A wormhole opens connecting the galaxy far far away with the milky way. It is the year 2371 in milkyway and the Empire Strikes Back timeline in the Star Wars galaxy. A war breaks out between the Federation and the Empire. All other powers remain neutral including the Dominion, the Borg and the Rebel Alliance. Who wins ?

The merchandising industry? :wink:

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"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

The physics of these two different universes are very different, and not compatible; if a spaceship from the Federation travelled to the Star Wars universe, its impulse and warp drives (which wouldn't work in our universe either) would just sit there and make funny noises, and the same would be true of Empire ships coming into Federation space. Certainly the hyperpowerful beam weapons of the Empire rely on physical sources of energy imposible outside their universe, so they would be weaponless. The Force would probably not work in the Star Trek universe either.

Additionally the differences in physical constants between the two universes would create a region of instability or adjustment in the region of the wormhole, which might be dangerous enough to threaten the metric of both universes; so the 'Q' continuum entities or some other sensible advanced civilisation would be forced to come along and shut the portal down.

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Between the two of them, the Empire's fleet is the only one that is built primarily for battle (the Federation's fleet's primary purpose is exploration, right? I don't really know that much about Star Trek). So right away, I'd bet my money on the Empire.

Interesting this. In the current series (The New Jedi Order Books) the New Republic is fighting the Yuuzhan Vung, a race from outside of the SW galaxy. They have no connection to the force at all and so the theory has been established that the force only resides inside the SW galaxy itself.

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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

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It has been done over and over again elsewhere.

See this website.

By the way, the Empire would steamroll the Federation.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Someone I knew in college wrote some fanfic involving a crossover between the Empire, Star Trek, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

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"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

forgeting the weapons and warp drives not working
Empire would kill them

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The question isn't "what are we gonna do", the question is "what aren't we going to do."

I AM A GOLDEN GOD- Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin

I was thinking more along the lines of:

Let's engadge the time warp drive agaaaain!
It's just a SHWOW to the left,
And then a ZIWIOSH to the riiiight!

Where SHWOW and ZIWIOSH are light sabre noises.

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"I'm making wheatloaf. It's like meatloaf, only with wheat"
"Isn't that just...bread?"

I've seen even weirder stuff. Star Trek (TOS) + Star Trek (TNG) + Star Wars + Lovecraft + Indiana Jones, anyone? :P

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If ignorance is bliss, why is the world so full of misery?

These kind of arguments often come down to unanswerable questions like "Will a star destroyer's shields block a transporter beam?" and "Is a turbolaser more of less powerful than a phaser?". We're dealing with fictious technology whose behavior isn't even consistent across the base source material. This is why the "Enterprise versus Star Destroyer" battle is won by whoever the favorite of the guy telling the story is. You can sling the technobabble either way.

Empire versus Federation gives us a bit more to go on. I'd like to ignore the technology and look at the comparative resources and specializations of each.

The Empire has the resources of an entire galaxy to draw on. They've got some absurdly large number of ships - depending on whose estimate you ask for, somewhere in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of main combat ships. Their military budget is large enough that they can build a battle station the size of a moon in secret!. In order to to that, the budget for the Death Star must have been a tiny percentage of the Empire's overall military budget. Oh, and as an oppressive military regime, the Empire specializes in conquest and blowing stuff up real good. It's what they do.

The Federation is a small coalition of planets in the corner of our galaxy. They've got maybe a few hundred starships to commit to battle. The federation doesn't have the technology or resources to build a moon-sized battle station at all, let alone in secret. And their ships are primarily for exploration, science, and diplomatic use, with combat a last resort.

Therefore, ignoring technological issues, the Empire has the clear advantage. They can (and will) use their vastly superior resources and fleet strength to flood Federation space with warships before the Federation even realize they're under attack.

Much as I tend to overall prefer Star Trek over Star Wars (although, admittedly, even that isn't so much as it used to be), I also have to confess that the Empire would mop the floor with the Federation. Not so much due to technological advantage that I don't think is there, but rather just due to sheer size and resources.

While we're at it, why not try something like, oh, The Empire vs The Asgard or The Empire vs The Ancients.

Very nice answer.

But, just because they can't take their ships and technology through doesn't mean they can't still fight! The Embire will try and influence things on the ST side, and obtain local ships, etc. The Federation will preach IDIC and peace on the SW side, and otherwise meddle.

Neither would make much headway, I think. Without an existing power base, the totalitarians won't get anyone to pay attention to them. Without the ability to bring resources or technology, the Feds won't be able to do much more than the Rebals are already doing, and there is no labor shortage.

I think the Feds have a better chance of accomplishing anything, though. In an oppressive society, knowledge is power. The Feds can teach the Rebels history and tactics and such and give them ideas that they can't access since Darth Vador burned all the books.

I think that the Empire would completely destroy the Federation in just a few minutes. Then, just before the Enterprise is destroyed, Captain Picard would have LaForge reverse the polarity to create a static warp shell that they would use to go back in time and stop them.

Actually, a much more interesting match would be to pit the Empire against the Borg.

Then again, judging from how Star Fleet operates, I don't think I'd want them teaching me if I was a rebel.

For example, Federation soldiers wear pajamas and fire from the hip at point blank ranges.

Rebel soliders wear camoflauge, get behind cover (natural or artifical) and do that whole "aiming" thing.

At in that regard, the Empire and Star Fleet are pretty even. Both ignore the natural terrain when choosing what to wear (although the Imps do at least wear armor).

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The Asgard would just make the ships disappear with their cool Asgard beams.

Ok, how about the Empire versus Futurama?
I can just see Bender telling Darth to kiss his shiny metal butt. #-o

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lol

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The question isn't "what are we gonna do", the question is "what aren't we going to do."

I AM A GOLDEN GOD- Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin

No question the Federation.


http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWhi2.html

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Starlight Starbright

I guess whoever has the most obvious 'Please don't shoot here, or my ship will blow up' area would lose.'

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"Most editorials are written by people that love to argue but got kicked off debate team for not making any sense." -Seanbaby

That site look likes it's run by star trek fans to me but I could be wrong

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The question isn't "what are we gonna do", the question is "what aren't we going to do."

I AM A GOLDEN GOD- Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin

It's run by Trek fans no doubt. Many of their claims as to SW technology is based off watching movies (which are the only sources of Canon in the SW universe).

The problem with that is the state of special effects in the era of the original trilogy and, more importantly, good filmmaking.

For example, the site mentions the short ranges of SW weaponry. For evidence, shots of Luke and Han firing the MF's turrets against TIE Fighters and X-Wing vs TIE fighter combat. Yes, they worked on very short ranges, the reason is to keep the fight interesting.

What fun would it be to watch Luke firing at a an invisible target 200 km away? If you can't see the TIE Fighter the X-Wing is chasing, it just looks like the X-Wing is firing randomly.

The same can be said of ST as well. It's more interesting to see the Bird of Prey firing and hitting the Enterprise in the same shot than to see one ship fire off into space.

Now ground battles are a different story. We don't need to see the attacker and defender in the shot to have it be exciting. Blaster bolts and phaser shots flying overhead and hitting nearby objects keeps the action going. Witness the Battle of Hoth vs any large scale Star Trek ground combat. Hoth is more exciting because it acts more like a real battle, where as ST feels like a game of Laser Tag.

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People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

why did I even queston my feelings? Why! Why!

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The question isn't "what are we gonna do", the question is "what aren't we going to do."

I AM A GOLDEN GOD- Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin

I read a story like this I found on the internet 10 years ago. I might still have it somewhere. It was treated as an episode of ST-TNG. The Enterprise was dispatched to a remote secret base that was under attack. The Empire attacked the base thinking it was a rebel hideout. It's interesting that the writer had both sides surprised at the tech of the other. The Imperial captain was surprised that the TIE Bombers did not penetrate its shields destroy the base and . The Federation was surprised that the bombardment almost destroyed the shields and base in minutes. The Empire was surprised that the Enterprise could slip through space, and it even captured some of the attacking TIE fighters it in its warp envelope. Picard beamed them aboard, disarming the pilots in the process, and interrogated them. The Empire, on the other hand, went into the hyperspace and just "appeared" near the Enterprise. It goes on like that. Some of you have probably read it.

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"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax

Compatible enough to have a wormhole connecting the two galaxies, or to have two identical species of humans in both galaxies?

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

You'll never fit the Enterprise down the Death Star's trench.

Imperials win.

There is a great fan-fiction here.

(Alright, I am repeating myself...)

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Yah...as a writer, some sort of rough parity is more appealing. Not much of a story if one side just rolls over and dies.

Michael Wong makes a lot of sense, but trumping anything else is the sheer size of the Empire. I think you could have fun writing it as something like the Pacific War from Pearl to Midway; the Federation makes early success with their slightly higher technology, then as the Empire begins to tool up they steamroller over the Feds.

Both are fictional universes that are very much designed to let individuals shine. In Star Trek, the heroes pull out the techno-babble of the week whereas the Star Wars universe is more organized around a single exploitable flaw. To my mind, it may make as little sense that the Death Star can be taken out with a shot in just the right spot, but it sits a lot better in my stomach then the latest handy combination of transporter beams and Borg nano-probes (read, "we use a magic spell on them").

Most of the arguments I've seen take whatever was an advantage from "their" universe and assume there is no natural enemy; "we" have transporters and they don't have sheilds, "we" have the Force and all they have is Betazoids. These arguments fail because they assume that only the unique language of their own series matters. (They don't have "sheilds" because no-one said the word "sheilds.") These arguments then compound this percieved weakness with the old super-weapon argument that really only works for heroes (aka, exploiting this vulnerability in such an overpowering fashion that the enemy falls apart.)

Alas, a realistic fleet and military and supporting government is much more complex then that. And they rarely line up the capitol ships in neat rows just so we can pull our trick-of-the-week on their entire force. I can believe sudden reverses, but shock and awe rarely gets you more than a beachhead. So maybe the Federation gets a nice blow in there with the Genesis Device -- but there's been no sign that they can build them in bulk, nor is it obvious that there is no defence against them once they've been seen in action. And vice-versa for your favorite trick on the Empire's side.

A last interesting note is that few major battles have been fought in either series that were straight-up two-sided. Someone always has to drag in a third force. So I can't really believe in the Federation vs. Empire with everyone else standing back. It'd be Federation vs. temporary alliance of Rebels and Empire against Trade Federation and Borg, with a splinter group of young Jedi and Maquis teamed up with some Tholians... and all of them would be hoping against hope that the Q wouldn't get involved.

One also needs to remember that these movies are nothing but Rebel propaganda anyways and this is why they always paint the Imperials and their equipment in the worst light. Recall Obi-Wan stating that the blast points on the Jawa sandcrawler had to be Imperial because "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise"? Now compre this with the way that they protrayed Imperials as poor shots unable to hit any target for the rest of the three films.

The poor equipment and ease of breaking can be explained esily enough as it appears to be replicas created by a notorious knock-off compny located on the planet Nippon-5.

For the Glory of Empire and Emperor.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran