Star Trek vs. Star Wars

[Mithrandir]

Neither are moving faster than light anyway so I'm pretty sure you couldn't go back in time with warp drive anyway, not that I don't enjoy episodes when they do

[Shriike]

The canon status of the Sun Crusher doesn't matter one bit to my argument, and you know that.

Shriike implied that the prequels were so bad that he, personally, would take the EU books over them. I just wanted to remind him that some of the EU books were pretty wretched, too. A side comment, not anything you needed to get pissy about.

Actually you might have a point. I'm thinking about it now, my experience with the EU is basically the New Jedi Order and Hand of Thrawn (maybe one or two random other books). I took this sample to represent all of the books, but by the same token anyone who only saw the original trilogy would believe all star wars movies were awesome.

Honestly I was just kinda having fun with my comment though sure technically the prequels and the EU are all canon, I just like the New Jedi Order more then the prequels , also I like emoticons in case you didn't notice (I just noticed how many I had in such a short message).

[agnosticism]

http://www.snotr.com/video/2661

I got the vid that prove the fact that Star Wars owns Star Trek!

[setzer777]

So does ST not have hyperdrives?

No, and neither will SW after ST goes back in time and sterilizes the SW galaxy.

What do you mean "after"? If ST goes back and sterilizes the SW galaxy then it already happened. But we know it doesn't happen because we see the Star Wars universe with hyper drive, which wouldn't exist if the sterilization happened. You can say that ST "changes" the time line, but then the question is "*when* does it change the time line?" If we're talking about the time line itself changing, how can there be a "before" and "after"?

[Philwelch]

It's weird, but it totally happens in Star Trek all the time: you see one version of the universe, than time travel happens and you see it change. That's pretty much what would happen. The changes seem to propogate instantly once the time travelers go back or whatnot: at this moment we're on a peacetime Enterprise-D with Worf as chief of security, and at that moment we're on a wartime Enterprise-D with Tasha Yar as chief of security just because the Enterprise-C slipped out of its place in time, and once we put it back the peacetime Enterprise-D snaps into place again as if nothing had gone awry.

So it doesn't really matter how weird or counterintuitive you find it. Star Trek has the technology to change the timeline, Star Wars doesn't. You lose.

[OOPMan]

I think given the absolute awfality (A word I just invented this second) of the brand new Star Trek movie we can safely mark this thread as closed and cede victory to Star Warts.

Although the legacy of the second Warts trilogy is hard to live done, we can at least be happy that the odds a tertiary Warts trilogy being produced are so low as to be ignorable and can thus breath a sigh of relief now that the worst is over.

Star Trek, on the other hand, is most likely going to produce a number of new apallingly bad movies and thus the worst has yet to come.

[You, sir, name?]

I think given the absolute awfality (A word I just invented this second) of the brand new Star Trek movie we can safely mark this thread as closed and cede victory to Star Warts.

Although the legacy of the second Warts trilogy is hard to live done, we can at least be happy that the odds a tertiary Warts trilogy being produced are so low as to be ignorable and can thus breath a sigh of relief now that the worst is over.

Star Trek, on the other hand, is most likely going to produce a number of new apallingly bad movies and thus the worst has yet to come.

The new Star Trek film clearly is not canonical in any way shape or form, so I don't think this is a valid argument.

[setzer777]

So it doesn't really matter how weird or counterintuitive you find it. Star Trek has the technology to change the timeline, Star Wars doesn't. You lose.

Yeah, I guess they do, but talking about the Federation anyway I think we can safely say that they wouldn't - after all, they don't go back and change the past to stop the Dominion War, even when they think they are losing it. But yeah, if the Federation actually used all the technology they normally only use for one episode ever, they could do some crazy shit. Like go to warp 10, and be present at every point in the universe simultaneously (which somehow doesn't kill them and in fact spreads their consciousness so they can see/hear everything in the universe.) and then use the cure they develop to reserve the "evolving" into lizards side-effect.

[Philwelch]

So it doesn't really matter how weird or counterintuitive you find it. Star Trek has the technology to change the timeline, Star Wars doesn't. You lose.

Yeah, I guess they do, but talking about the Federation anyway I think we can safely say that they wouldn't

Um...

If the Star Trek universe (except Q) declared war on the Star Wars universe, who would win?

It's not just the Federation.

And as a matter of fact, the Federation *has* fought a time war. It's just that time wars are ineffective against other time-traveling enemies. Against the SW universe it would be easy.

[ian]

I think given the absolute awfality (A word I just invented this second) of the brand new Star Trek movie we can safely mark this thread as closed and cede victory to Star Warts.

Although the legacy of the second Warts trilogy is hard to live done, we can at least be happy that the odds a tertiary Warts trilogy being produced are so low as to be ignorable and can thus breath a sigh of relief now that the worst is over.

Star Trek, on the other hand, is most likely going to produce a number of new apallingly bad movies and thus the worst has yet to come.

As a massive massive massive Star Wars fan, I actually thought the new Trek film was pretty damn good, and uh, the prequals?

[OOPMan]

I think given the absolute awfality (A word I just invented this second) of the brand new Star Trek movie we can safely mark this thread as closed and cede victory to Star Warts.

Although the legacy of the second Warts trilogy is hard to live done, we can at least be happy that the odds a tertiary Warts trilogy being produced are so low as to be ignorable and can thus breath a sigh of relief now that the worst is over.

Star Trek, on the other hand, is most likely going to produce a number of new apallingly bad movies and thus the worst has yet to come.

As a massive massive massive Star Wars fan, I actually thought the new Trek film was pretty damn good, and uh, the prequals?

If you were in my address book, I would remove you from it for saying that. But you're not, so I guess life will go on as usual.

[hideki101]

Just a question: is the new Star Trek movie non-canon out if universe or just non canon in universe? ( I mean I know that it's a different universe/timeline, but it supposes that the events of the canonical ST did happen, so it's a split timeline, that has its original base in the original series up until the point that Nero went back in time, or is the entire movie non-canon from the point of the outside viewer, so that the fanbase, or whoever are calling the movie non-canon in its entirety.)

[You, sir, name?]

Just a question: is the new Star Trek movie non-canon out if universe or just non canon in universe? ( I mean I know that it's a different universe/timeline, but it supposes that the events of the canonical ST did happen, so it's a split timeline, that has its original base in the original series up until the point that Nero went back in time, or is the entire movie non-canon from the point of the outside viewer, so that the fanbase, or whoever are calling the movie non-canon in its entirety.)

Well, it really doesn't interact with the canonical Star Trek universe, so it doesn't really matter if it's canonical or not, but I choose to refuse it's canonicity. It appeases me to denounce the new Star Trek when I sit in a rocking on my porch with my type 3 phaser, keeping those damn ferengi kids off the lawn.

[Zepher]

Well, where is the battle taking place? Because if it wasn't in the Star Wars universe, maybe their "force" wouldn't work or wouldn't be as strong.

Anyway, I'm completely prejudiced (toward star trek *note avatar*), but I'd say Star Trek would win.

Also, is it all of Star Trek (the different series) vs. Star Wars?
Because then you would have Picard + Spock + Kirk + Data, which obviously = epic win

[Philwelch]

Well, where is the battle taking place? Because if it wasn't in the Star Wars universe, maybe their "force" wouldn't work or wouldn't be as strong.

Anyway, I'm completely prejudiced (toward star trek *note avatar*), but I'd say Star Trek would win.

Also, is it all of Star Trek (the different series) vs. Star Wars?
Because then you would have Picard + Spock + Kirk + Data, which obviously = epic win

You could easily assemble just as powerful a supergroup out of the people from the SW movies plus a bunch of tertiary characters from a bunch of comic books, books, and videogames that no one with a job, active sex life, or healthy set of hobbies ever has or ever will comprehensively read. The SW universe is artificially powerful once you throw in every stupid, half-baked idea that every third-rate, behind-on-the-rent SF writer who's had to write "EU" novels has invented.

[Nem]

It really comes down to logistics.

Whether you can blow the daylights out of the other side is all for nothing if you can't get your ships in place to do it. There are relatively few powers in the Star Trek galaxy with the strategic utility of the hyperdrive. Super weapons are kind of a white elephant - even something like the Sun Crusher can only be in so many places at once and only has so much by way of munitions. Worst comes to the worst you can always sacrifice a bunch of ships to trap it. It might not be destroyable but it's still vulnerable to tractors, etc. Even the Krenim temporal weapon would be limited by an intelligence problem - and its speed wasn't fantastic, it's questionable whether it could be pointed at a target of sufficient strategic importance, it might simply be bypassed in the original invasion and dealt with at a later date. A similar problem occurs with the Jedi: Even if there are a hundreds of Jedi involved in boarding actions, destroying the ships involved - especially with the Borg - is a worthwhile investment. The Borg have shown a willingness to destroy their ships to get rid of anomalies within the collective before.

On the logistical side of things most Alpha quadrant powers would fall quite quickly, they'd deploy their fleets as if fighting a force that had the same strategic utility as the enemies they were used to and find the Imperials just jumped in behind their lines and obliterated their support systems. End of war on that front.

The Borg have transwarp drive and have never shown any great problems shuttling their forces around on a strategic level. Quantum slipstream was IIRC only in the hands of a relative few who would never become a massive issue. Species 8472 have access to fluidic space which seems to allow them to match or surpass the Borg's logistical capability. They've also shown an ability to destroy a planet with far less tonage involved in the assault than the Imperial's Death Star which would tend to suggest they posess a superior level of firepower. If the Star Wars guys couldn't gain access to fluidic space the war against 8472 would go very badly. It might take a while but if one side can strike at the other's supply lines and the other side can't strike back the former is going to win.

[You, sir, name?]

Whether you can blow the daylights out of the other side is all for nothing if you can't get your ships in place to do it. There are relatively few powers in the Star Trek galaxy with the strategic utility of the hyperdrive. Super weapons are kind of a white elephant - even something like the Sun Crusher can only be in so many places at once and only has so much by way of munitions. Worst comes to the worst you can always sacrifice a bunch of ships to trap it. It might not be destroyable but it's still vulnerable to tractors, etc. Even the Krenim temporal weapon would be limited by an intelligence problem - and its speed wasn't fantastic, it's questionable whether it could be pointed at a target of sufficient strategic importance, it might simply be bypassed in the original invasion and dealt with at a later date. A similar problem occurs with the Jedi: Even if there are a hundreds of Jedi involved in boarding actions, destroying the ships involved - especially with the Borg - is a worthwhile investment. The Borg have shown a willingness to destroy their ships to get rid of anomalies within the collective before.

The speed of the Krenim time ship was limited by what they were trying to do, that is, remove a particular event from history (which took a lot of calculation). In a war with another universe, there is no requirement to limit collateral damage since there is no common history to take into consideration, so it can attack much swifter. Besides, how fast it is doesn't really matter, since it is virtually invulnerable (existing outside of normal space), and any attacks on the Star Trek universe would be undone as the ship gradually eradicated the Star Wars timeline.


All this aside, the strongest weapon of the Star Trek universe is Picard's scalp. It can reflect a devastating ray of light onto it's enemies. This is, in fact, how LaForge lost his vision, and how Data's eyes turned yellow. Here's a picture of Picard's scalp in effect:

250px-Xindi_beam.jpg (7.21 KiB) Viewed 5693 times

[Nem]

The speed of the Krenim time ship was limited by what they were trying to do, that is, remove a particular event from history (which took a lot of calculation). In a war with another universe, there is no requirement to limit collateral damage since there is no common history to take into consideration, so it can attack much swifter. Besides, how fast it is doesn't really matter, since it is virtually invulnerable (existing outside of normal space), and any attacks on the Star Trek universe would be undone as the ship gradually eradicated the Star Wars timeline.

It couldn't exceed warp six, how long is it going to take to cross from the Trek galaxy to the Wars galaxy? How long is it even going to take to cross the Trek galaxy? By the time it got to a strategically important target the crew isn't going to care about attacking the Empire, they were starting to not care about their original mission even in the Trek episode.

Even then, by the time it got to such a target the war against most of the Trek species would be long over. They'd have gained the relevant technology, by way of conquest, to counteract the weapon. Voyager managed it, and they hardly came from the most advanced species in Trek.

[You, sir, name?]

It couldn't exceed warp six, how long is it going to take to cross from the Trek galaxy to the Wars galaxy? How long is it even going to take to cross the Trek galaxy? By the time it got to a strategically important target the crew isn't going to care about attacking the Empire, they were starting to not care about their original mission even in the Trek episode.

Does it really matter? It's outside of time (in Voyager it was active for several hundred years), it can arrive in a billion years and still have the same effect.

Even then, by the time it got to such a target the war against most of the Trek species would be long over. They'd have gained the relevant technology, by way of conquest, to counteract the weapon. Voyager managed it, and they hardly came from the most advanced species in Trek.

Uh, no. Annorax willingly disabled the temporal core, allowing Voyager to destroy the ship.

[Nem]

Does it really matter? It's outside of time (in Voyager it was active for several hundred years), it can arrive in a billion years and still have the same effect.

The weapon, yes, maybe. The crew (at least as far as their psychology after that length of time locked in)? Not so much. A fancy weapon doesn't mean anything if there's no-one left with the will to pull the trigger.

Uh, no. Annorax willingly disabled the temporal core, allowing Voyager to destroy the ship.

I meant the temporal shielding more than anything else. Be quite ironic to spend billions of years travelling somewhere only to find out that the weapon you sought to employ no-longer matters. Although given that a relatively minor power was able to develop a temporal weapon in the Trek universe and that they were not the only species to employ temporal effects it's not outside the bounds of possibility that the Empire would gain the necessary pre-requisites to hit the ship with a temporal weapon of their own. Who can say what billions of years of weapons R&D with Trek and Wars technology interacting with each other would yield?

[nivlac024]

OK besides the total cop out of " trekies in time" and besides the fact that star wars ships are just as fast if not faster than trek ships,so they would be able to time travel in the exact same way..... if it wasn't freaking impossible. The full forces of the star wars galaxy would completely over whelm star trek..... a completely unified galaxy compared to a not even fully explored galaxy....... a universe where they have only had warp drives for a few hundred years or a universe where they have had it for over 20,000. A universe where full robotic ai has been in use for hundreds of years or a universe where there is just one gay android running around........ there is no comparison at all.

[nivlac024]

another thing.... by your peoples logic Hiro nokimora from "heros" would completly destroy both universes single handedly

[You, sir, name?]

The problem with Star Wars is that the entire universe is powered by handwavium. I'm not sure phlebotinum cannons will be effective in a universe that at least pretends to have laws of physics. In any case, I'm sure the Star Trek universe will pretty swiftly figure out how to construct plot hole launchers that'll rip straight through the Star Wars universe's armor.

[Philwelch]

OK besides the total cop out of " trekies in time" and besides the fact that star wars ships are just as fast if not faster than trek ships,so they would be able to time travel in the exact same way

Ah, yes, but:

1. They don't know how.
2. Star Trek ships travel at warp through normal space, using a subspace bubble. Star Wars ships travel through hyperspace. So no, it's not at all clear a hyperspace drive would enable time travel.

another thing.... by your peoples logic Hiro nokimora from "heros" would completly destroy both universes single handedly

Either Hiro or the Doctor (from Doctor Who) would give the Star Wars universe a run for its money, single handedly. It's a little different when both sides can time travel though.

[Berengal]

1. They don't know how.
2. Star Trek ships travel at warp through normal space, using a subspace bubble. Star Wars ships travel through hyperspace. So no, it's not at all clear a hyperspace drive would enable time travel.

All hyperspace capable star wars ships are outfitted with a magic box ensuring a regular flow of time while in hyperspace. There was this one story about a guy whose magic box failed and he ended up umpteen years into the future or something. References are awesome, but I've got to run.

[BlackSails]

Either Hiro or the Doctor (from Doctor Who) would give the Star Wars universe a run for its money, single handedly. It's a little different when both sides can time travel though.

No, becuase Hiro is an idiot. Nobody on that show makes good use of their powers.



Also, Star Wars has time travel too, so the jedi can stop the time ship.

[Philwelch]

They do? Prove it.

[BlackSails]

They do? Prove it.

The time travel bit? Jacen uses some technique he calls flow walking to go back in time and drag a guy from the burning wreckage of a spaceship. I forget exactly which book, but it was during his descent to Darth Caedus and after the swarm war.

Also, it seems likely that luke is goning to learn teleportation from the Aiing-Ti monks in the current arc. I havent read the recent EU books though

[hideki101]

They do? Prove it.

The time travel bit? Jacen uses some technique he calls flow walking to go back in time and drag a guy from the burning wreckage of a spaceship. I forget exactly which book, but it was during his descent to Darth Caedus and after the swarm war.

Also, it seems likely that luke is goning to learn teleportation from the Aiing-Ti monks in the current arc. I havent read the recent EU books though

That was actually before the Swarm Wars, if I recall correctly, the person he helped out was Raynar Thul, before he became the leader of the Killik nests.

Hmm...I think I've used Flow-walking to make a time travel argument in this thread before...

[Philwelch]

Unfortunately there's no evidence that can scale up to spacecraft traveling back centuries in time, much less millennia. Time travel within the space of hours using the Force is a far cry from being able to wage time wars.

[PlayingMonkey]

First of all, this is essentially only going to be a Trek fanboy vs Wars fanboy. As this is an internet forum and Trekkies are an older generation, Wars people are going to win any given day.

However, Star Trek came first and really made Science fiction a viable TV show. It was new and imaginative and is 11 years older before the FIRST Star Wars movie which came out in 1977. Star Trek first aired in 1966.

I am a Trekkie fan, therefore I say Trek universe wins. It's such a more fun world to live in in my opinion.

But we all know that in reality The Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy wins and turns everything into bowls of tapioca pudding and whales and fish bowls.

[Qyygle]

I'm gonna have to go with PlayingMonkey on this one. The Vogon controlled Guide would end everything before it even began, in every single universe/timeline you could come up with.

[Me321]

If you discount "Q" you have to discount "The Force" too.

[CinnamonOne]

This is getting awfully repetitive.

If time travel was really easy, then why doesn't everyone use it to solve their problems.

And anyway, the idea about split timelines is that one timeline remains unaltered, and another changes completely.
And so every time ST blows up the SW before it was born, then in another timeline SW whoops ST using superior technology, instead of superior physics.


And by the way, the force also has semi-consciousness. I think Q would love talking to it. They'd become friends and they'd stop the bloodshed, and probably ban time travel.

If that were not the case, don't forget the will of the force. Considering that the Q continuum is basically a group of gods, and the force one god, it is clear that unlike the Olympians, The force needs not bicker with any pals. Besides, the force is more humble as well, whilst Q finds himself beyond puny ST mortals.

Oh and by the way, even if flow-walking is like being a ghost back in time, and thus those inexperienced cannot actually alter the past, those who spend every single second of their lives doing that may be a lot scarier.

Also, a force storm took this Sith Lord back in time, and also stripped him of his powers.

And the sun crusher is basically invincible. Heck, if I were an SW nut, I'd say, "But we don't know the Sun Cwusher got destwoyed!" (I think in was, but hey, that's a black hole, and also SW can easily create black holes. Or teleport. Or warp the dimensional drifts. Or destroy the entire Universe, for that matter (lucky that didn't happen!).

And anyway, ship for ship, SW is far superior.

[AKRus3333]

I know some things about star wars, but almost nothing about star trek. Based on what was said in this thread, I say Star Wars wins.

[CinnamonOne]

Oh yes...

How exactly does the time travel thing work again, because moving at the speed of light causes time to slow, whilst extra-dimensional travel is different, and may or may not affect realspace.

You could not time travel with hyperspace, yet it is connected with realspace. A hyperspatial crash releases far more energy than antimatter-matter collision. That's probably where hypermatter comes from. How does warp space work.

And how do the hyperdrive digits work. It could be a reverse Rictor scale. So the fastest you could go is 0.000[recurring mark]1, or 0, with that number being instantaneous. This means that hyperspace is a reverse dimension, causing far to be closer the closer you get to 0 (or 0.000...1).

[Qyygle]

This whole time travel thing starts to get a little silly after a while, if only for the question of why would the ST universe even need a StarFleet, composed of Starships armed with weapons if they could time travel everywhere and fix everything?

If an Imperial fleet miss-jumped and somehow miraculously found the ST universe, which is the most likely event that would spawn such a conflict anyway, there's a big possibility that they themselves wouldn't know how to get back to their universe, much less any of the ST people managing to find it anyway.

If it were just a straight up fleet battle, with no ridiculous time anomalies, or superweapons, I'd say Star Wars would win.
They actually have possible combat doctrines and have ships designed to fight in wars.
Star Trek fleets seem to have all the tactical sense of a pod of seals. Form a wall and move toward the enemy. Not to mention their ships were made for peacekeeping and exploration.
Even if the Empire didn't fire any weapons and simply moved to ram Federation ships with their star destroyers, they would probably win most engagements simply due to the physiological shock value of such an attack.

Federation officers and crew just wouldn't have experienced war on such a scale as the SW galaxy has seen before.
It would be as if in our current world, North Korea suddenly gained all the power and size of the U.S.
Sure, we might be better than them at some aspects like tech and information gathering, but it's their mindset, and will to use every tool at their disposal that would make them such a dangerous, and scary enemy.

No matter what the universe, fear is something that we humans all feel, and if the depictions are right, aliens too (for some species)
Fear is something the Empire excels at, and there's nothing like having a fleet of SD's coming at you, to make you wish you were somewhere else... anywhere else.

[CinnamonOne]

Even with super weapons SW trumps

SW is fully military
ST is adventure-set

[setzer777]

In a conventional war the Empire could easily defeat the "big three" alpha quadrant civilizations (Federation, Klingons, Romulans) combined. It's a matter of scale. The Empire spans an entire galaxy (and can travel across the entire galaxy in a matter of *days*) - they could strike any point in enemy territory almost instantaneously, and if they had to retreat it would be impossible to pursue them with the comparatively snail-paced warp drive.

We're assuming they don't use Death Star (conventional warfare) but even the fact that they can develop a weapon capable of causing planets to completely explode demonstrates that their weapon technology is at least on par with (if not superior to) the alpha quadrant races' weapons.

[OllieGarkey]

In a conventional war the Empire could easily defeat the "big three" alpha quadrant civilizations (Federation, Klingons, Romulans) combined. It's a matter of scale. The Empire spans an entire galaxy (and can travel across the entire galaxy in a matter of *days*) - they could strike any point in enemy territory almost instantaneously, and if they had to retreat it would be impossible to pursue them with the comparatively snail-paced warp drive.

We're assuming they don't use Death Star (conventional warfare) but even the fact that they can develop a weapon capable of causing planets to completely explode demonstrates that their weapon technology is at least on par with (if not superior to) the alpha quadrant races' weapons.

Okay, but you're forgetting the scope of TEU.

The Human Race in Star Wars is far more advanced than the Human Race in Star Trek. Our homeworld probably went nova a long time ago in Star Wars.

If you go back in time in the SW universe to just after humans discovered FTL Technology (Would that be before the Great Hyperspace War?) then things would be much more even.

Even so, Romulan decloak-strikes with disruptor weapons combined with Federation phasing cloak (The Federation has it, but can't deploy it by treaty) could probably catch the federation and Romulans a hyperspace-capable vessel fairly quickly. Thanks to replicator technology, which the empire DOESN'T have, industrial replicators would have the Alpha Quadrant stamping out hyperspace-capable, re-armed ships within weeks.

And I don't think stormtroopers would do well against Klingon shock troops.

The easiest way to take control of an Imperial Star Destroyer? Phase-Cloak a photon torpedo, let it float into the vessels bridge, and detonate it. Meanwhile, Phase-Cloaked assault shuttles drop Klingon and Federation shock troops inside.

It would be as if in our current world, North Korea suddenly gained all the power and size of the U.S.

Ouch. That was an attack on Home Front wasn't it?