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[Ilithi Dragon]

Mega post time again. Here's my description of the Federation's capabilities.

First a description of phaser operations under the Sequential Discharge Effect or “SDE” Theory. I'm linking to a post I made some time ago on the ST: Excalibur forums, giving a full detailing of the theory, to save some time and because I haven't gotten it put together anywhere more convenient yet (and it's a 3,000-word essay, so I don't want to have to retype it).

See the overview and evidence for the SDE Theory here.



Now, as to Federation technology, resources and capabilities. I will assume the Federation circa 2380, a year after the last TNG movie, unless otherwise specified (such as when noting the observed performance of a ship on a specific date in the 2360s or '70s, for which we don't have the latest refit specifications on).

Power Generation

The Federation utilizes two types of power generation: Fusion reactors and Matter/Anti-Matter reactors. M/AM reactors serve as the primary power generators for starships and large stations, while fusion reactors provide auxiliary power and are the source of general-usage power for planet-side and most station operations (M/AM power generation levels generally not being needed, and fusion generally being safer and having more readily-available fuel).

Federation M/AM reactor technology has achieved near-100% efficiency (TNG “Force of Nature”)
Fusion likely has similar efficiency levels, being a much older technology.
The fusion reactors of a 2260s Heavy Cruiser could be overloaded to produce an ~100-MegaTon explosion, putting peak overload outputs at around 418 PetaJoules (TOS “The Doomsday Machine”)
Modern Light Cruisers can have as many as 5 PetaWatts flowing through an EPS conduit even when the ship is not performing any high-output operations. (VOY “Revulsion”)
Even when at rest in orbit around a planet, the M/AM reactors of Galaxy class starships produce 12,750 PetaWatts of energy, apparently in bursts. (TNG “True Q”)
A warp field of 1,516 Cochranes, the field strength required for a Galaxy class starship to achieve Warp 9, requires approximately 3 ExaJoules of energy to create, and 1.2 ExaJoules to maintain. (TNG:TM)

M/AM power generation for Federation starships is likely in the high-PetaWatt range to low-ExaWatt range at peak outputs, especially for larger capital ships, though this is only for peak outputs and cannot be sustained indefinitely. More sustainable energy outputs are likely in the low- to mid-PetaWatt range, with capital ships probably reaching into the high-PetaWatt range.

Fusion power generation serves an auxiliary role, providing power for sublight maneuvering and back-up power for the main reactor, or in place of the main reactor should main power go offline. Federation ships typically have a number of fusion reactors, ranging from two or three on smaller ships to as many as eighteen reactors of various sizes on big capital ships.


FTL - “Warp Drive”

The Federation's primary FTL propulsion system is the “warp drive.” A warp engine is a set of very powerful artificial gravity field generators aligned and manipulated to generate a powerful subspace/gravimetric field around the ship, allowing the ship to achieve FTL speeds not by moving the ship, but rather by moving a bubble of space around the ship. Modern warp engines are powered by a single Matter/Anti-Matter reactor that also serves as the ship's primary power generator, though early warp ships were powered by fusion reactors. When M/AM reactors were first introduced, they were used primarily for the warp drive alone, with fusion reactors used to power impulse engines serving as back-ups and to provide general power. This led to the M/AM reactor being referred to as the “warp reactor” and M/AM power as “warp power”, general-usage terms that remain to this day.

The effectiveness of warp drive can be greatly influenced by the local conditions of subspace in the region at which the ship is presently moving, significantly increasing or decreasing the actual objective velocity for a given warp factor (warp factors being classified by the output of the engines rather than the actual velocity of the ship), though over any notable distance the fluctuations in subspace tend to average out in most regions. Ships can take advantage of these fluctuations, the 'currents' and 'eddies' in subspace, if they are sufficiently mapped, allowing for significantly greater objective velocities in well-known regions of space.

On average, warp drive performance is as follows:
Standard cruising speed is generally around 2,000c – around Warp 4 to 8, depending on the ship involved and the specific circumstances. Warp 6 is considered the “standard” standard cruise, and is around 2,000c.
Sprinting speeds range from about 9,000c to about 22,000c – Warp 9.2 to Warp 9.985 for the more modern ships (though only three ships are known to be able to achieve speeds over Warp 9.9 circa 2375). The older, TMP-era ships will max out around Warp 9, between 8,000c and 9,000c (again, circa 2375 – minor improvements may have been made, though most of these ships would be in the process of being phased out and retired, making them unlikely to receive many significant refits).

In mapped and charted areas, cruising warp speeds (warp 5) can jump from ~1500c to over 30,000c. (DS9 “Whispers”)
Even older TOS-era cruisers could achieve warp speeds in the 100,000c – 1,000,000c range. (TOS “Bread and Circuses” and “That Which Survives”)
Modern starships can probably well exceed 1,000,000c in charted 'subspace lanes.'

A critical aspect of Star Trek warp drive is that it allows the ship to engage targets while in FTL. This affords any Federation ship a critical advantage against any ship without a similar FTL drive technology, because the Federation ship could engage at warp, allowing it to effectively engage and disengage with impunity, at much-extended weapons ranges due to the increased speed. Maneuvering at warp, particularly higher warp speeds, can be tricky – turning at warp is more like drifting at warp, making rapid course changes difficult, but against a ship that has no such capability, the advantage cannot be overstated.

The Federation would also be very near developing a functioning Slipstream drive, a vastly superior FTL drive technology that would allow for FTL speeds on the order of millions of c without the need for subspace lanes. The technology was acquired by the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, and the crew of the Voyager was able to adapt the technology to work briefly with Voyager's existing engine components with the help of an expert on the technology, and then later they were almost successful in modifying their engines with slipstream drive technology on their own. After bringing this technology back to the Federation in 2378, it would only be a matter of a few years before Starfleet's top scientists and engineers were able to adapt a working model and the technology would become available fleet-wide.


STL - “Impulse Drive”

Federation STL propulsion is built around fusion rockets supported by artificial mass reduction systems. After the development of M/AM power for warp engines, fusion power generators were relegated to an increasingly auxiliary role, and to the role of propelling the ship at sublight speeds. Much like warp power became synonymous with M/AM power, so too has impulse power become synonymous with fusion power.

The artificial mass reduction systems in Impulse Engines allows for very rapid accelerations and course changes.

Federation ships have frequently demonstrated accelerations in the range of dozens to hundreds of km/^2 (such as in TMP, when an absolutely bending-over-backwards minimum acceleration rate of 34km/s^2 is demonstrated)
Federation ships have occasionally demonstrated accelerations on the order of 4,000 km/s^2 (VOY “The Swarm”)
Federation sublight maneuverability is extremely high, with even the largest capital ships having 360-degree turn rates of around 12 seconds, and are even capable of completely redirecting their velocity in turns well over 90 degrees in comparable timeframes (DS9 “Emissary”)
Standard STL velocity is 0.25c, though this is an arbitrary standard speed limit established by Starfleet, to reduce problems caused by time dialation at higher velocities.
Maximum STL velocities can reach into the 0.50c range and very likely higher for modern ships(Warp 0.5 was capable with impulse engines alone in the 2270s per ST:TMP)




Sensors

Star Trek has incredible sensor technology, easily among the very best of any franchise, and far out-stripping most others.

Federation ships have FTL sensor systems capable of detecting electrical storms on planets six or more lightyears away. (TNG “Silicon Avatar”)
A Galaxy class starship was capable of detecting a Nebula class starship that did not want to be found within a 10 lightyear radius. (TNG “The Wounded”)
Even pre-Federation ships could scan the DNA of people on nearby ships.
Routine scans have a range of 3 lightyears. (TNG “Skin of Evil”)
Focused scans searching for particular disturbances can reach out to 40 lightyears even with a small civilian vessel (VOY “Raven”)

Their insane sensor resolution can be disrupted and jammed, but generally the problem Federation operations run into with sensors is not having enough sensor input, but rather having too MUCH sensor input and not enough ability to fully process sensor data, or the poor prioritization of specific pieces of information (though all data is logged and can be reviewed later).



Weapons Yield

Federation starship weapons yields run from the high-TeraJoule range for the smallest starship-grade weapons mounted on shuttles and runabouts to the low ExaJoule range for the most powerful shots from the largest capital ships. Typical starship weapons yields fall into the low- to high-PetaJoule range, however.

The standard yield of a modern Federation photon torpedo is ~64 MegaTons, reacting 1.5 kg of matter and 1.5 kg of anti-matter at near-100% efficiency. The yield is variable through variable reaction rates and through variable anti-matter payloads. The theoretical maximum yield of a modern Federation photon torpedo, with maximum M/AM payload, is 500 megatons. (DS9:TM)
Quantum torpedoes, which use a M/AM reaction to jump-start a release of zero-point energy, have a standard yield approximately three times that of a standard Photon torpedo yield, or ~192 megatons, and also appear to be notably more effective against shields than standard photon torpedoes. (DS9:TM)
Tri-cobalt torpedoes, a rare weapon employed by the Federation, utilize tri-cobalt devices that cause an area-effect subspace field distortion, literally ripping matter apart through highly and rapidly-fluctuating gravimetric shear forces. Tri-cobalt devices detonating at a combined field strength of 20,000 TeraCochranes are capable of ripping holes into subspace. (VOY “Caretaker”) They are less effective against shielded targets, however.

High-yield blasts from a Galaxy class' main phaser arrays reach into the ExaWatt range in effective energy yields, with base energies in the hundreds of PetaJoules.

In TNG “Q Who?” we see an opening shot from the E-D against the Borg Cube create a whole some 201,000,000 m^3 in volume, with the majority of it created by the NDF effect of the phaser. About 1/1315^th of the hole was created by the beam burning through itself, or about 152,800 m^3. We know that Borg ships are primarily comprised of Tritanium, an element not currently on the periodic table. Scientists predict islands of stability at much higher atomic weights than currently known, and going by this chart, if we assume that Tritanium falls into this projected “island of stability”, it could easily have three times the atomic weight of lead and uranium. As such, if we assume the mass of the volume vaporized is equal to an equivalent solid volume of iron (7,874 kg/m^3), that gives us a mass of 1,203,147,200 kg and 1,582,674,000,000 for the initial hole bored by the phaser beam and the bigger hole created by the NDF effect, respecitvely.

Now, Trek hull resistance values are easily into the range of requiring over 100 MJ/kg for vaporization of hull material, thanks to advanced materials and Structural Integrity Fields (more on that later). Borg hull resistance values are likely considerably higher. If we assume 130 MJ/kg vaporization energies, and apply that to the figures above, we get 156.4 PJ base energy and 205,748 PJ effective yield.

Using the SDE Theory described above, the largest shot observed from a Galaxy class is twice as powerful as this, and the sustained phaser output seen in TNG “The Survivors” is about one third to one half the power per shot demonstrated in TNG “Q Who?”

Trek torpedoes are also shielded, enough so that Trek generally does not bother with anti-missile defenses, and this shielding, or other systems, also focus the energy of the torpedo, 'shaping' the charge and delivering the majority of the torpedo's energy to the target. This is indicated by the small holes that torpedoes blow into ships when making a direct hit. Furthermore, in STVIII: Generations we see a pair of torpedoes hit the dorsal stardrive section of the E-D, blowing holes ~6 meters in diameter into the hull of the ship. Aside from the edges of the hole, none of the hull is even heated to glowing. If an omni-directonal blast detonated and was capable of slagging that much metal at the point of impact, much more area around the hole would be glowing, and even the underside of the stardrive section should have been brought to glowing-warm temperatures. We see similar effects in STX: Nemesis.



Weapons Range / Accuracy

Federation ships are capable of engaging at a variety of ranges, from point-blank-range to extreme maximum ranges. I have already listed several examples of this not that long ago, so I'll be brief here.

Observed maximum ranges for phasers are 150,000 – 200,000km.
Torpedo maximum ranges 4,000,000 – 8,000,000 km depending on the particular torpedo and payload.
2260s torpedoes were capable of hitting a 1-meter target from 90,000 km away.
Phasers are capable of targeting starship subsystems at ranges of tens of thousands of kilometers away, and possibly over 100,000 km.
Even old ball-turret phaser cannons are capable of reliably hitting a 120-meter-long and highly mobile and evasive corvette. Modern phaser arrays have greater accuracy and tracking speed.



Hull / Spaceframe Endurance


Federation starship hulls are composed of alloys and composites of duranium and tritanium and other advanced materials, some of which are presently known to us, others which are not. More modern ships, and ships with a greater combat role to play, also feature newer ablative armor materials. Hull thickness on Federation starships ranges from 4” (Miranda class) to 24” (Defiant class). Federation hulls and spaceframes are reinforced by Structural Integrity Fields (SIF), which are forcefields and inertial damping field systems incorporated into the hull and spaceframe to reinforce the hull and structure of the ship.

Most full-fledged starships are capable of sustaining one or more direct hits from a photon torpedo of ~50 megatons.
Even small ships are usually capable of surviving multiple direct torpedo hits.
Direct hits from a Klingon photon torpedo (generally higher-yield than their Federation counterparts) to a Galaxy class starship blasted holes in the hull approximately 6 meters in diameter. The depth of internal penetration is not clear, but it does not blow clean through the hull and out of the bottom. Even if it were 50 meters from the top of the main stardrive section to the bottom (the Galaxy's 145 meters tall and the ship is not a third of its height thick at the points of impact), that would be over 470 cubic meters of volume, and let's round up to 500 m^3 for the sake of a more round figure, and to get a more conservative figure. Assuming half the density of iron, that gives us 1,968,500 kg of starship material to burn through. Assuming a 70 MegaTon photon torpedo, that produces a yield of 292.88 PJ, or 292,880,000,000,000,000 J. Divided by 1,968,500 kg, that means that there would have been 148,783,337,567, or about 148.78 GigaJoules of energy per cubic meter of ship along that path. Since we did not see this occur, and since it appears that the torpedo did not penetrate more than a couple decks into the ship, it is very clear that the hull endurace of a modern Federation starship must be extremely high.
A single Romulan photon torpedo (assumed to be ~comparable to a Federation photon torpedo) made a direct hit to the bridge of the Enterprise-E in STX: Nemesis, blowing a sizable hole (~3-4 meters) into the front of the bridge, yet causing only superficial damage to the interior of the bridge. The hull was able to stop almost all of the energy of a direct hit from a photon torpedo from penetrating. Now, the bridge is likely one of the more heavily-armored sections of the ship, and the hull coloring on the bridge is of a different color than the majority of the ship, implying extra armor over that area (we also see this slightly different hull coloring over other critical areas, such as the impulse engines and the warp nacelles and pylons), but this is also consistent with the observed hits in Generations, where most of the torpedo's energy was stopped at the outer hull.
Comparatively, a single photon torpedo was sufficient to completely destroy the USS Lantry, a 90-year-old Miranda class that had been converted into a cargo ship and was completely powered down. Much of Trek ships' resistance likely comes from the outer hull and SIF.


Computer Performance

Federation starships employ isolinear optical computer systems and bio-neural computer systems. The primary computer system is isolinear-based, with bio-neural systems providing support for specialized computer processing.

Federation computers take advantage of certain subspace distortion technologies to alter the local speed of light, allowing for FTL processing and data-transmission.
Federation computer technologies are fully capable of supporting intelligent, sentient computer programs. All Starfleet ships are self-aware, though non-sentient.

I don't have much in the way of specifics on Trek computer performance at the moment... I can't find my copy of the TNG:TM, and my digital copies are on another computer.


Territory and Population

The Federation is a large interstellar nation comprised of over 150 member races, spread across 8,000 lightyears of space (circa 2373, by 2380 this has likely increased by a small margin). These 150 member races do not comprise the entirety of the Federation's worlds, however. The Federation is comprised of Member Worlds, Associate Member Worlds, Colonies and Protectorates.

As of the 2260s, Earth had a thousand colonies (TOS “Metamorphosis”). By 2380, this number has likely greatly increased, and Earth is not the oldest space-faring member race; there are several members of the Federation who were more advanced than Earth and had been in space for much longer, giving them more time to put out colonies of their own. If just the 150 member worlds alone each had an average of 500 colonies, the Federation would have some 75,000 total worlds. Between member worlds, associate member worlds, colonies and protectorates, the Federation very likely has between 100,000 and 150,000 inhabited worlds under its control. In its territorial space, the Federation very likely has at least several million star systems under its control.

The population of the Federation is very likely in the tens of trillions, a number very easily achieved with just 100,000 worlds. A projection of the course of the Dominion War in DS9 “Statistical Probabilities” estimated Federation casualties of some 900 billion people, and a federation defeat. That same projection also had the population rebelling in five generations and defeating the Dominion in another generation. This would require that the Federation have some number of trillions of people, at the least.

A Federation population of 10 – 100 trillion is likely.

[Catamount]

Going further, there is a lot of canonical support for Ilithi's statements not mentioned; I'll have to actually get back into this in more than a half-hearted way and do a decent post myself later on some of that additional support.

[Zakatak]

Despite being the most powerful (in terms of energy and technology) series by a mile, Star Trek FTL speeds are quite pitiful in comparison to most series, oddly. Likely since the warp drive was based on a concept known as the "Alcubierre engine" or something.

Warp Chart: http://www.scribd.co...rp-Factor-Chart

Stargate probably has the most impressive hyperdrives, despite starship outputs ranging around 1 to 6 PetaWatts. That said, they use capacitors to store energy in the high-exajoule/low-zettajoule range (as oppose to just running off the reactors), which explains why they can use weapons in the low/mid-gigaton range or hide ships in coronas of blue giants.

(Goa'uld) MkII Ha'tak-class: 32'000c
(Tau'ri) Deadalus-class: 60'838'200c
(Asgard) Bilskiner-class: 273'750'000c

The only series that can top that kind of speed is Mass Effect when Relays come into play (2 billion C!!!) or, surprisingly, Battletech and Battlestar which are almost instantaneous. Granted, those hyperdrives are limited to 30LY or so, and take a long time to charge.

As far as sublight acceleration goes... it's hard to judge. One estimate for the MkII Ha'tak was 30'000g (in the episode where they blow up a star using a Stargate linked to a black hole), and the crew of the Daedalus were able to hit 0.5c within 5 or so minutes which would support this. But in one episode, McKay refers to a 27g deceleration as "slamming on the brakes", although this maybe because the Aurora's inertial dampeners were offline (so was the hyperdrive, it was going 0.999c). And the Atlantis, the most powerful ship in the galaxy with 600 Yottajoules of power on tap (3 ZPM lawl) lifts off at barely 3g's and has to drop the shield to get out of the water.

EDIT: err, I meant "most powerful of the options listed". Not the most powerful sci-fi ever. That would be Xeeleeverse, where people who engineer their own evolution throws suns around at .9999c as kinetic weapons, and assemble structures out of galaxies, and lives inside black holes. Although I suppose Stargate could top Star Trek if you threw in the Ancients or pre-war Asgard.

Edited by Zakatak, 25 February 2012 - 08:26 PM.

[Catamount]

Well, Trek isn't the most powerful of all franchises; it's just up there, but yeah, FTL speeds are lacking. That is in the midst of changing, however (they still won't match Stargate Intergalactic hyperdrives, but they'll be able to cross their own galaxy fairly quickly, at least putting them in a decent middle).

In terms of overall power, I'm pretty sure it's still a tossup between the Asgard at their peak and the Ancients/Alterans/Lanteans just prior to the war with the Wraith (or perhaps they were more powerful still before the Ori plague; that much I can't say).

Edited by Catamount, 25 February 2012 - 08:12 PM.

[Zakatak]

The Ancients were developing a zero-point energy reactor about the size of a sedan. When McKay started dicking around with it, he blew up an entire solar system. If that test would have been successful (which it couldn't due to exotic particle radiation), they would have a power source as ridiculous as Star Wars EU estimates. So I wouldn't say it is a toss-up between the Ancients and Asgard, because the Ancients essentially stomp everyone in every category (except the Ori, who are a splinter group of the Alterans).

That said, when the Asgard gave the Tau'ri their new and experimental power core technology, aswell as the plasma beams, the USS Odyssey was able to take down 3 Ori warships. Biliskinir-class ships produce 4PW, and O'Neill-class ships produce 5PW. So the experimental power core is likely a fair bit higher, probably around ~9PW or so. So by the end of SG1, the Tau'ri warships look something like this...

Daedalus-class Fast Attack Carrier
Length/Width/Height (in metres): 585/235/180
Sublight: ~35000g (estimation based on dialogue, not VFX)
Maneuverability: 90 degrees per second
FTL Speed: 61 million c (c = light)
Crew: ~200 (skeleton crew of 5)
Output (reactor): ~9PW (assumption based on 4PW values)
Capacitor: ~1 Zettajoule
Complement: 8 to 16 F-302 fighters (128MJ railguns, ~10MT missiles)
Armor: Trinium-Naquadah alloy
Teleporters: Asgard transporter and Rings
Weapons:
- 32 Railguns (~800GW overall output, each)
- Mark VIII (high single-digit gigaton missiles)
- Mark IX (low triple-digit gigaton missiles/bombs)
- 4 Plasma Beams (double-digit gigaton beams)

I say we stack this baby up to Warhammer/Trek/Andromeda.

Edited by Zakatak, 25 February 2012 - 11:23 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Zakatak, on 25 February 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Despite being the most powerful (in terms of energy and technology) series by a mile, Star Trek FTL speeds are quite pitiful in comparison to most series, oddly. Likely since the warp drive was based on a concept known as the "Alcubierre engine" or something.

Warp Chart: http://www.scribd.co...rp-Factor-Chart

Stargate probably has the most impressive hyperdrives, despite starship outputs ranging around 1 to 6 PetaWatts. That said, they use capacitors to store energy in the high-exajoule/low-zettajoule range (as oppose to just running off the reactors), which explains why they can use weapons in the low/mid-gigaton range or hide ships in coronas of blue giants.

(Goa'uld) MkII Ha'tak-class: 32'000c
(Tau'ri) Deadalus-class: 60'838'200c
(Asgard) Bilskiner-class: 273'750'000c

The only series that can top that kind of speed is Mass Effect when Relays come into play (2 billion C!!!) or, surprisingly, Battletech and Battlestar which are almost instantaneous. Granted, those hyperdrives are limited to 30LY or so, and take a long time to charge.

As far as sublight acceleration goes... it's hard to judge. One estimate for the MkII Ha'tak was 30'000g (in the episode where they blow up a star using a Stargate linked to a black hole), and the crew of the Daedalus were able to hit 0.5c within 5 or so minutes which would support this. But in one episode, McKay refers to a 27g deceleration as "slamming on the brakes", although this maybe because the Aurora's inertial dampeners were offline (so was the hyperdrive, it was going 0.999c). And the Atlantis, the most powerful ship in the galaxy with 600 Yottajoules of power on tap (3 ZPM lawl) lifts off at barely 3g's and has to drop the shield to get out of the water.

EDIT: err, I meant "most powerful of the options listed". Not the most powerful sci-fi ever. That would be Xeeleeverse, where people who engineer their own evolution throws suns around at .9999c as kinetic weapons, and assemble structures out of galaxies, and lives inside black holes. Although I suppose Stargate could top Star Trek if you threw in the Ancients or pre-war Asgard.

Robotech (as distinct from Super Dimension Fortress Macross) and Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda are also fairly impressive in terms of speed.

A Macross-class battlefortress in good repair with its original "space-fold" drives is thought to be able to jump up to 10 kiloparsecs (32,616.3626 light-years - approximately one-third of the galactic diameter! ) in a single (near-instantaneous) jump, with sublight speeds as quoted:

Quote

Space Fold (1) : RRG YS-2 spacefold. This system normally generates a hull-conformal fold, but is capable of spherical folds.
NB: A spherical fold was created by the Macross crew due to operator error. It is possible that this, along with the folding so deep in Earth's gravitational well, was a contributing factor to the subsequent disappearance of the fold system.

-----

The fold systems were not navigationally guaranteed for any single jump beyond 10 kiloparsecs. If longer voyages were required, the ship had to conduct multiple fold jumps.

-----

At full power, the main propulsion systems can nominally produce up to 493 Giganewtons of thrust at a minimal reaction mass efficiency profile, or as little as 9.54 Giganewtons of thrust at a maximum efficiency setting. At lower power levels, these thrusts are commensurately smaller.

At full power, the Macross class can nominally achieve a maximum delta-v of 225 kps at the cruising acceleration of 0.1 gees, a maximum delta-v of 44.9 kps at the battle acceleration of 1.0 gees, and a delta-v of at most 12.6 kps at the flank acceleration of 2.5 gees. At lower power levels, these ranges are commensurately smaller.

"In astrodynamics a Δv or delta-v (literally "change in velocity") is a scalar which takes units of speed. It is a measure of the amount of "effort" that is needed to change from one trajectory to another by making an orbital maneuver."

That page cites its sources and methodologies here.

Additionally, High Guard ships like the Andromeda Ascendant can travel between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies (a distance of ~2.54 million light-years, or ~780 kiloparsecs) quickly enough to be convenient for the crew and effective in policing and protecting the All Systems Commonwealth's territory (composed of the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Triangulum galaxies) - it's stated that "if a pilot is lucky, and the stream unfolds just right, the ship could transit between galaxies in minutes. But put an unlucky pilot at the helm and the same trip could take weeks or even months".
A Glorious Heritage (XMC) class ship (like the Andromeda herself) has a maximum safe sublight velocity of 0.40c (1.2x10^8 m/s).

As far as raw power, I submit for consideration Team Dai-Gurren (and the Human/Beastman society they represent) from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and any or all of the Time Lords, the Daleks, and the Silence from Doctor Who.

The former-most was able to assemble a many light-years tall mecha - the "Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" - using but sheer force of will and the power of "spiral energy".


The next smaller iteration - the "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann", with a height at about the ankle of STTGL pictured above - has been shown to use entire galaxies as throwing weapons against the antagonist (possessing a similarly-sized mecha, and also hurling galaxies).

Each of the latter three has also demonstrated possessing the know-how and capability to destroy one or more universes (including, potentially, "all of Creation" - the entirety of the multiverse) - the Daleks through the use of a "reality bomb", the Silence through causing the self-destruction of a Type 40 TARDIS (thus bringing about a "total event collapse"), and the Time Lords through either self-destructing a TARDIS (as the Silence did) or through implementing their "Ultimate Sanction".

Your thoughts?

[Zakatak]

Also, regarding mister Enterprise-D and his 12.75 Exowatt energy outputs. The Galaxy class is about 4 million metric tons, and uses A/AM reactors, yes?

1g of antimatter reacting with 1g of matter would produce 180TJ of energy. Producing 12.75EJ of energy would require no less then 71 metric tons of antimatter. Per second. So in just under a week of operation, it would consume its entire mass twice over (assuming the ship is half antimatter and half matter, which is totally plausible in this universe). You know what else takes a just under week? Going a mere 30 freaking lightyears!

lulwut?!

Edited by Zakatak, 25 February 2012 - 11:43 PM.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Zakatak, on 25 February 2012 - 11:35 PM, said:

Also, regarding mister Enterprise-D and his 12.75 Exowatt energy outputs. The Galaxy class is about 4 million metric tons, and uses A/AM reactors, yes?

1g of antimatter reacting with 1g of matter would produce 180TJ of energy. Producing 12.75EJ of energy would require no less then 71 metric tons of antimatter. Per second. So in just under a week of operation, it would consume its entire mass twice over (assuming the ship is half antimatter and half matter, which is totally plausible in this universe). You know what else takes a just under week? Going a mere 30 freaking lightyears!

lulwut?!

This is not correct. You got the first part correct, 2 grams of mass annihilating into energy is equal to just under 180 TeraJoules, but the second part is wrong. The actual amount of matter required would be 141.67 kg to generate 12.75 ExaJoules. That's 71kg of anti-matter per second to generate 12.75 ExaWatts, not 71 metric tons. You either went straight from grams to tons or got ExaWatts and ZetaWatts mixed up (it goes Tera, Peta, Exa, Zeta).

A sustained output of 12.75 ExaWatts would also be at the absolute peak output of the reactor, far beyond anything that could be sustained for any length of time. In fact, it probably IS greater than what could be sustained, at least with the original reactor core the E-D was equipped with at the time. Most likely, the reactor operates in pulses; instead of a constant stream, reactants are injected periodically, reacting at a rate of 12.75 EW, though the actual sustained output of the core is much lower, and even peak outputs struggle to maintain a few ExaWatts (about what would be required to reach and hold Warp 9.8 per the warp scale in the TNG:TM).

Think of it like the engine in a car: Your tachometer might well go up to 9,000 RPMs, and in an emergency you can put your foot down and reach all the way up to that, but you're NOT going to be driving around town with the engine running at absolute peak all the time, nowhere near. First of all, you wouldn't need to, second of all you'd run out of fuel in about 30 minutes after filling up, and last of all, you'd break your engine in about the same amount of time, or less.

Trek reactors, and indeed most reactors in general, are going to be the same way: they only operate at peak outputs when the absolutely need to, otherwise they're just generating excess power that they have nowhere to send to.

[Polymorphyne]

I do have to ask... if personal shield technology is commonplace in star trek... why do they take so many pointless casualties and injuries during their away missions due to not using any armour or those shields? Is it idiocy? Lazyness? uncharateristic contempt for human life?

[Commander Elias Vaughn]

This comes down to Star Wars Vs 40k, really, as every other sci-fi franchise listed is anemically weak in comparison to those two.

Take Star Trek, for instance.

1) This is a universe where photon torpedoes are 64 megatons, with quantum torpedoes are about double that, and a Cardassian superweapon (Voyager; "Dreadnought") is 42 gigatons. Star Trek ships are, in turn, easily torn apart by a few strikes from those torpedoes. They're also torn apart by solar flares, as seen several times with Klingon Birds of Prey, Dominion shipyards, and a rogue Borg ship in Descent Part 2 (The Enterpise itself only survived in the corona of a star due to a metaphasic shield which apparently does nothing to protect against weapons fire, as they never used it to defend themselves against the Borg or anyone else).

2) Starfleet consists of about 30,000 ships (per the DS9 writers).

3) It takes about 70 years to cross the galaxy. Their ships are so slow that even the fastest among them would take approximately seven years to cross the length of the Federation, which is about 8,000 light years.

4) The Federation is made up of 150 main member worlds and a few thousand colonies with a total population of approximately 9.85 trillion (According to Memory Beta http://memory-beta.w...tion_of_Planets).

Now contrast that with the Imperium of Mankind from Warhammer 40,000.

1) Space Hulk specifically states that torpedoes are 610 gigatons*, and that those torpedoes are antiquated technology, indicating that more current torpedoes are far more powerful. So already we have obsolete torpedoes which do 14 times the amount of damage than a state-of-the-art Cardassian superweapon and 9,500 times more than a photon torpedo. Nova Cannons, some of the most powerful weapons to be mounted on starships, are calculated to be about 21 petatons on a direct hit with a blast radius the size of the Moon which inflicts damage in the petaton range. All other Imperial weapons tend to range from the hundreds of gigatons to teratons.

* Incidentally, it took 183 of those 610 gigaton torpedoes to destroy a Space Hulk. That's the sort of opposition the Imperium faces on a regular basis.

Here're a pair of examples of the level of firepower in 40k. Here's what one single ship does to a planet in 30 seconds...



...and here's what a cyclonic torpedo does to a planet in one single shot.



40k ships can likewise survive that level of fire in return. In addition, Imperial ships have been shown to survive in a stars corona just fine. One ship sat in the corona of a star for over 60 hours without any negative effect, and could've probably stayed in there indefinitely, and that wasn't even a warship. It was a merchant cargo ship. Contrast that with the Enterprise-D which needed a special shield just to survive in the corona, and even that shield started to quickly fade.

2) The Imperial Navy, while hard to get specific numbers on, likely consists of at least hundreds of thousands of ships, if not millions, with the smallest dwarfing the largest Starfleet vessels in size.

3) According to Codex: Imperial Guard 2nd edition, the Imperium has based its standard invasion response around ships which can traverse 1,000 light years in 1-4 days. That's 100-400 days to cross the galaxy, and 8-32 days to cross Federation space. And that's obviously the lowest common denominator, as it's their standard response speed across the entire length and breadth of the Imperium, so the Imperium likely has ships which are much faster than that.

4) The Imperium has recently been listed as consisting of billions of worlds, the majority of which are Civilized Worlds, which are stated to have populations ranging anywhere from 15 million to 10 billion. In addition, the Imperium also has Hive Worlds with populations ranging from 100 billion to 500 billion, and there are 32,380 such worlds within the Imperium. On top of which, Holy Terra has a population of 100 trillion. So that one planet, alone, has ten times the population of the entire Federation.

So yeah, the Empire and the Imperium are in a whole other ballpark. As far as they're concerned, the Empire would win. While the Imperium is clearly superior in ground combat, the Empire has the advantage of having superior, and reliable, FTL, as well as starships roughly comparable to Imperial ships in durability and firepower, while likely also being more numerous. That'll allow the Empire to dictate when and where engagements are fought, and ultimately win any war.

[GDL Rahsan]

Commansder Elias you kinda came a bit late to the party, you can check the previous pages for the technobabble about Star Trek and WH40K weapon yields. But if you have some cannon support (( about your statements )) then by all means correct us if we did some wrong calculations previously.

[Commander Elias Vaughn]

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A lot of races in a lot of franchises are really powerful, but I'm just not seeing the Imperium of Man as being a top contender here, and you know what? We should be glad, because they're basically a petty, evil, willfully ignorant, backward society of xenophobic, oppressive, genocidal, theocratic thugs.

Wow, are you serious? Well, if ever there was a reason to take anything you say with a grain of salt, this is it. This is a Vs. thread. The topic of discussion is who'd win in a straight up fight, not who you consider to be the morally superior faction. You want to make a Vs thread where the topic is "Who's the morally superior faction? The Federation or the Imperium?" then go ahead. I'll gladly vote for the Federation every time. But we're not talking morality, but technology and firepower. And when it comes to the Imperium side, you're not only woefully ignorant on the subject, but you're incredibly biased. Nevermind the absolute ridiculousness of this comment. Why should we be glad that one fictional nation might lose against another? Did you lose sight of the fact that they're both... you know... fictional?

Quote

As Ilithi once said, not only would the Federation probably curb-stomp the Imperium, but we should cheer them on to do it.

Frankly, neither you nor Ilithi have the faintest clue what you're talking about. And once again, who cares who we should be cheering on? We're not talking about who's the morally superior force, but who's the more powerful. That you (and Ilithi, I suppose) are factoring that into your views makes everything you say suspect. The fact of the matter is that the Federation stands no chance, none whatsoever, against the Imperium. The only curbstomb would be in reverse, as the Federation has no hope of defeating even a handful of Imperial ships, much less at full strength. You talk about equivalent firepower, pound for pound? Pound for pound, Imperial firepower is whole orders greater than the Federation could ever produce. If you were to scale down an Imperial ship to a size similar to that of a Sovereign Class and reduce its power accordingly, it'd still lay waste to whole fleets of ships in the Star Trek universe.

1) We have published books outright stating that obsolete torpedoes can produce 610 gigaton explosions. Torpedoes which, incidentally, are considered by the Imperium to be obsolete nuclear weapons, while the standard torpedo is a plasma weapon. These torpedoes are found on even the smallest of Imperial ships, like the Cobra Destroyer, which I'd estimate at about four times the mass of the Enterprise-E. The Enterprise-E would have to fire 12,700 photon torpedoes simultaneously at the same target to get the same effect. Salvo's from a lance and weapons battery from a battleship has been calculated to be about 122 teratons, so even if we assume a Cobra Destroyer has only 1% of the firepower of a battleship, that's still a 1.2 teraton salvo which is equal to the power of 19,000 photon torpedoes, and clearly more than enough to utterly annihilate any Star Trek ship that it targets.

The picture looks even bleaker when you get to the larger ships, cruisers and battleships. As mentioned previously, Nova Cannons have been calculated to be about 21 petatons with a blast radius about the size of Earth's Moon, inflicting about half as much damage as the ship struck by the shell sustains. And since no Star Trek vessel can possibly survive a 10 petaton explosion... To put it into perspective, think of the fleet from Sacrifice of Angels. One Nova Cannon blast right in the middle of that fleet would wipe it out completely. Nova Cannons are uncommon weapons, though. More often than not, Imperial weapons will do damage in the range of gigatons to teratons which, even at its lowest end, will still put their firepower leagues above that of Federation ships.

2) As much damage as they can dish out, they can take even more. As I pointed out earlier, a freighter was able to hide in the corona of a star for over 60 hours without so much as a blemish on its paint job. Warships can take those 610 gigaton torpedo shots to their hull and still keep going. There're even ships who've had two Nova Cannon blasts slam directly into them (And I don't mean getting caught in the blast radius, but suffering a direct hit), and still be able to operate. The hulls, made of a fictional metal called adamantine (The name itself should give an indication about how tough it should be), is incredibly resistant to damage. Then add in the void shields which protect the ship completely, as they shunt all the damage inflicted on them into the Warp, leaving the ship unharmed. The only way to hit the hull directly is to unleash so much firepower on the ship that the void shields are overloaded and go down. But even then, they can be brought back up, and the larger the ship the more layers of void shields it'll possess. A Cobra Destroyer will only have one void shield while a battleship will typically have four. So an attacker has to bring down one void shield, then the second, then the third, and the fourth before being able to strike directly at the hull, and it has to do so quickly before the ships crew get the first, second, and third void shields back up again.

It doesn't matter, though, because Starfleet doesn't have the firepower to bring down one void shield, nevermind all of them. And even then, it's doubtful Starfleet has the firepower to take down an unshielded ship, given that they regularly have 610 gigaton torpedoes slamming into their hulls and surviving the impact. After all, according to the Voyager episode "Dreadnought", the missile Dreadnought was considered a superweapon (which used quantum torpedoes as a defense system and not as the main payload), and that was only a 42 gigaton missile, so it's doubtful that Starfleet could produce the necessary levels of firepower to even scrape the paint off the hulls of Imperial ships.

Incidentally, before anyone mentions phasing technology, the Necrons have phasing technology too and they still can't get past void shields. That's because void shields can even block something that's phased.

3) "The two Blackstones have taken up station five thousand leagues from each other, some seventy five thousand leagues from Fularis II and just out of range of the weapons platforms, except for the torpedo launchers."

A league equals about 5.56 km, so that puts Imperial ship weapon ranges at about 417,000 km, with the exception of torpedoes. "The Wounded" showed Starfleet ships with about a 300,000 km range max, but really, Star Trek ships tend to engage in the hundreds of kilometers, and sometimes in the hundreds of meters. Fighting at a range of hundreds of thousands of kilometers never happens. Either way, Imperial ships have the superior range. They can also engage quickly, as they move at least .75c, which is considered their combat speed. Star Trek ships are faster at impulse and more maneuverable, yes, but that's what comes from having smaller ships. Imperial ships can still strike them, though, because they frequently fight much smaller, quicker, and faster opponents (like the Eldar) and beat them regularly, so targeting a Starfleet ship in combat shouldn't be a problem.

4) Warp Strafing: Well, first off, we only ever see warp combat when ships are chasing each other at warp. Once one ship drops out of warp so does the other and they fight it out at impulse speed. But let's say that Starfleet does this in an attempt to fire on Imperial ships without getting hit in return. First off, it doesn't matter, as they can't harm Imperial ships anyway. Secondly, there's a reason Star Trek ships don't fight at warp, and that's because you can't maneuver at warp. Straight lines only. And it doesn't matter how fast you move if your enemy can predict where you'll be once you start moving. All it'll take is for an Imperial ship to calculate the flight path of the Federation starship and open fire along its path and the starship will fly at warp speed right into that fussilade and die a spectacularly gruesome death. That's how air attacks in WWII were dealt with, after all. Nobody ever targeted individual planes. They just unleashed such a massive volume of fire into the path of attacking planes that a great many of them were blasted out of the sky. And if there's anything the Imperium's good at, it's volume of fire. And with even its weakest weapons in the gigaton range, it'll really only take one hit.

Even if one wanted to assume an Imperial ship couldn't hit a Federation at warp speed due to warp strafing, it still doesn't matter, though. Let's say you're the commander of an Imperial starship and you have a Federation starship buzzing about you, taking potshots at you at warp. They can't harm you and, for some reason (Maybe his targeting system is malfunctioning and so he can't anticipate the flight path of the attacking ship), you can't land a hit in return. So what do you do? You stop wasting time with a random Starfleet ship and go to warp. The Starfleet ship can't follow you, because it has no gellar field and would be ripped apart by the denizens of the Warp, nor can it track you because you're no longer in real space. And even if it could track you, it can't keep up with you, because Imperial FTL is vastly superior to that of Federation FTL. In 4-16 days you can cross half the Federation while a Starfleet ship moving at Warp 9.975 would take about 9 months to cross that same distance. So if the Starfleet ship doesn't want to fight you? Fine. Just fly around the Federation and blow away Federation worlds at will. The Federation will run out of planets faster than the Imperial ships will run out of ammo.

5) In terms of firepower, survivability, and speed Imperial ships totally outclass Star Trek ships. They also have numerical superiority. The writers of DS9 generally assumed that Starfleet consisted of 30,000 ships, but that pales in comparison to the Imperial Navy. Starfleet had to defend a couple thousand worlds (and did it pretty badly, as they could only muster 40 ships to protect their capital from the Borg), but the Imperium has to defend millions to billions of worlds stretching across the entire Milky Way Galaxy. And unlike the Federation, the Imperium is constantly at war. There are no hard numbers on how many ships the Imperial Navy has, but it's safe to say that there're anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of ships. There's certainly no way the Imperium could possibly survive if it had less than one ship for every world it controlled.

A sector fleet is made up of 50-75 ships while each sector is a cube which has an area of 8 million light years. There's also an example of a sector with about 100 worlds in it. So if we assume that 100 worlds per sector is the average, and we take the "millions of worlds" statement to mean that there're, say, 3 million worlds in the Imperium, then we're talking about 30,000 sectors. Assuming 60 ships per sector, that's 1,800,000 ships in the Imperial Navy.

Lately, however, they've started talking about how the Imperium has billions of worlds. Let's assume "billions" means 3 billion. If we go with that figure, then we're talking about 1.8 billion ships. Either way, the Federation can't possibly go toe to toe with the Imperium on a numerical basis.

6) The Federation can't possibly contend with the Imperium's industry. Replicators notwithstanding, I've never seen any Star Trek power win a war with their limitless ability to produce Earl Grey Tea. Seriously, though, replicators don't do much to speed up ship building. The Federation had just that issue during the Dominion War, as they had to rebuild their shipyards to continue the fight. They certainly weren't making ships instantaneously out of gigantic replicators. They were building them the old fashioned way, and it took them years to build them. The Imperium, however, has at least millions of worlds contributing to its ship building. They have their Civilized Worlds, their Forge Worlds, their Hive Worlds, and even their Feral and Medieval Worlds building ships, as each world is required to build enough ships for its own defense as well as a number of ships to tithe to the Imperial Navy. In addition, they also have shipyards operated by the Imperial Navy which builds ships. And according to the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook, even a Feral World populated by savage tribesmen were able to procure enough raw materials for their planetary governor, who lived in orbit, to construct a cruiser in 11 years. We're not talking about a tiny destroyer or system monitor, but a cruiser, second only in size and power to a battleship. And once again, they built one in 11 years. How much more could a Hive World or a Forge World, which is an entire planet devoted to manufacturing weapons, build? How much more and faster could an Imperial Navy shipyard build?

Not that it matters, though, because the Imperium wouldn't suffer any lost ships from the Federation that would require replacement.

7) Manpower: Do I even need to explain why the Federation would be absolutely crushed in ground combat?

Simply put, the Federation doesn't stand a snowballs chance in Hell of ever even coming close to being a minor nuisance to the Imperium, much less being a credible threat. The Federation would be hard pressed to survive an attack from a single Cobra Destroyer, much less an all out assault.

[Commander Elias Vaughn]

GDL Rahsan, on 26 February 2012 - 07:09 AM, said:

Commansder Elias you kinda came a bit late to the party, you can check the previous pages for the technobabble about Star Trek and WH40K weapon yields. But if you have some cannon support (( about your statements )) then by all means correct us if we did some wrong calculations previously.

It's a 34 page thread, so there's a lot to catch up on. But like I said, Space Hulk outright gives us a figure for torpedoes, which are 610 gigatons. And these are supposed to be obsolete nuclear torpedoes, not as powerful as their plasma torpedoes. That tidbit alone should say it all, as a photon torpedo is about 64 megatons, while the Cardassian superweapon Dreadnought is 42 gigatons. Just think about that: a superweapon in the Star Trek universe only has 1/14th the explosive yield of a weapon which is considered obsolete. From there common sense dictates that the rest of the ships weapons would have to be roughly comparable to that, if not better, otherwise what'd be the point of equipping a ship with those weapons in the first place? If a ship in the 40k universe can survive hits from 610 gigaton warheads, then you'd need other weapons with commensurate firepower to take one down. A 40k ship with firepower in the Star Trek range would be ludicrously weak and may as well go unarmed into the fight for all the difference it'd make against ships that're taking 610 gigaton explosions directly to their hull.

[Catamount]

His support is an ancient, out of print source book that's blatantly contradictory.

Using the Tsar Bomba for reference, just making a warhead and casing for a such a weapon, using purely nuclear detonation, would require a ~600ft by ~150ft by ~150ft torpedo, and that's JUST for something that'll explode, not a full torpedo with a propulsion system and guidance. Once you figure those things in you're looking at what, something a quarter of a mile long?


Is a standard Imperium Torpedo a quarter of a mile long?


EDIT: Yes, I know, the argument is a consistency check using simple real-world information, but there's plenty of precedent in this thread. I mean, did we not just discuss the possibility of assuming EVE power figures to be a mistake on those very same grounds, not once, but multiple times? I was fully willing to give EVE that, and even suggested doing so near the beginning of the thread, until we determined that it was actually consistent.

Edited by Catamount, 26 February 2012 - 08:24 AM.

[GDL Rahsan]

Thanks for the bit of info I never owned Space Hulk related games, video or tabletop, so I never read any of it. But anyway if you want to participate in this thread I do advice you to read some of the previous comments about the Star Trek VS WH40K discussion. I mean a lot of us did produce some numbers for both universes that might be helpful for you, other than that we are welcome to sit here discuss useless info with us and enjoy yourself, and let's not forget ot keep it civil everyone !

EDIT: Are you sure Catamount? I mean the Space Hulk third addition have been released in 2009 and last time I checked that time wasn't enough to drop it out of canon, I might be mistaken thought.

Edited by GDL Rahsan, 26 February 2012 - 08:30 AM.

[Catamount]

Also, there's not the slightest hint of evidence that one could seriously take a suggestion that an Imperium ship could take such weaponry to their hulls. Even Trek ships don't claim something so ludicrous about vastly weaker weapons; instead, the claim is that Trek ships use internal energy shielding, again, to avoid a silly claim that they're hull-tanking weapons thousands of times weaker than what's being claimed here.

GDL Rahsan, on 26 February 2012 - 08:22 AM, said:

EDIT: Are you sure Catamount? I mean the Space Hulk third addition have been released in 2009 and last time I checked that time wasn't enough to drop it out of canon, I might be mistaken thought.

Well Vaughn himself identified the book in the same way I did: an old, out of print book.

We've had this discussion before; we're both old members of the Star Trek Online forums.

Edited by Catamount, 26 February 2012 - 08:35 AM.

[Commander Elias Vaughn]

Catamount, on 26 February 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

His support is an ancient, out of print source book that's blatantly contradictory.

Contradictory to what? It matches up with the effects of Imperial weapons in other sources.

Quote

Is a standard Imperium Torpedo a quarter of a mile long?

60 feet, 200 feet, and 300 feet which are powered by fusion-based plasma reactors which also double as their warhead. The measure isn't what's consistent with the real world, though, but what's consistent with the universe it exists in. Not to mention the actual, printed figures given in books which're still canon. If we measured everything against what would be possible in real life, then half the things that happen in Star Trek would be impossible.

[Catamount]

Speaking of which, I don't think I ever gave him a proper welcome: Welcome to the MWO forums Vaughn, long time, no see

[Commander Elias Vaughn]

Catamount, on 26 February 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

Also, there's not the slightest hint of evidence that one could seriously take a suggestion that an Imperium ship could take such weaponry to their hulls. Even Trek ships don't claim something so ludicrous about vastly weaker weapons; instead, the claim is that Trek ships use internal energy shielding, again, to avoid a silly claim that they're hull-tanking weapons thousands of times weaker than what's being claimed here.

Torpedoes can bypass void shields, so 40k ships can and do take those hits directly to their hull. And 40k canon states that, yes, there are 610 gigaton torpedoes. Ludicrous or not (and 40k is certainly a universe built on ludicrous assumptions), that's canon.

And thank you for the welcome. Long time no see.

Edited by Commander Elias Vaughn, 26 February 2012 - 08:39 AM.

[Daneiel]

Lets end that debate

Edited by daneiel varna, 26 February 2012 - 08:40 AM.