so one unarmored turbolaser shot or one full blast, unshielded phaser blast, is taking out an entire ship and then some. In either universe. Supposed to anyways, as much as they downplay turbolaser hits in the movies and games necessarily. Like how Halo would be drastically different if it were designed with any of the stats in mind.
Soran's device was essentially an anti-bomb, based on how Worf described it:
Trilithium is a nuclear inhibitor. In theory, it could stop all fusion within a star.
If you shot it at a Star Destroyer I think you'd just give a handful of unlucky stormtroopers trilithium poisoning.
You don't shoot it at the star destroyer. You shoot it at the star next to the star destroyer. When you take away nuclear fusion you get a large explosion more commonly known as a supernova. Everything within a few dozen light years is now obliterated. Gotta think like the Emperor if you want to beat him.
Carter and Mckay both destroyed a sun
McKay destroyed the majority of a solar system.
'Captain, scanners detect Palpatine on their bridge'
'Chief O'Brien, program a quantum torpedo with a two second timer and beam it three decks below their bridge'
'A quantum torpedo Captain?'
'You're right Chief! It's a Tuesday.'
'Sir?'
'Send two!'
And I suppose that would end the war, since the rest of the Empire is only there under subjugation. No Emperor, no Empire.
we talking cross universe or cross galaxy fight? Q likely takes issue with someone coming into his playground if we're universe hopping. Galaxy to galaxy it's carnage. As the thread here points out, both can destroy whole solar systems. Sure the federation would be slow to start doing so unless Janeway is still around. But they'd get there. Cloaking and transporter tech can make up for a fair amount of the federation being massively outnumbered. If the empire has to gind through borg territory before reaching federation space, that would balance things out. But really Trek time travels more often than stargate so who knows what madness that leads too. We may discover Sisko founds the jedi, while O'Brian finally snaps and founds the sith after being tortured for the 10,000th time.
Star Trek has vastly better sensors, shielding, weapons and science.
Sensors: they can detect the atmosphere and cargo inside a ship as well as how many individuals are in it. SW can't detect when an entire ship has docked to the hull.
Science: and then they can beam a person out of it. They can screw with any technology while transporting too.
Shielding: ISDs and Death Star can't keep fighter and the millennium falcon from running around inside their shield envelope. Federation shields give them the option to block crafting from passing.
Weapons: They made bombs that break space itself, and then apparently almost everyone agreed to ban them because its a stupidly dangerous idea.
Science 3: Genesis Device. Oh great you can destroy a planet. The Federation can create an entire solar system with a bomb.
Science 4: Federation developed a matter phasing cloak. Romulans made personal cloaks.
The only advantage the Empire has is numbers of ISDs. Even then, if the empire makes the wrong move they'll piss off the Dominion or the Borg, and the empire literally can't touch the borg.
Idk what youre basing your star wars knowledge off, but you are wrong. It sounds like just the movies.
There is a lot more in the EU that would demolish the Federation.
Do you know about Resurrected Palpatine and his ship the Eclipse?
Or the fact he can create a force maelstrom?
Or inhabit a clone body?
(fuck Disney)
Science 3: Genesis Device. Oh great you can destroy a planet. The Federation can create an entire solar system with a bomb.
And the Feringi made it better with a paywall
SW also has a long distance speed advantage too. They travel around the entire galaxy while the federation takes months to get from one side of the federation to the other.
As far as I understand it though, their hyperspace is the same as ST's subspace network used by the Borg. It's very fast, but it only works on existing lanes. So while theoretically a SW ship is faster, it's only if they're using a known route. Which only exist in their galaxy.
Unlike ST though, SW ships can't map out hyperspace paths with sensors but have to do so manually via manned ship.
Yeah but Star Was has religion. Obi Wan can "sense" when Alderaan was blown up. Vader can "sense" the presence of Obi-Wan.
All those "sensors" and "science" don't mean much in the face of "bUt iTs mAgIc!"
Obi Wan can “sense” when Alderaan was blown up. Vader can “sense” the presence of Obi-Wan.
I feel we'd have to account for their travel technology too. ST warp drives are considerably more versatile than specific hyperspace engines, especially if they end up fighting in ST space.
I think Trek has better weapons, do they not? I'm not a Wars fan (have seen them each once and "meh").
From what I do remember, It took an entire Death Star the size of a small moon to destroy a planet. Don't most federation ships carry enough armament to easily do the same?
AFAIK (again, not a Wars fan/expert) but don't they use mostly laser weapons which are primitive and easily shrugged off by 24th century shields?
Assuming my memory is correct, then I'm going to say the Defiant itself could probably take out most of the Empire single handedly.
Most of the time they're "blasters," sometimes they're "turbolasers" or "lasers." Star Wars canon is a hot mess but they are most commonly defined as charged particle beam weapons, i.e. they're phasers by a different name.
Not really. I think the only time in Trek we see a planet outright destroyed by a ship is Species 8472 fighting the Borg. Many Trek ships could maybe render an undefended planet uninhabitable, but not pulverized, and probably not with standard weapons. There are random superweapon techs like the Thalaron Pulse or biogenic weapons that could kill everything on a planet, or the trilithium bomb that Soren used & that the Bashir changeling almost used that can cause stars to go nova.
Then in Star Wars EU you have things like single star destroyers doing a Base-Delta-Zero where they essentially raze the surface of a planet. The power levels of Star Wars weapons are really kind of all over the place, with many of the old Legends specs having insanely high energy yield for things like turbolasers.
IIRC some of the "hard numbers" put out would have things like a single turbolaser shot exhausting the shield capacity of a Sovereign-class.
The Xindi joined the federation. They have the technology.
It depends on whether you are approaching the question from a narrative perspective or an empirical perspective.
Narrative: The Federation wins because the Federation are The Good Guys™ and the Empire are The Bad Guys™. The Federation starts out on the back foot and it looks pretty grim in the middle, but ultimately they eke out a win. If this is a TNG two-parter it plays out the way "The Best of Both Worlds" did: engineering prowess combined with timely application of the human factor wins the day. If this is a DS9 arc or Discovery season, then Section 31 does what needs to be done.
Empirical: The Empire crushes the Federation like a bug. The Imperial industrial base is enormous and their power generation capabilities vastly surpass anything the 24th century Federation can muster:
It you could somehow snap these two spacefaring nations into existence and pit them against each other, it would be like late-WWII United States facing off against Napoleonic France. It's a blowout.
Empirical: The Empire crushes the Federation like a bug.
I see what you did there.
Good thing Luke had the power of narrative on his side! Once the Emperor was gone (for now), the entire Empire went with him (for now).
The Empire doesn't have shield technology. I don't know if their weapons could penetrate shields, but they definitely have no defence against a teleporter. Yes, their fleet could get to any target faster than the UFP, but as long as the target has a teleporter system they can just teleport the commander into space.
The Empire can shield an entire planet. Those big spheres on top of a Star Destroyer's command tower are shield generators.
My man, taking down the Empire’s shields was a major plot point of the third act of RotJ.
I highly doubt it.
Tech wise, they would be on par, but Empire forces would FAR outnumber federation forces.
Place the skirmish in the Star Wars galaxy, and Sith enter chat, who would absolutely slaughter federation officers after boarding.
Place it outside their galaxy and odds would slightly improve, but not much.
The Star Wars galaxy is full of infinite resource mechanisms like the Starforge and cloning/droid programs for troops.
Star Trek universe has finite resources.
Also, as far as the Klingons and Vulkans argument, the Star Wars universe literally, according to descriptions of the senate, thousands over thousands of species, all with their own advantages and usually minimal disadvantages.
The only real thing that tilts it for me is if Q enters chat.
Edit: I love this thread, and am having a ball geek debating, but I am pretty firmly set that at best we have a Battle of Thermopylae situation here.
The Federation could put up a valiant fight, but they can't get anywhere with Romulans or Cardacians, respectively 1 planet of adversaries each. They certainly could not defeat 1/3rd of the entire Star Wars core galaxy without an OBSCENE amount of plot armor.
Q is just as likely to side with the whole new universe to fuck with as he is to help his “friends.”
And the Continuum likely won’t choose sides.
'Somehow Palpatine returned'
Q grins
Star Wars seems oddly backwards for a sci-fi universe (it's more a fantasy setting with sci-fi trappings), even though knowledge of space travel is as common as knowing about plumbing, technological innovation doesn't seem to really develop that much, although I guess they did go from starting construction on the Death Star to Star Killer base in the span of ~53 years, which seems like a massive leap (blow up one planet locally (from 77k km) to blowing up multiple planets across hundreds of light years). Otherwise though, had the Republic really developed that much technologically for those tens of thousands of years that they were in existence?
I feel like the Federation's shield and transporter technology would give them a huge advantage over the Empire, though obviously space wizards with laser swords and techno-bass bombs would seem to be powerful weapons in the Empire's favor as well, though the Empire itself only has two space wizards, not counting Inquisitors. I think overall, the Empire may have access to more resources and could overwhelm the Federation via a Zerg rush, similar to what we're seeing in Ukraine with Russia. Even though Russians are pulling out shitty 50-year old Cold war weapons that belong in museums, but just based on sheer numbers they're maintaining their advantage.
The Q vs the Jedi would be something I’d pay to watch though.
That would be even worse than paying for a Mike Tyson fight in his prime. It would be over with the snap of Q's fingers. He can do literally whatever he wants with a mere thought. Shooting lightning and jumping really high doesn't mean shit against a god.
The Jedi would just immediately lose as they're blinked from existence.
If by winning you mean obliterating half of half your own population...
All I know is neither stand a chance against the formidable 'shuttles' of the Stargate SG-1 series
It would not be close. Just from a logistics and industrial capacity standpoint. The Federation has around 150 member worlds while the Empire holds more than 1 million inhabited systems. No technical advantage could make up for that discrepancy. The Empire could lose 100:1 and still easily crush the Federation.
I don't buy it.
Who would win, a star destroyer with laser like weapons that need to be manually aimed, or a ship with a shield, a battery of highly powered missiles and phasers that auto fire at targets?
Who would win, 100 tie fighters with no shielding that need to be facing the target to shoot, or a few shuttles with shields and phasers that auto fire in almost any direction?
Shields change the game, also having ships you don't need to directly face the enemy with to shoot, or manually aim with, makes the empire look like chumps.
I don't think you are grasping the difference in scale here. Even if you grant the Federation absolute technological supremacy (which is debatable, but ultimately doesn't matter). The Galactic Empire at its peak has effectively unlimited resources and the logistical capability to build at unimaginable scale. They could park a fleet the size of the entirety of Starfleet over every Federation world at the same time. Even without superweapons they could devastate all those worlds, lose every single ship in the process and still be able to project power.
Wars are won with industrial capacity and the ability to leverage that capacity. The Empire is perfectly configured to conquer. Their weakness is asymmetrical war from within their infrastructure. The Federation could fight this way, surrender while hiding or scuttling their capital ships, join the Rebellion while bringing significant engineering and technology to bear from within the Empire. That would work.
But a straight-up conflict? No. It's not a fair fight when one side can absorb losses of any amount and the other side can't.
Yes, they have shields!
And cloaks
And intangible drives
The Star Wars universe is full of shields.
The only convincing question I have seen is "both have shields, but the Federation has teleporters. Can Star Wars shields block teleporting a torpedo onboard?"
I still think the Empire fleet outnumber Federation torpedoes, but it's a good question.
I would say yes, since the technology demonstrated in Star Trek seems way more advanced than the technology demonstrated in Star Wars. Even Jedi powers don't seem particularly strong compared to just the natural abilities of many species that are part of the Federation (and if they seek help outside the Federation, they could potentially have literal gods on their side).
However, in another thread today I saw a comment saying that hyperdrives are faster than warp drives, and allow people in Star Wars to traverse the entire galaxy in a day or two. Star Trek ain't that fast so it might be hard to stop a Death Star obliterating all the planets before they can get there and stop it. 🤔 I don't know how true that statement is though; I'm not nearly as well versed in Star Wars as I am in Trek.
I would say yes, since the technology demonstrated in Star Trek seems way more advanced than the technology demonstrated in Star Wars.
Care to elaborate?
Federation officers are more scientifically inclined, but in my opinion Star Wars tech is equal or greater at every turn, the tech just gets less fanfare because to Star Wars peeps, the stuff is boring ancient technology.
No shields in Star Wars, first of all. Much more powerful weaponry in Star Trek (it doesn't take a moon sized station 30 hours to charge a laser; the Enterprise could nuke a planet in like 30 seconds with a phaser bank). Mind control and telekinetic powers are effortless vs taking years of dedicated training. Etc.
Even if hyperdrives are faster, SW ships have no shields. As long as the planet they are wanting to blow up has teleporter stations they can just start beaming officers into space. It takes time to charge the planet killing laser.
Cerritos makes any argument moot.
Self-aware beats in-universe every time.
100% Empire. Star Wars ships with hyper drivers are so much faster than Warp Drives. It takes the Millennium Falcon hours or a day to get across the galaxy. It takes Voyager 80+ years. It takes weeks to traverse the Federation alone. If the Empire was completely out classed in combat by Federation technology, and that's a big if, the Empire would have zero issues just glassing every planet while the Federation would take days to respond.
Yes and also no depending on who you ask and what they decide about power levels that are never compared in either universe.
Well star wars has a huge advantage with just the sheer size. A star destroyer is massive compared to the enterprise.
That said Trek has some really advanced technology. Teleporters, more advanced computers, better sheilds.
The real would be the borg afte the get any force sensitive assimilated.
The force is about tapping to the life force, and usually portrayed as a single living thing "tuning" into the living force.
Idk if the Borg could do that. As in, can the collective utilise the Force? Guess if they get a person who can, yeah... and... would that mean the collective then understands how to connect to the Force?
Depending on your take on the whole midichlorian thing, but even with it, presumably if the collective learns about the Force by assimilating one user, it could then utilise the Force with any Borg who have a sufficiently high M-count.
That would be pretty fiercesome. But if there's one thing the Borg lack it's that Jedi style wisdom.
"Futile, resistance is not." — Yoda while slashing through drones
Yeah but "size matters not" I always took the force as something that needs intense focus to really control and that no body faces something like force shot circuit. So a single force using drone would be a conduit for the collective mind of the Borg to use the force. Or at least that's how I take it.
If we go down the midichlorian rabbit hole. Then the borg should be able to make more of them. Nanobots advanced biology should make it possible to start making force using drones. But I doubt midichlorians are that mundane, ie they are to mystical to really behave scientifically
Empire subjugates the Federation, then the Borg assimilate the Empire, circle of life.
"Chief, beam the command crew of that star destroyer into space."
"Done, Sir."
"Thank you."
Star destroyers have shields
Neo from the Matrix disabled them already
There's a fan fic about exactly this question, written by Graham Kennedy (of the Daystrom Institute Technical Library website.)
https://www.ditl.org/portal-chapter1.php
tl;dr: Federation shields, weapons, engines, and tactics are vastly superior, and they are nearly impervious to the Force. But the Empire has a huge numerical advantage.
No. The federation has at most hundreds of years experience with space technologies. In the Star Wars universe they have tens of thousands of years. It’s no competition.
I think Starfleet would choose to not engage the Empire, and hide behind cloaks instead.
Starfleet generally doesn't use cloaks, and they've never hidden from a fight. They will try to resolve it peacefully, but they have no qualms about going to war when it's necessary. The Federation includes Klingons, who do use cloaks, but they definitely never shy from a fight, usually preferring aggression over negotiation.
