Star Trek vs. Babylon 5

[Tsyr]

Plus I'm not sure how easy it is to get a lock when you're flying evasive maneuvers in space.

Do-able. And remember, to beam something in is a lot easier than beaming something out.

Plus there's probably a maximum range on transporters, and I don't know how that compares to weapons envelopes.

Longer.

Plus a thin layer of ore can stop transporter locks; I reckon starship armour would probably put a dampener on that, especially on purpose-made warships that have to take tons of damage.

"A thin layer of ore" only works if it's the right type of ore. Transporters beam underground on a regular basis. Transporters can beam deep into the heart of a borg cube from the dinky little transporter units on board a shuttlecraft, I think a starships can handle a warship.

Is that enough to stop the teletorp from working for real? I don't know. But it's technobabblish enough to work, right?

No. Star Trek can always out-babble anything.

Besides, if the fight started to go badly, Geordie would just reverse the polarity on something and reroute something else, and the enterprise would suddenly win. Those are the two standbys in Star Trek that can accomplish anything.

 

[Halivar]

Easy. Star Trek wins. It all looks very bleak for Starfleet at first, having all those ships (shields and all) obliterated in single-shots from B5 cannons twice the ship's size.

The differential that tips everything towards Starfleet is Geordie LaForge and/or Wesley Crusher. Halfway through the battle they'll figure out that they can reverse charge the anti-quark sub-protonic relay capacitors to the temporal quantum stabilers, thus creating a highly charged positronic energy field that... oh... you get the picture. Throw in a few more random physics terms and you have Star Trek's real power. Pull-it-out-of-your-### magic.

Tsyr: You may have beaten me this time, but I'll be back! Just you wait and see! I'll bide my time....

 

[Darrin Drader]

Just so we're clear on this, the Minbari would totally kick the $#!^ out of starfleet. The Earth Alliance might not hold up so well, but the Minbari have had more than a thousand years to develop and improve their technology and they've survived one shadow war (2 by the end of the series). The Shadows would own the borg.

Aside from that, they don't go mucking about at warp speed, they go to hyperspace, which makes faster than light travel pointless. Also, rather than using the highly unstable anti-matter propulsion systems, the minbari use gravitational propulsion, which is both more reliable and has fewer glitches in the system.

 

[Crothian]

It really depends on when in each series the Tech level is. Is it at the time of Crusade for B5? What about at the end of Voager when Janeway has come back with all that future technology?

Starfleet has an advantage with warp engines. They can travel faster then light anywhere. The B5 people can only go where the jumpgates are, and they would not be hard to destroy or to lay a cloaked, reproducing mine field around.

But I'm not saying that one has an advantage over the other. It's apples and oragnes.

 

[Darrin Drader]

It really depends on when in each series the Tech level is. Is it at the time of Crusade for B5? What about at the end of Voager when Janeway has come back with all that future technology?

Oh yippee, Janeway and her batmobile unrealistic armor. Blech. If they struck that show from Trek canon and then took it out of syndication, it would go a long way to reviving the franchise (its doomed! Doomed I say! Doomed!)

As for B5 tech, only Earth's tech really increased due to the shadow war. Minbari tech is still better than EA tech, and it really didn't increase

Starfleet has an advantage with warp engines. They can travel faster then light anywhere. The B5 people can only go where the jumpgates are, and they would not be hard to destroy or to lay a cloaked, reproducing mine field around.

Ugh, see what happens when you let AI loose on messageboards? OK, look, the only race that is limited by jump gates are the humans. And that's not even true 100% of the time. The advanced ships, the military vessles, and sometimes even the pirate ships could make their own jump points. Often times alien ships capable of creating their own jump points would come in through the jump gates as a courtesy since it gives B5 all their relevant info before they come through. The shadows can exist in both normal and hyperspace simultaneously.

But I'm not saying that one has an advantage over the other. It's apples and oragnes.

I disagree. The major alien races in B5 clearly have the advantage over virtually every major race in Trek.

 

[Volaran]

Thanks for the link uv23. It looked fairly amusing, and after following the website to some of the previous films, was even funnier when things were in context. I'll look forward to the completed movie.

 

[Mark]

Earth Alliance and the Minbari? My how confidence is lacking with the b5-ites!

I suppose you would have to allow SF allies from the United Federation of Planets, but let's just say SF had to clean up this rabble on their own. Not much of a problem.

Hard to target Minbari ships? HAH! I think not!

Simply vent some warp plasma from the port nacels, charge it with a wide burst photon torpedo spread, then tie in the sensors to the deflector dish so the minimumbari ships can be targetted manually!

Semantically no challenge whatsoever...

 

[Tsyr]

Also, rather than using the highly unstable anti-matter propulsion systems, the minbari use gravitational propulsion, which is both more reliable and has fewer glitches in the system.

Now, see, what universe are we going by? In the Star Trek canon, Romulans use a gravitational singularity as their energy source, and it has a number of rather signifigant problems... The biggest one being, if something goes wrong, your screwed. You can't turn it off.

 

[Tsyr]

Also, here is an important question: Not just tech level, but what experimental technologies is the federation allowed to use?

For example, the phase-cloak. They can't use it due to treaties with the Romulans (The Defiant and similar ships are a specific exception, and even there, they don't use the phase-cloak), but they do have it, and had (most of) the bugs worked out of it.

Personally, I'd allow any tech up to the end of DS9 (That's where the show really jumped the shark... DS9 was alright, but after that...), and not all of what came before TnG (Because before TNG, we had an established method of time travel, which is really sad...

 

[Hand of Evil]

B5, the writing was better and they would pull off a better final!

Bester would also have StarFleet eating out of his hand!