1189 replies to this topic

[guardiandashi]

well actually the sdf's reflex cannon is not exactly the same weapon on the zentradi command ships, (the command ships use a particle cannon that does the same "effect" to other ships but significantly LESS damage to planetary targets (which can actually take the damage the gun puts out)

the sdf's main reflex cannon is essentually a next gen version of the "fusion cannons" on the robotech motherships which are a "more advanced" version of the cannons the zentradi use.

the thing to remember about robotech was that the zentradi are the "throw away soldiers" for the masters ... so why would they give their soldiers all their best toys.

[Catamount]

Jack Gammel, on 26 February 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

Are we talking anime now? Taking animes into account the the win probably has to go to Gurren Lagann, since spiral power is based on pure willpower. As long as they don't give up their space/psychic mecha (which is three times the size of a galaxy...assuming the galaxies within the pocket dimension the anti-spirals live in are the same size as those in our dimension) will win.

Yeah, sadly this is what a discussion of anime quickly degenerates to.

Don't get me wrong, there are some good animes out there, across numerous mediums, but there's also some exceedingly silly ones

I actually never really got into the Robotech franchise much, but it seemed like a decent franchise from what I saw.

Edited by Catamount, 26 February 2012 - 09:17 PM.

[guardian wolf]

Catamount, on 26 February 2012 - 02:38 PM, said:

You could always run it by the forums, see what people think

Here or there, and if there, drop me a link will you?

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

Why does 40k get to be immune to that when we're willing to apply that to other franchises? If I and others are willing to scale-up EVE power figures on the grounds that they seem impossible with observation (an argument eventually retracted), why does 40k get to be immune to the same consistency checks?

Seeing as how here in the 21st Century we are already more than capable of deploying 100 megaton weapons, by the 41st millenium it would be ludicrous for us to not have 600 gigaton weapons at the exponential rate of technological progression that humanity has demonstrated, (it took us tens of thousands of years to progress from knives to bows, but it only took a hundred years or so to go from the train to aircraft, and it only takes years these days to vastly improve our computer power. If progress keeps multiplying at this exponential rate..... then star trek, 40k, battletech, all of it are going to look like societies of hunter gatherers compared to the real humanity in those time zones)
Heck, we are close (50 years ish) to having fusion technology, and will probably have antimatter tech within the next 100 years. Our missiles in real life are far superior to 40k and battletech ones, as are many of our small arms.

[Alexander Caine]

To be honest, all of these answers are wrong.

The correct winner in any "sci fi" showdown, is The Culture from Iain M. Banks' novels.It is a super science setting subscribing pretty much to the old "Sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic" theory. It's been mentioned once or twice, but not explained
http://en.wikipedia....iki/The_Culture

Some highlights of their tech:
True sentient AI ships capable of nano level contstruction
Weapons using manipulation of the actual underlying structure of reality
Incredibly precise and instant teleportation
FTL travel to speeds of many thousands that of the speed of light
Massively advanced nanotech
Humans so evolved they can control their own DNA through chemical glands and mental processes, even to the point of changing their own gender, looks or anything else.


To put a Culture space battle into perspective...

In Excession, a single Culture ship engages an enemy fleet of drone linked warships. it destroys tens of them while hunting for the flagship, before engaging and killing that, then escaping.
This took place in microseconds.

Edited by Alexander Caine, 26 February 2012 - 11:55 PM.

[Kip Wilson]

Well, Macross was one of the entries in the poll, so I wasn't really going out on a limb there. But if we wanted to go all out, Dr. Who would be the winner. He'd just go back in time and prevent the fleets from being built or even more so step on the slime mold that would evolve into a particular race in a few million years. lol win

[GDL Rahsan]

Actually there are some races in many IPs that can forsee the future. The Eldar of WH40K for example, who can forsee a guy going back into the past to change the future and stop it, so that might not work.

Edited by GDL Rahsan, 27 February 2012 - 01:28 AM.

[Polymorphyne]

I dont think the culture can beat those people who made mechs so big that they could grab galaxies in the palm of their hands and throw them at each other, or Q from star trek.

[Strum Wealh]

Alexander Caine, on 26 February 2012 - 11:48 PM, said:

To be honest, all of these answers are wrong.

The correct winner in any "sci fi" showdown, is The Culture from Iain M. Banks' novels.It is a super science setting subscribing pretty much to the old "Sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic" theory. It's been mentioned once or twice, but not explained
http://en.wikipedia....iki/The_Culture

Some highlights of their tech:
True sentient AI ships capable of nano level contstruction
Weapons using manipulation of the actual underlying structure of reality
Incredibly precise and instant teleportation
FTL travel to speeds of many thousands that of the speed of light
Massively advanced nanotech
Humans so evolved they can control their own DNA through chemical glands and mental processes, even to the point of changing their own gender, looks or anything else.


To put a Culture space battle into perspective...

In Excession, a single Culture ship engages an enemy fleet of drone linked warships. it destroys tens of them while hunting for the flagship, before engaging and killing that, then escaping.
This took place in microseconds.

Kip Wilson, on 27 February 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

Well, Macross was one of the entries in the poll, so I wasn't really going out on a limb there. But if we wanted to go all out, Dr. Who would be the winner. He'd just go back in time and prevent the fleets from being built or even more so step on the slime mold that would evolve into a particular race in a few million years. lol win

GDL Rahsan, on 27 February 2012 - 01:28 AM, said:

Actually there are some races in many IPs that can forsee the future. The Eldar of WH40K for example, who can forsee a guy going back into the past to change the future and stop it, so that might not work.

Longsword, on 27 February 2012 - 02:47 AM, said:

I dont think the culture can beat those people who made mechs so big that they could grab galaxies in the palm of their hands and throw them at each other, or Q from star trek.

I was under the impression that the one of the basic assumptions of the thread seems to be that any actual versus match-ups being considered forbid the invocation of gods and god-like entities (no Q or Dowd, no Chaos Gods, no Celestial Avatars, no Eternals, and so on), time-active societies (no major powers form the Whoverse, no 29th-century Federation, and so on), anything generally more capable than an average Kardachev Type III civilization (such as the Culture, the Xeelee, or the creators of the Inhibitors), and any individual or small group capable of "soloing" a fleet (no Chuck Norris, Goku/"Z-Fighters", The Stig (including "cousins" and MWO-forum-created "BattleStigs"), the Anti-Chuck, Mr. Rogers, and so on)...

[Polymorphyne]

You guys actually missed a few Sci Fi universes- Sword of the Stars, Sins of a Solar Empire, Peter F. Hamiltons books......

[Kaine Vulpayne]

Dlardrageth, on 28 November 2011 - 03:06 PM, said:

EVE-Online because the NC would just blob out the sun making navigation for the others impossible.

Clearly lag only applies to Eve technology ;-)
Ever encountered lag in Star Wars battlescenes in any movie? ;-)

Also with battle meditation SW contingents should be on par with the Borg in terms of coordination.

Having that said, I must state that this topic is utterly nerdy even for a forum about fictional battle robots *scnr*

Edited by Kaine Vulpayne, 27 February 2012 - 03:15 AM.

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

SW contingents should be on par with the Borg in terms of coordination.

That largely depends on whether it is the Imperial Fleet during the reign of the emperor or not. The emperor's use of the force extended to the point where he was subtly improving the co-ordination of the imperial fleet- one of the reasons the executioner crashed into the death star was because the emeperor died.

[Catamount]

Longsword, on 26 February 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Seeing as how here in the 21st Century we are already more than capable of deploying 100 megaton weapons, by the 41st millenium it would be ludicrous for us to not have 600 gigaton weapons at the exponential rate of technological progression that humanity has demonstrated, (it took us tens of thousands of years to progress from knives to bows, but it only took a hundred years or so to go from the train to aircraft, and it only takes years these days to vastly improve our computer power. If progress keeps multiplying at this exponential rate..... then star trek, 40k, battletech, all of it are going to look like societies of hunter gatherers compared to the real humanity in those time zones)
Heck, we are close (50 years ish) to having fusion technology, and will probably have antimatter tech within the next 100 years. Our missiles in real life are far superior to 40k and battletech ones, as are many of our small arms.

That might work if technology actually advanced, but these are specifically identified as nuclear weapons. So it's kind of tantamount to saying "if by the 21st century, I can fit 12oz of coke in a 12oz can; the 41st millennium, I should be able to fit 300 gallons of coke in a 12oz can"

Besides, the Imperium is largely not terribly more advanced than we are today, more advanced, yes, but enormously? Not really. Fusion is likely a lot closer than 2050, in fact, if the US Navy has anything to say about it. Their contract with EMC2 is on track to produce a commercial polywell fusion device by decade's end, and if there's one thing you can say for the military: when they want a technology, they usually get it (and BOY do they want fusion reactors) . (and it'll be quite amusing to see if all the world's energy problems vanish because of a smallish, unhyped USN project )

Longsword, on 27 February 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

That largely depends on whether it is the Imperial Fleet during the reign of the emperor or not. The emperor's use of the force extended to the point where he was subtly improving the co-ordination of the imperial fleet- one of the reasons the executioner crashed into the death star was because the emeperor died.

Imperial battle meditation? Hmm, that would be an interesting advantage (didn't seem to do much over Endor! )

Still, whether you're the Empire or the Borg, it seems to me you could just clusterF%*& things to death anyways

Edited by Catamount, 27 February 2012 - 05:07 AM.

[Jack Gammel]

Catamount, on 27 February 2012 - 05:03 AM, said:

Fusion is likely a lot closer than 2050, in fact, if the US Navy has anything to say about it. Their contract with EMC2 is on track to produce a commercial polywell fusion device by decade's end, and if there's one thing you can say for the military: when they want a technology, they usually get it (and BOY do they want fusion reactors) . (and it'll be quite amusing to see if all the world's energy problems vanish because of a smallish, unhyped USN project )

It'll never happen. If there's even a moderate chance for the project to succeed the EPA will likely decide that fusion power gives cancer to babies, and the project funding will be stripped by the government.

In all probability that money will end up going to fund new research studying unicorn farts as a green energy source, or maybe it will just buy more oil from foreign powers who are actually hostile to Western society.

But who knows. Maybe? I hope it works. I would like to be a cantankerous old man going on about how in my day we used dinosaur soup to power our cars and we liked it!

Edited by Jack Gammel, 27 February 2012 - 05:19 AM.

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

It'll never happen. If there's even a moderate chance for the project to succeed the EPA will likely decide that fusion power gives cancer to babies, and the project funding will be stripped by the government.

In all probability that money will end up going to fund new research studying unicorn farts as a green energy source, or maybe it will just buy more oil from foreign powers who are actually hostile to Western society.

But who knows. Maybe?

Actually, the stats that I have seen say that all of the worlds major oil fields are past peak and that we have insufficient supplies of oil to sustain modern civilisation, even the worlds population levels into the next 100 years anyway, and that there is no viable alternative to oil to save us from that fact.
(Solar, hydro and geothermal ar innefficient and requires the oil based tech platform to produced, and cannot be used to power effective motor vehicles, gas is dangerous and gives you very little energy for the effort required to get it, ethanol requires you to carry out the industrial scale farming that relies on oil, nuclear power is good but can only provide electricity, it cannot be used to keep our cars, trucks and combine harvesters going......)

Remember a guy called Malthus? He is still seen as a laughing stock about his predictions that the human races population growth would lead to mass starvation as we exceeded our planets carrying capacity- but the only reason he was wrong at the time was because of the timely industrial revolution followed by the oil revolution which allowed industrial mass farming to feed that populatuon. There is no other source of energy that provides as much power for as little effort while being easily transportable and useable in portable vehicles like oil does.

So basically the conclusion is- we probably wont make it into space apart from our little exploratory expeditions to the moon and mars, as we will soon run out of the fuel source that supports all of our technology. (Yes, spaceships arent oil powered, but the technology they are made from depends on oil)

Edited by Longsword, 27 February 2012 - 05:25 AM.

[Jack Gammel]

Longsword, on 27 February 2012 - 05:23 AM, said:

Actually, the stats that I have seen say that all of the worlds major oil fields are past peak and that we have insufficient supplies of oil to sustain modern civilisation, even the worlds population levels into the next 100 years anyway, and that there is no viable alternative to oil to save us from that fact.
(Solar, hydro and geothermal ar innefficient and requires the oil based tech platform to produced, and cannot be used to power effective motor vehicles, gas is dangerous and gives you very little energy for the effort required to get it, ethanol requires you to carry out the industrial scale farming that relies on oil, nuclear power is good but can only provide electricity, it cannot be used to keep our cars, trucks and combine harvesters going......)

Remember a guy called Malthus? He is still seen as a laughing stock about his predictions that the human races population growth would lead to mass starvation as we exceeded our planets carrying capacity- but the only reason he was wrong at the time was because of the timely industrial revolution followed by the oil revolution which allowed industrial mass farming to feed that populatuon. There is no other source of energy that provides as much power for as little effort while being easily transportable and useable in portable vehicles like oil does.

So basically the conclusion is- we probably wont make it into space apart from our little exploratory expeditions to the moon and mars, as we will soon run out of the fuel source that supports all of our technology. (Yes, spaceships arent oil powered, but the technology they are made from depends on oil)

I am VERY familiar with Malthusian Theory. It comes with being a History major.

And I am always skeptical of the numbers which suggest that the world's oil supplies are about the dry up and lead to the end of civilization in a century. Obviously, we should try to find something to replace oil, but when a technology like fracking comes up with an interesting and effective method of extracting shale oil and natural gas which we could not have previously touched, the government shuts it down. Meanwhile, ethanol gets government subsidies.

Frankly, if I was a gambling man and I was betting on the cause of total cultural collapse, I would put my money on the spiraling and unsustainable population decline which currently threatens almost every region and ethnic group on the planet.

[Polymorphyne]

What I have seen about the shale oil and natural gas isn't very promising.

The biggest problem we have made for ourselves is Suburbia- it is a monumental waste of resources, stretching everything all over the countryside like that. The people of the future would likely either live in cities, or live in farms, not in suburbs.

[Jack Gammel]

Longsword, on 27 February 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

What I have seen about the shale oil and natural gas isn't very promising.

The biggest problem we have made for ourselves is Suburbia- it is a monumental waste of resources, stretching everything all over the countryside like that. The people of the future would likely either live in cities, or live in farms, not in suburbs.

I'm not suggesting that shale oil will be a panacea for our oil woes, only that it offered an opportunity for resource exploitation which became the target of the EPA's displeasure. At the same time lobbyist groups get massive subsidies for corn farmers and failing "green energy" companies. I was merely expressing my frustration for my government.

Yes, suburbia is a wasteland, but that was how we built 'em in America. I can appreciate your sentiment though, and you're probably right about cities and farms to a certain degree, but this must be a highly fluid process. As long as resources allow 1st world nations like the U.S. to sustain suburbs we are pretty much stuck with them. The only other option would be some sort of government board stocked with an amalgamation of urban planners, civil engineers, engineers, and architects who would make any and all building decisions (basically nationalizing all construction), and I obviously don't trust the government. Who would trust a system which can utilize inherently corrupt imminent domain laws or the bureaucracy which brought us the IRS and the American Tax Code?

[Ulric Kell]

There are so many technical issues at hand, but from what I've seen and read, Trek is just technologically so far ahead of all the rest. If we're talking super doomsday weapons everyone has those but if you take those away and just look at ship to ship, Star Trek's technology is just way too far down the road for anyone else to really stop.

[guardian wolf]

Longsword, on 27 February 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

That largely depends on whether it is the Imperial Fleet during the reign of the emperor or not. The emperor's use of the force extended to the point where he was subtly improving the co-ordination of the imperial fleet- one of the reasons the executioner crashed into the death star was because the emeperor died.

Not to mention, it took an A-Wing to the Bridge.