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Mergy Sci-fi races??

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Tigara:
<font color=yellow>I think the stealth system blocked ALL emissions. Gravity included.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

I'm not so sure about that, Tigara, but you could be right. One thing that always bugged me was the Minbari ships were visible, thus even if Earth ships couldn't get an electronic lock, they should have been able to fire optically. I know Minbari ships had excellent armor that turned most energy weapons but, like Sheridan's destroying the Black Star proved, could be taken out by close nuke explosions. It would seem to me a lesson like that would have been used more than the "once" like it was "In the Beginning."
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by gangster:
<font color=yellow>I'm not so sure about that, Tigara, but you could be right. One thing that always bugged me was the Minbari ships were visible, thus even if Earth ships couldn't get an electronic lock, they should have been able to fire optically. I know Minbari ships had excellent armor that turned most energy weapons but, like Sheridan's destroying the Black Star proved, could be taken out by close nuke explosions. It would seem to me a lesson like that would have been used more than the "once" like it was "In the Beginning."</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
That bothered me too. I don't see how more cap ships weren't taken down. It's not as if they are maneuvering devils. Fighters I can understand though.
 
Points to consider between Earth and Minbari fleets:

1. Stealth systems

There are two basic kinds. The first means no emissions, nothing to detect. The second means countermeasures. Minbari ships use both. Emissions are suppressed as far as possible, but naturally there will be emissions. Even a Shadow vessel leaves emissions.

But once you approach, Minbari ECM systems will start messing with your computers and sensors. They will jam your communications with other ships. They will throw off your targeting. The emissions are there. But you cannot use them to fire. Because most unfortunately, your targeting system just went berserk. Even your navigation system might misbehave. You will have to target manually, which is next to suicide.

2. Optical targeting

You are forgetting one problem. Optical systems are subject to the same limitations. They are neither reliable nor sufficient to pinpoint an "uncooperative" target. With an enemy who possesses holographic technology, your camera might see imaginary warcruisers or fail to see anything. It might be blinded or burn out.

With radar, you are emitting the radiation and listening for echo. With telescopic cameras, you are depending on starlight. If the enemy manouvers correctly, optical sensors will leave you pretty helpless. Besides, are cameras really sufficient to get a good enough bearing on something?

Besides, you would still fail to detect range. To detect range, you would have to continuously bounce a laser off your target and measure the reflection delay. Naturally the Minbari countermeasures system will notice your laser emissions and generate false returns, screwing up your range-finder.

3. Gravity

Minbari ships were supposed to create local gravity. Not something you would detect from distance. Especially if the target is thousands of kilometers away.

4. Missiles

Sensor limits apply. Missiles would be just as blind as your capital ships, if not more. Minbari defense weapons and fighter squads would easily detect and destroy them. Besides, missiles with ion engines would be very slow, if compared to ships/fighters with gravity engines.

5. Manouvering like a devil

If the need arises, a ship with a gravity engine can accelerate like a devil. With a rocket-propelled ship, quick acceleration would kill the crew and break the hull. In case of gravity engines, gravity fields would pull everything equally.

6. Nukes

Nukes are not efficient in space. Energy weapons greatly outrange them. You would have to get your nuclear bomb close to the target.

7. Did the Minbari lose more capital ships

If the book version of "In the Beginning" is to be trusted, one Earth cruiser managed to ram a damaged Minbari cruiser. As tends to happen with ramming, both were destroyed.
 
>If the book version of "In the Beginning" is to be trusted, one Earth
>Icruiser managed to ram a damaged Minbari cruiser. As tends to
>Ihappen with ramming, both were destroyed.
It was also in movie, but ship that ramed was Nova dreadnought.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lennier:
<font color=yellow>Points to consider between Earth and Minbari fleets:

1. Stealth systems

There are two basic kinds. The first means no emissions, nothing to detect. The second means countermeasures. Minbari ships use both. Emissions are suppressed as far as possible, but naturally there will be emissions. Even a Shadow vessel leaves emissions.

But once you approach, Minbari ECM systems will start messing with your computers and sensors. They will jam your communications with other ships. They will throw off your targeting. The emissions are there. But you cannot use them to fire. Because most unfortunately, your targeting system just went berserk. Even your navigation system might misbehave. You will have to target manually, which is next to suicide.

2. Optical targeting

You are forgetting one problem. Optical systems are subject to the same limitations. They are neither reliable nor sufficient to pinpoint an "uncooperative" target. With an enemy who possesses holographic technology, your camera might see imaginary warcruisers or fail to see anything. It might be blinded or burn out.

With radar, you are emitting the radiation and listening for echo. With telescopic cameras, you are depending on starlight. If the enemy manouvers correctly, optical sensors will leave you pretty helpless. Besides, are cameras really sufficient to get a good enough bearing on something?

Besides, you would still fail to detect range. To detect range, you would have to continuously bounce a laser off your target and measure the reflection delay. Naturally the Minbari countermeasures system will notice your laser emissions and generate false returns, screwing up your range-finder.

3. Gravity

Minbari ships were supposed to create local gravity. Not something you would detect from distance. Especially if the target is thousands of kilometers away.

4. Missiles

Sensor limits apply. Missiles would be just as blind as your capital ships, if not more. Minbari defense weapons and fighter squads would easily detect and destroy them. Besides, missiles with ion engines would be very slow, if compared to ships/fighters with gravity engines.

5. Manouvering like a devil

If the need arises, a ship with a gravity engine can accelerate like a devil. With a rocket-propelled ship, quick acceleration would kill the crew and break the hull. In case of gravity engines, gravity fields would pull everything equally.

6. Nukes

Nukes are not efficient in space. Energy weapons greatly outrange them. You would have to get your nuclear bomb close to the target.

7. Did the Minbari lose more capital ships

If the book version of "In the Beginning" is to be trusted, one Earth cruiser managed to ram a damaged Minbari cruiser. As tends to happen with ramming, both were destroyed.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

Many good points let go by them one by one:

1. Stealth systems
The ECM issues could be resolved with better EMP shielding which apperantly was done by the time of the battle of the line since none of the star furries seemed to be effected and they got pretty close to the mimbari crusiers.

'You will have to target manually''
B.S. Currently the cammera systems on LAPD choppers an lock on to a specific car and track it from miles away. I suspect that in 200 years that could be improved on a bit.

2. Optical targeting
"They are neither reliable nor sufficient to pinpoint an "uncooperative" target"
There were image guided missles available and in use durring the 1970's. Admitedly they did not prove to be any more effective than heatseekers or radar guided missels or they would still be around. Spy sattlelites are pretty good finding "uncooperative" targets even camoflauged ones.

"With an enemy who possesses holographic technology, your camera might see imaginary warcruisers or fail to see anything."

I though about that too at first then it occured to me that a holographic projetion array would be sending energy an enregy signal out of its own. Add to the fact that you would have to give these projectors power which would mean either drilling through the hull to get to the ships's power mains (yeah right) or running power cables along the hull which would also give off an energy signture.

3. Gravity
"Minbari ships were supposed to create local gravity. Not something you would detect from distance. Especially if the target is thousands of kilometers away."

Wrong. Gravity is not a short ranged force if it were we would not be here. It does weaken over distance, but it does not stop. For a gravity engien to work it has to cause the ship to fall in the direction of travel by pulling it with gravitational force. Since gravity is not effected by materials it would go beyond the ship's hull and effect nearby objects as well. Gravity bends light, we use this fact to detect black holes thousands of light years away, detecting a gravitainal feild a few thousand kilometers away would be no more challenging.

4. Missiles
"Minbari defense weapons and fighter squads would easily detect and destroy them."

If that was so unbeatable how is it that durring In The Begining you can see a sarfurry ramming a mimbari crusier. If they could not stop a starfurry how are they supposed to stop somthing 1 / 40 th its size and 4 times its speed?

5. Manouvering like a devil

"If the need arises, a ship with a gravity engine can accelerate like a devil. With a rocket-propelled ship, quick acceleration would kill the crew and break the hull. In case of gravity engines, gravity fields would pull everything equally."

That would actually be impossible. The parts of the ship nearest the gravity engiens would get pulled on harder than the parts that are farthest away. This would put an uneven stress along the frame of the ship. This would be compounded by gravity for the crew.

6. Nukes
"Nukes are not efficient in space"
With 100 Megaton Nukes availble now think how much more powerfull they will be in 200 years. A 10 Giagton blast would probaly wipe out every ship within 1000 km radius of the detonation. A better delivery system would have to be developed for that warhead than just a missle. Since current rail gun prototypes can launch a shell fast enough for it to hit with enough force to turn it into a plasma. In 200 years it would be possible to make a launcher that could hurl a multi gigaton warhead near the speed of light at its target, not allowing enough time to shoot it down. Especialy if they are fired in mass vollies.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Xzyl:
<font color=yellow>There were image guided missles available and in use durring the 1970's. Admitedly they did not prove to be any more effective than heatseekers or radar guided missels or they would still be around.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>You can blind a heatseeker with a laser. You can do the same to a camera. And if you approach from the sunny side, most cameras will be blind by default.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Spy sattlelites are pretty good finding "uncooperative" targets even camoflauged ones.<hr></blockquote>That would only work in a region with pre-existing defense installations. You cannot fill the galaxy with spy satellites. They would only help you near your colonies and homeworld.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Wrong. Gravity is not a short ranged force if it were we would not be here. It does weaken over distance, but it does not stop.<hr></blockquote>The amount of force needed to pull a ship would be relatively small. Hence it would weaken into undetectable levels rather quickly. Besides, our only good instrument of measuring gravity waves at the moment is guess what... the Weber (sp?) cylinder. Huge block of metal in a vibration-safe environment. You detect how it shifts size with tidal forces. You cannot build feasible sensor arrays from such blocks. To easily detect gravity, you must know how to manipulate gravity. Earth does not know, the Minbari do.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Gravity bends light, we use this fact to detect black holes thousands of light years away, detecting a gravitainal feild a few thousand kilometers away would be no more challenging.<hr></blockquote>It could be *very* challenging. Black holes and galaxies have <font color=red>*enormous*</font color=red> gravity. To propel a ship, you need a mere trickle compared to that. The distortion in apparent star placement caused by a Minbari cruiser would perhaps be detectable to the Shadows. Certainly not Earth Force. Besides, turning that into accurate targeting data would be another huge problem. If there would be a distortion, it would depend on the power settings of the gravity engine.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>If that was so unbeatable how is it that durring In The Begining you can see a sarfurry ramming a mimbari crusier. If they could not stop a starfurry how are they supposed to stop somthing 1 / 40 th its size and 4 times its speed?<hr></blockquote>Missiles have very limited fuel. Hence they move in a direct line. Starfuries have living pilots. Hence they have lots of fuel, can freely manouver and have at least some defense capability. If you would stick that into a missile, it would become just as expensive as an unpiloted StarFury. The efficiency of Earth missiles in the B5 universe was demonstrated in "Endgame". The defense grid fired countless missiles. Fighters took them down.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>The parts of the ship nearest the gravity engiens would get pulled on harder than the parts that are farthest away. This would put an uneven stress along the frame of the ship. This would be compounded by gravity for the crew.<hr></blockquote>It would depend on the definition of "gravity engine". As far as I have understood, when a Minbari ship accelerates (at least under less than extreme conditions) the crew feels no acceleration. Therefore I must conclude that artificial gravity pulls everything *pretty much* equally. Pretty much meaning enough to outmanouver even the best ships/missiles with rocket engines.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>With 100 Megaton Nukes availble now think how much more powerfull they will be in 200 years. A 10 Giagton blast would probaly wipe out every ship within 1000 km radius of the detonation.<hr></blockquote>Theoretically, one could build a 100-megaton bomb. But the largest ever built was about 50. In the future, they would naturally be bigger. But ten gigatons is probably too much. The bombs taken to Z'ha'dum were the peak achievement of Gaim technology, 500 megatons apiece. Obviously more advanced than Earth nuclear weapons. Given that they were meant to be undetectable, we may assume that detectable bombs would be slightly larger. But using such bombs would create another problem. You would have to clear the area of your ships. This would tip the enemy off and they would be careful.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Since current rail gun prototypes can launch a shell fast enough for it to hit with enough force to turn it into a plasma. In 200 years it would be possible...<hr></blockquote>Perhaps. But railguns pose one problem. For each force applied, there is an equal and opposite force. Your ship would violently shudder from the launch. An enemy with better sensors would see this and expect an incoming projectile. They would stomp on the throttle and accelerate like a devil. It would miss.
 
I am so impressed with all of you and the way you use imagination, tecnology, and logic. It gives me hope for the future.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by greatone2002:
<font color=yellow>I was actually thinking the opposite. True shied techology is nice and all but the Star Trek races lack armor, they rely way to much on there shields for protection, once shields are down one hit usually takes them out. I'd rather have armor any day, they're shield simply assorbs weapons till they cant no more, Were as armor can stop many hits without loosing integrity. Plus B5 weapons are much stronger then they're weapons. Star wars at least the Empire (or republic) i think is pretty much the equivelent of any B5 races except is much bigger, probely around the size the Centauri used to be.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

In TOS, the old Enterprise took a nuke on the hull, without shields, and starting with the Defiant on DS9, armor has been added.
Phasers have many more uses than lasers and particle beams, and likely longer range, as the TNG TM mentions lightminutes, as opposed to thousands of kilometers range.
Photorps have long ranges, and antimatter warheads. Then there's quantum torpedoes, multi-lightyear sensor arrays, the damage-reducing effect of the subspace field, dilithium-focussed antimatter power sources, cloaking devices, and, most of all, the dreaded power of Treknobabble (tm)! "Lessee, hmmm, if I alter the phase variance of the chroniton modulation of the vibratory sequence of our phasers....ok, Captain, that should do it".
Or beam Marines to the opposing ships. No shields, no transporter block. The only problem they might have would be swarming fighters - no apparent point defense.
I think only Vorlons and Shadows could stand up to ST ships, especially the more combat-oriented DS9 era ones. Even Minbari would fall before Sisko, although maybe not Kirk, and certainly Picard would have trouble actually fighting them, though not for want of military technology.
An analogy - PRC Destroyers are built using 1960's tech, and bristle with guns and rockets, but US Destroyers, especially the newer Arleigh Burkes, have far fewer weapons. Ours are much more sophisticated, more accurate, and have longer range. 1 AB could take out a half-dozen of theirs in a stand-off fight, without letting them get close enough to even shoot at us. They look fearsome, and up close, it would be a more even fight, but what captain is going to close when he can wipe 'em out from a safe range? Similarly, B5 ships, especially EA ships, have lots of weapons, but they've always been shown using them close in, and their most powerful is a nuclear mine. Piddly, compared to photorps alone.
IMO, SW ships can beat anything below the Minbari, although I can't decide if they match the Minbari or not. Part of their competiteveness is size, partly tech, although in SW, they seem to understand hyperspace somewhat less.
Now, as to hyperspace, there isn't a lot to go on, but I've thought this out for use in RPGs, and here's how I figure it. ST ships enfold the ship in a bubble of hyperspace, called the subspace field, thus bringing hyperspace into realspace. B5 and SW jump into hyperspace, but know their way, and can jump in and out as desired. B5 seems to have a better understanding than SW, although SW can create much smaller jump-capable craft than B5. Traveller requires a lot of calulation, then the jump, which cannot safely be altered after it's started. I assume that these all access the same hyperspace, in different degrees of sophistication, so an ST ship can see anybody in hyperspace or realspace, B5 ships can see anybody in the space their in, plus whatever the beacons relay to them about the other space. SW ships can't do that, nor can Traveller vesselsSo an Omega could catch a Beowulf (Traveller) in hyperspace, but the Impie SDs couldn't, and of course the Beowulf couldn't turn the tables on either. A Soveriegn (ST) could do it, but not as easily, since it's partly not there, but none of the others could sneak up on it.
Just my NSHO,
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by greatone2002:
<font color=yellow>I think it'd be kool to just see how the intereaction, and story would be with the Minbari Federation, Earth Alliance, Centauri Republic, Narn Regime, Non-Allighned worlds, Vorlon Empire, Shadows, Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, Cardasian Union, Dominion, Borg, Galactic Republic, and such. I think that would make a great story! Was wondering what kind of imput you can give on that idea?</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
Without the dastardly Federation in our way, the Romulan Star Empire would soon rule your Interstellar Alliance! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-hah! With them also interfereing, it will take a few years longer, while we let the Klingons and Cardassians weaken you, themselves, and the Feds, and distract everyone from our consolidation of power in this new quadrant!
Bow <font color=red>now</font color=red> to your new masters, and we will be merciful. Wait, and suffer the consequences of being the vanquished!
 
Still. B5 armor IS stonger than Star Trek armor.Also, it seems as if one little jolt and the stupid matter/antimatter reacro goes crazy. We have seen that B5 ships can have fire on all decks yet still can muster power to ram an enemy ship.

Narn energy mines would play havoc on Trek ships. The sheer power behind them and extreme long range would be a major asset.

Also, it may not be true in all cases but in this case size matters. A large Star Trek ship is 700 meters long. That is medium sized for B5. That means they can probably (key word)
absorb much damage yet still be operational. It also seems as if only one phaser shot and one torpedo salvo(except the Defiant) can be brought to bear at each ship at a time. A Centauri Primus can, when facing the enemy, bring 4 battle lasers and 8 twin arrays on the target at a time.

About boarding parties. They would be useless against all the races using gravimetric technology. Tht means that boarding partes could only be used against low tech races like the EA(before the Warlock) the Narns and the Drazi. However, all Earth ships carry a pretty large number of marines, trained specifically for ship combat. What the Feds have are negligible and Klingon ships don't carry enough marines to be a too serious problem. Besides, don't all ships have electronic counter measures?

I am not going to touch the hyperspace subspace thing. I don't get it /ubbthreads/images/icons/tongue.gif
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Loadhan:
<font color=yellow>The aspect of hyperspace gives the B5 universe some impressive advantages.
In Star Trek, usually they can see approaching ships ,<snip> I'm not as up on Star Wars tech but it seemed that they were still in normal space even when using their hyperspace
. </font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

I covered my ideas on this in a previous post.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Loadhan:
<font color=yellow>Well, I'm not sure what the "real life" energy output of Star Trek ships would be so I don't know how well a photon torpedo or a phaser could pentrate B5 armor. <snip> and can actually fly in the Z-axis, unlike Star Trek. </font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
Well, the unofficial publication Starship Dynamics <font color=blue>asserts</font color=blue> that the movie era Enterprise has an output of 2.4 petajoules/second (peta means quadrillion - so 2,400 trillion joules per second). I don't have my TNG or DS9 Tech Manual, so I can't say offhand what figures it gives.
ST II:TWOK showed the Z-axis, it's just not done often due to ease of CGI/SFX work. B5 simply shows more realistically how it would go, the CGI teams should be congratulated for going the extra mile. So it's not a matter of the ships abilities, so much as the work ethic of the CGI teams.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Tigara:
<font color=yellow>We can basically say Trek will lose. Their ships are small weak and few imbetween. </font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
Say again? Uhm, 5million tons displacement small? Today's aircraft carriers are around 100,000 tons. Weak? Not at all. Not as bristly as EA ships, but more bang for the buck. Few and far-between - no, we just usually see the ones that are far enough out to not have support. This is like saying Drake is proof that the Royal Navy had a small force - they had thousands of ships, just so many were so far-flung. ST is similar, due to Roddenberrie's swiping of themes from Horatio Hornblower. When Kirk said "only twelve like her in the Fleet", he didn't mean that was all Starfleet had, only that there were only 12 of her type and role - Flagship/Explorer, as opposed to combatants, survey, exploration, and other, less prestigious roles.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Tigara:
<font color=yellow>Star War's troubles could only be at the hands of B5 first ones. Good point about the industrisl capabilities. The Empire has amazing industry. The Executor was built in just six months!</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
That's why I think they might even overwhelm the Minbari, despite their inferior understanding of hyperspace. Oh, and SW planetkillers are the only thing they have that could take out ST ships without risk. Swarming fighters might get lucky, but not without risk to the dispatching force.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Darkwing:
Say again? Uhm, 5million tons displacement small? Today's aircraft carriers are around 100,000 tons. Weak? Not at all. Not as bristly as EA ships, but more bang for the buck. Few and far-between - no, we just usually see the ones that are far enough out to not have support. This is like saying Drake is proof that the Royal Navy had a small force - they had thousands of ships, just so many were so far-flung. ST is similar, due to Roddenberrie's swiping of themes from Horatio Hornblower. When Kirk said "only twelve like her in the Fleet", he didn't mean that was all Starfleet had, only that there were only 12 of her type and role - Flagship/Explorer, as opposed to combatants, survey, exploration, and other, less prestigious roles. <hr></blockquote>

Trek ships are small and far imbetween. They barely clear 700 meters and a lot of that length is in the nascelles. Few imbetween is right. They can only send 32 ships to defend Earth yet the EA mustered over 1000 in ACTA.


<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr> That's why I think they might even overwhelm the Minbari, despite their inferior understanding of hyperspace. Oh, and SW planetkillers are the only thing they have that could take out ST ships without risk. Swarming fighters might get lucky, but not without risk to the dispatching force <hr></blockquote>

All I can say is WHAT?! Star Trek ships are daintly little creations. A clone wars Dreadnaught could stand toe to toe to an Akira. AND THEY'RE 40 YEARS OLD! Just watch the screen and see all the punishment they withstand compared to Star Trek ship. We see that one turbo blast can vaporize an asterois. Those asteroids are most likely iron based. Meaning that one blast can take out 40 meters of rock and metal. Now, let's look at all the turbo blasts it takes to destroy a ship. Quite a few. Tough shields. Trek ships unfortunately are never seen blowing up asteroids but we do see their effect on armor---wait. What am I doing? Just <a target="_blank" href=http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/index.html> click here </a>
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Xzyl:
<font color=yellow>Hey we forgot the Battlestar Galactica universe. Give Battlestars and Basestars jump engiens and they would be at home In B5.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

try this story:
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=8758
 
First point. We cannot adequately compare <font color=yellow>different imaginary physics</font color=yellow>. Second point. With only a few exceptions, we cannot adequately deduct <font color=yellow>imaginary energy outputs</font color=yellow>. This is because every weapons system uses the logic of rock/paper/scissors. What works against one does not work against all. Third point. We cannot compare strength without comparing <font color=yellow>production capability</font color=yellow>.

On matters of hyperpace, subspace, jumping, warping, transporters, shields, telepathy, telekinesis, assimilating and many more matters: how should we determine their possibility in another universe, ruled by another set of imaginary physical laws? We cannot.

Can a ship jump into another ship? Fire a missile/mine through a jump point? Transport something aboard an enemy ship? How far? See an enemy ship on warp speed? In hyperpsce? How effective are telepathic or telekinetic powers? How effective are shields meant for one weapon against another weapon? How effective is armor meant for one weapon against another weapon? How fast can a gravity engine accelerate?

How many Vorlons can dance on the head of a pin?
How many Borg are needed to replace a light bulb?
Would the Shadows use light bulbs?

Production capabilities in their native universes are much easier to compare. How are ships manufactured? How numerous are they? How large? How fast can various sides build up a fleet? In the latter point, I would pretty much forget the younger races, alliances, empires, republics and federations (both Minbari and other). One could very possibly even forget the Technomages, Jedi, Telapaths, Vorlons, Borg, Lorien and Q and the Third Space inhabitants.

On the long term, the winner would be the party who can build more, produce and devastate most <font color=yellow>efficiently</font color=yellow>. Who can sleep 95 percent of their time without fearing loss. Who can sow the seeds as nanomachines and quickly reap battlecrabs. Who can recover quickly, learn quickly, adapt quickly and build quickly. Who can build a planetkiller in 15 minutes and should the spoo hit the fan, turn an entire galaxy into an unwilling shipyard, most enemy worlds included.

Yes, my guess would be the associates. Devising, building and using great engines of creation and destruction... is their second favourite goal in the universe. Their first goal makes it even more scary. Their first goal may easily be efficiency. /ubbthreads/images/icons/eek.gif

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Darkwing wrote:
<font color=yellow>try this story...</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>As for the story, it was interesting. Thank you. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Xzyl:
<font color=yellow>Many good points let go by them one by one:
'You will have to target manually''
B.S. Currently the camera systems on LAPD choppers an lock on to a specific car and track it from miles away. I suspect that in 200 years that could be improved on a bit.

2. Optical targeting
"They are neither reliable nor sufficient to pinpoint an "uncooperative" target"
There were image guided missles available and in use durring the 1970's. Admitedly they did not prove to be any more effective than heatseekers or radar guided missels or they would still be around. Spy sattlelites are pretty good finding "uncooperative" targets even camoflauged ones.

"With an enemy who possesses holographic technology, your camera might see imaginary warcruisers or fail to see anything."

I though about that too at first then it occured to me that a holographic projetion array would be sending energy an enregy signal out of its own. Add to the fact that you would have to give these projectors power which would mean either drilling through the hull to get to the ships's power mains (yeah right) or running power cables along the hull which would also give off an energy signture..</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

1) today's cameras are developed for light conditions in an atmosphere, which scatters light. In vacuum, things are different.
2)if your computer can't process, you can't tell where your camera is looking
3)drones can carry ECM away from the ship. Small enough, and they won't even be visible in space, unless you're right on top of it.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Xzyl:
<font color=yellow>
Wrong. Gravity is not a short ranged force if it were we would not be here. It does weaken over distance, but it does not stop. For a gravity engien to work it has to cause the ship to fall in the direction of travel by pulling it with gravitational force. Since gravity is not effected by materials it would go beyond the ship's hull and effect nearby objects as well. Gravity bends light, we use this fact to detect black holes thousands of light years away, detecting a gravitainal feild a few thousand kilometers away would be no more challenging.
.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
If your computer is being told "there's nothing there", you can't detect it. The electronic Jedi mind trick. Or if your sensor are overloaded, you can't pick it out through the garbage
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Xzyl:
<font color=yellow>
5. Manouvering like a devil

"If the need arises, a ship with a gravity engine can accelerate like a devil. With a rocket-propelled ship, quick acceleration would kill the crew and break the hull. In case of gravity engines, gravity fields would pull everything equally."

That would actually be impossible. The parts of the ship nearest the gravity engiens would get pulled on harder than the parts that are farthest away. This would put an uneven stress along the frame of the ship. This would be compounded by gravity for the crew. .</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
No, a net of circuitry causes the effect to envelope the ship, creating the effect uniformly around the ship, minimizing the differences that cause undue stress.


<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Xzyl:
<font color=yellow>
6. Nukes
"Nukes are not efficient in space"
With 100 Megaton Nukes availble now think how much more powerfull they will be in 200 years. A 10 Giagton blast would probaly wipe out every ship within 1000 km radius of the detonation. A better delivery system would have to be developed for that warhead than just a missle. Since current rail gun prototypes can launch a shell fast enough for it to hit with enough force to turn it into a plasma. In 200 years it would be possible to make a launcher that could hurl a multi gigaton warhead near the speed of light at its target, not allowing enough time to shoot it down. Especialy if they are fired in mass vollies.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

The best mentioned canonically were 500 megatons.
Better would be detonation lasers, as were envisioned for SDI.
A nuke explosion pumps up the x-ray lasers and fires them omnidirectionally in the microseconds before the explosion destroys the device. Combined with drone tech, this can be nasty.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Tigara:
<font color=yellow>Still. B5 armor IS stonger than Star Trek armor.Also, it seems as if one little jolt and the stupid matter/antimatter reacro goes crazy. We have seen that B5 ships can have fire on all decks yet still can muster power to ram an enemy ship.

Narn energy mines would play havoc on Trek ships. The sheer power behind them and extreme long range would be a major asset.

Also, it may not be true in all cases but in this case size matters. A large Star Trek ship is 700 meters long. That is medium sized for B5. That means they can probably (key word)
absorb much damage yet still be operational. It also seems as if only one phaser shot and one torpedo salvo(except the Defiant) can be brought to bear at each ship at a time. A Centauri Primus can, when facing the enemy, bring 4 battle lasers and 8 twin arrays on the target at a time.

About boarding parties. They would be useless against all the races using gravimetric technology. Tht means that boarding partes could only be used against low tech races like the EA(before the Warlock) the Narns and the Drazi. However, all Earth ships carry a pretty large number of marines, trained specifically for ship combat. What the Feds have are negligible and Klingon ships don't carry enough marines to be a too serious problem. Besides, don't all ships have electronic counter measures?

I am not going to touch the hyperspace subspace thing. I don't get it /ubbthreads/images/icons/tongue.gif</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

What's the range and energy output on those energy mines?
I doubt they'll match photorps. The warp core bit is <font color=red>drama</font color=red>. How often did the station wobble off it's axis or otherwise threaten to fall apart, also for drama?
B5 ships are long and lean, so have much less mass and volume. That's where size matters. A long skeletal array with some metal covering is not a match for a denser structure. In ST6, when the Ent-A has a hole blown through the saucer, it covered an area that looks bigger to me than the neck of an EA destroyer, so the EA ship could lose it's forward hangar bay and weapons on the same hit that was merely a damage control problem for the Ent-A. Then, too, the Romulan D'Deridex is much larger than the Galaxy class (600 odd meters), by around 1.5-2 times.
Besides, having been in the Navy a while, I can tell you, a destroyer can wipe out an aircraft carrier before it even know the destroyer is hostile, and that's a difference of many times in mass. It's in the weapons. Now a cruiser versus a destroyer, much closer in mass, similar weapons, the cruiser has the advantage of mass to absorb damage. It's a more even fight.
The phaser array thing concentrates the fire of all the arrays into one beam. In movie era, though, individual banks are still the norm. And as I said earlier, PRC destroyers have many more weapons than US destroyers, but ours are more sophisticated, more accurate, and have better range. We'd wipe them out before they were even in range to shoot at us. Same here.
How is gravimetric tech (which ST also has) going to prevent transporter use?
Marines expecting the foe to blow the hatch and enter will be surprised, as will the bridge and engineering folks, who don't have a convenient platoon on hand to stop the intruders that appear as if by magic inside the perimeter. Or just beam a bomb nect to the engines.
Also, those Marines are gonna be surprised when phaser hits totally disintegrate their comrades, and they find themselves being beamed into a brig, or maybe space.

ECM only works on things it's designed for. Radar chaff does nothing against sonar, which is why there are other systems for that, such as prairie-masker. ST uses subspace, rather than E-M spectra, and would be outside the whole field of tech that B5 uses.
First Ones vessels and tech derived from them - EA Shadow-tech ships and White Stars would be the best matches, and even then, I'd give good odds for Treknology.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Tigara:
<font color=yellow>Trek ships are small and far imbetween. They barely clear 700 meters and a lot of that length is in the nascelles. Few imbetween is right. They can only send 32 ships to defend Earth yet the EA mustered over 1000 in ACTA.




All I can say is WHAT?! Star Trek ships are daintly little creations. A clone wars Dreadnaught could stand toe to toe to an Akira. AND THEY'RE 40 YEARS OLD! Just watch the screen and see all the punishment they withstand compared to Star Trek ship. We see that one turbo blast can vaporize an asterois. Those asteroids are most likely iron based. Meaning that one blast can take out 40 meters of rock and metal. Now, let's look at all the turbo blasts it takes to destroy a ship. Quite a few. Tough shields. Trek ships unfortunately are never seen blowing up asteroids but we do see their effect on armor---wait. What am I doing? Just <a target="_blank" href=http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/index.html> click here </a></font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
They also had hundreds in the Dominion War. You also assume I'm only talking about the Federation. Foolish Human, we Romulans are destined to conquer!
As I've said before, small, dense ships are better than big, hollow monstrosities. With a Defiant, I could wipe out an Impie SD before they get close enough to fire at me. Then there are our mighty D'Deridex Warbirds, and the fine Birds of Prey the Klingons stole from us.
Sorry, the day of the dreadnought is done. We mothballed the battleships because they were huge, useless, gas-guzzling, expensive-to-run monstrosities, and couldn't outperform a couple destroyers or a carrier, all of which cost less.
Lastly, turbolasers are just high-powered lasers. Trek subspace fields and shields de-tune lasers to acoherent, non-damaging light, automatically. Lasers are no threat to us, except <font color=red>maybe</font color=red> the Death Star's - and that's a big maybe. Our ships can hide in a stars corona - can yours? Or maybe we'll just slingshot around Z'ha Dum until we travel back to before Lorien took up residence and go blast y'all to bits while you're still living in caves, and the Vorlons are just getting started.
I'll check out the agitprop site later and get back to you on it.
Cheerio,
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lennier:
<font color=yellow>First point. We cannot adequately compare
<snip>

How many Vorlons can dance on the head of a pin?
How many Borg are needed to replace a light bulb?
Would the Shadows use light bulbs?
Yes, my guess would be the associates. Devising, building and using great engines of creation and destruction... is their second favourite goal in the universe. Their first goal makes it even more scary. Their first goal may easily be efficiency. /ubbthreads/images/icons/eek.gif

As for the story, it was interesting. Thank you. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
1) maybe not, but it's fun! And The Romulans will conquer, so there!
2)A. divide the width of the pin by the width of a Vorlon's posterior. The remainder of the exercise is left for the student.
B.Lightbulbs are irrelevant
C. Only the strongest lightbulbs survive!
3) Let's not introduce the Borg to the associates, then. Actually, I did that in a Timelords game - introduced the Borg to the Yuuzhan Vong - I never liked those nasty YV scum, anyway. It was mildly entertaining, considering we were throwing around chunks of multiverse by that time in an effort to control the destiny of the whole of creation. That game was waaaaayyy outta hand
4) eta neechevo - glad you liked it, and please don't kill me on the transliteration- I don't have a Cyrillic character set.
doscorova,
 

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