Star Trek vs. Babylon 5
Babylon 5 ships have the great advantage over ST ships in their ability to use hyperspace. While we talk about ST ships running circles around B5 ships in actual combat, B5 ships will never be interdicted by a ST fleet. A fleet of jump-capable ships could fly across ST borders, pop out of hyperspace half a dozen meters from their target and boom, game over. I don't care if DS9 has 6,000 quantum torpedos, when a half dozen jump vortexes appear, some inside it, it goes boom.
From a strategy standpoint, by the time that ST's WWIIish "Fleets and Frontlines" doctrine of combat compensated, I figure most of it's infrastructure would be ruin. Then again, ST seems to have a much larger scope than B5, so maybe just the sheer numbers of the Feddies being a couple hundred planets would keep em from folding rapidly.
From a strategy standpoint, by the time that ST's WWIIish "Fleets and Frontlines" doctrine of combat compensated, I figure most of it's infrastructure would be ruin. Then again, ST seems to have a much larger scope than B5, so maybe just the sheer numbers of the Feddies being a couple hundred planets would keep em from folding rapidly.
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Fortunately for B5 however, you only have to blow up a starbase once to do the job. ^_^
Unfortunately, I do have to concur that the biggest gun in Star Trek's arsenal is it's style of fiction. ST wins because it adapts and makes technological leaps that defy the realism of it's setting, while B5 wins because it endures despite technological inferiority.
Unfortunately, I do have to concur that the biggest gun in Star Trek's arsenal is it's style of fiction. ST wins because it adapts and makes technological leaps that defy the realism of it's setting, while B5 wins because it endures despite technological inferiority.
Silver Moon
Adventurer
Couldn't get it to download. The thread title alone reminded me of a comment a while back from one of my players, who wasn't a fan of either series. He made reference to the shows as "The spacestation where everyone has funny hair and nothing happens vs. the spacestation where everyone has funny noses and nothing happens."
If we are talking New Generation and later, B5 wins, no questions. The trekkies have to worry about Prime Directives and Counselors having a bad hair day and countermanding decisions to invade because the aliens might be all cute and fuzzy and stuff. Babylon 5 definitely believes in shoot first and let the Vorlons sort them out.
Now, if we are talking about James Tiberius Kirk, all bets are off
Now, if we are talking about James Tiberius Kirk, all bets are off
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Silver Moon said:
Oh, I beg to differ with those assertions. In Babylon 5, Garibaldi went from receeding hairline to sheer bald while captain Sisko lost the rug and grew the Spencer for Hire Hawk goutee. So you see, you can't say that B5 was the only one with funny hair.
s/LaSH
First Post
Well, if we're going to allow Geordi and Wesley on Starfleet's side, we have to include some of the more useful personalities available to B5. It's only fair, right?
So we're probably looking at a nuclear minefield through G'Kar's connections to Narn weapon caches; Sheridan's tactical and pull-a-victory-out-of-thin-air ability (which often works within minutes and has been planned for months, as opposed to the Starfleet half-an-episode-to-fix-transporters methodology); some guy called Kosh who walks through a literal hail of energy weapons fire without noticing; and Ivanova, who I'm guessing could make Klingons blush.
So here's my perception of how it would go if they had to fight:
Starfleet vessel meets Earth Alliance vessel. Earth Alliance vessel is better in combat, and causes hull breaches on decks 8 through 14 before Starfleet engineers figure out that there's a vulnerable plasma conduit feeding the main reactor on the destroyer, and use a reversed tachyon pulse to destabilise it, blowing up the vessel. Starfleet emerges victorious.
Sheridan hears of this and launches a lightning strike in two parts: travelling through hyperspace to avoid Federation sensors ("Sir! There's a subspace resonance anomaly!" "What is it?" "Let me recalibrate the HULL BREACHES ON DECKS X THRU Y!"), they strike first at the Utopia Planetia shipyards, then jump out before any coordinated response and head for Earth, thus crippling both the production and command structure of Starfleet.
If this carries on, Starfleet no doubt assembles a fleet from the far corners of Federation territory, but it takes them a couple of months (see DS9) and only a single ship will make it through the enemy battle wall (again, see DS9). That one ship, if it attacks B5, will no doubt be surprised at how well defended the station is, but presumably cause some sort of victory disproportionate to its size. The Feds probably take B5.
Maybe they use DS9 as a collar. I don't know if it would fit over B5, though.
The only way for Babylon 5 to resolve this is with a years-long story arc in which, while running from sanctuary to sanctuary, they rebuild their tattered fleets, alliances, and command structures, and eventually snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Starfleet doesn't have the longterm narrative support to do this, so in the end, B5 would have to win. It would, of course, be a bittersweet victory.
So that's my half-realistic, half-narrative reason why B5 has to win. Eventually.
So we're probably looking at a nuclear minefield through G'Kar's connections to Narn weapon caches; Sheridan's tactical and pull-a-victory-out-of-thin-air ability (which often works within minutes and has been planned for months, as opposed to the Starfleet half-an-episode-to-fix-transporters methodology); some guy called Kosh who walks through a literal hail of energy weapons fire without noticing; and Ivanova, who I'm guessing could make Klingons blush.
So here's my perception of how it would go if they had to fight:
Starfleet vessel meets Earth Alliance vessel. Earth Alliance vessel is better in combat, and causes hull breaches on decks 8 through 14 before Starfleet engineers figure out that there's a vulnerable plasma conduit feeding the main reactor on the destroyer, and use a reversed tachyon pulse to destabilise it, blowing up the vessel. Starfleet emerges victorious.
Sheridan hears of this and launches a lightning strike in two parts: travelling through hyperspace to avoid Federation sensors ("Sir! There's a subspace resonance anomaly!" "What is it?" "Let me recalibrate the HULL BREACHES ON DECKS X THRU Y!"), they strike first at the Utopia Planetia shipyards, then jump out before any coordinated response and head for Earth, thus crippling both the production and command structure of Starfleet.
If this carries on, Starfleet no doubt assembles a fleet from the far corners of Federation territory, but it takes them a couple of months (see DS9) and only a single ship will make it through the enemy battle wall (again, see DS9). That one ship, if it attacks B5, will no doubt be surprised at how well defended the station is, but presumably cause some sort of victory disproportionate to its size. The Feds probably take B5.
Maybe they use DS9 as a collar. I don't know if it would fit over B5, though.
The only way for Babylon 5 to resolve this is with a years-long story arc in which, while running from sanctuary to sanctuary, they rebuild their tattered fleets, alliances, and command structures, and eventually snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Starfleet doesn't have the longterm narrative support to do this, so in the end, B5 would have to win. It would, of course, be a bittersweet victory.
So that's my half-realistic, half-narrative reason why B5 has to win. Eventually.
Halivar
First Post
In any event, B5 and SF are gonna really hurt on each other for a long time, but my vote definitely goes to that fleet of Imperial Dest Star Destroyers that jumps both of them halfway through the battle. Nobody builds 'em like Sierra Fleet Systems, yeah, baby.
EDIT: I can't believe I posted this. I am such a nerd.
EDIT: I can't believe I posted this. I am such a nerd.
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s/LaSH
First Post
Halivar said:
Good on ya mate. Revel in your nerdity. Join us. Hhhh... hhh...
I'd imagine that a full fleet of SDDs would be pretty nasty, indeed. Especially if they had an SSD with them, which is officially longer than B5 itself and well-shielded. (Just how long is unknown; argument persists over the ratio between SSDs and SDDs, and furthermore, the length of the original SDDs is unknown, put at either 1 or 6 miles; in the latter case, the SDD exceeds B5's 5 mile length and dwarfs everything Starfleet or the B5 universe can offer, while the SSD can be argued at over 100km in length.)
But it is called 'Star Wars' for a reason - the military tech is expected to be better. They also don't suffer any of the unfortunate slowness of Trek warp drive - hopping around the Star Wars galaxy takes weeks if not days, so response time in the comparatively tiny regions of the Federation and B5 known space would be practically immeasurable. I don't know how Imperial interdictor-class SDDs would work on B5 and Trek FTL drives; I suspect they'd be able to force warp drive offline, but B5's hyperspace shows no signs of limitation in gravity wells (see the Titan incident, where they jumped from within Jupiter's atmosphere) so would probably remain uninterdicted.
I'm now going to do an amateur comparison, picking out a few elements which I think would make good benchmarks.
Weapons comparison? B5 and SW beams are capable of orbital bombardment (in the cases of the siege of Centauri Prime, and an incident involving Grand Admiral Thrawn), while Trek vessels generally aren't (notable exception: torpedoes seem to have both the range and the cohesion to get through planetary atmosphere, as seen in First Contact, although these were superior Borg weapons). I'd give the total firepower advantage to SW, because of all the fire a star destroyer can punch out in all directions, but the sustained firepower advantage to B5, because of the axial cannons. Trek, by comparison, is either really wussy or just likes to engage at stupidly close range (I can never recall an episode of Voyager when they fired phasers at planetary targets without first passing through an unnaturally dense and turbulent cloud layer, and Intrepid-class vessels are (or were, 7 years before their return, which is no time in technological advancement) pretty top-of-the-line for the Feds).
Defensive comparison? B5 has no shields. Shields can exist (see Thirdspace), but they don't have them. Instead, they rely on armour (self-regenerating bioarmour in the case of the advanced White Star fleet). The armour seems to hold up pretty well against the weapons of the setting, which we've established are probably the most powerful of the three settings. Star Wars has shields, but their effectiveness is limited - everyone knows that you aim for the generators on a star destroyer first, which indicates it's quite easy to punch through them. Star Trek has the best shields, which can take a few hits from their inferior weapons. Overall, I'd say that Trek and B5 have the best endurance in a fight.
Is this accurate? Who knows, but it's fun!
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