Star Trek vs. Babylon 5

[Halivar]

Nice comparison, s/LaSH, but you did miss something that might make the fight a little mroe interesting.

Put a couple Sith Jedi on that SSD (yeah, movie vs. book vs. game canon, and all that, I know...).

 

[Orius]

I like B5 too, but Earthforce wouldn't stand a chance against Starfleet (barring deviousness). Earthforce doesn't have shields, so a Trek vessel could just beam a photon/quantum torpedo inside their ships, and BOOM.

More like when the Starfleet vessels lower their shields to beam over the torpedos, Earthforce kicks the crap out of them.

 

[Orius]

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.

And their shields fail ALL THE TIME. After 3 hits. No problem for Earthforce.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Not to mention any shield that can be breached by 'matching frequencies' is a poor investment...

As for ground battles... Does the Federation have the first clue about such, the few battles on the ground that I have seen for any Trek seems to indicate that they can be out maneuvered by Boy Scouts armed with water balloons...

The Auld Grump, of course SF can always used their technobabble enhancers... B5 is limited by trying to make their tech speech make sense...

 

[s/LaSH]

Nice comparison, s/LaSH, but you did miss something that might make the fight a little mroe interesting.

Put a couple Sith Jedi on that SSD (yeah, movie vs. book vs. game canon, and all that, I know...).

If we're going to go down that route, B5 gets Lyta and Kosh, while Star Trek gets...

uh...

Help me out here, people.

Oh, I just thought of one. Bashir, who's so genetically superior he needs to cheat at darts to lose. Um. Not a very good supercharacter, for all that I love DS9.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, maybe they can get Odo or Data (I admit, they are probably unaivailable, but usually, Sith Lords and Jedi are this, too)

Startrek Ships are capable of planetary bombardment - the combined Cardassian/Romulan army completely and utterly destroyed the old home planet of the Founders (I admit, it didn`t explode). Sisko once threatened to destroy a planet using "tricobalt" torpedos or something like that.

The main problem probably is that all three universes have their own rules - Lasers are primitive weapon in Startrek (unable to penetrate even the navigational deflectores of the Enterprise D, as told in one episode), but high-end weapon in Starwars.
Each of the three universes has its own rules for FTL travel, sublight travel, weapons technology and so on.

All these things aside, my bets are still on the side of Starfleet.
Even their biggest ship are extremely fast and maneuverable (Impuls engines allow flying at up to 0.9 c), and all of the ships (even the smallest shuttle) have shields. They use weapon based on Antimatter/Matter Anhilation (Photon & Quantum Torpedos) that can fly at similar speed (torpedos can even be fired at warp speed) as the ships themselves, and their weapons have great ranges. (300.000 km for Phasers and 1.500.000 Km for Torpedos).

But I admit, the Defiant Class ships and Whitestar ships look equal in combat abilities.


I think a fight Starwars units vs. Babylon 5 units might be fairer and be more easier to adjucate, because the combat has the same scale.
Big, slow capital ships and many fast and small fighters.

Starwars has its shields, which might prove as an advantage, but Starfuries seem to be much more maneuverable (well, they use real-life physics, X-Wing & co use cinematic aeriel physic) than similar Starwars units.
I think Babylon 5 starcruisers might have an advantage, because their weapons seem to have higher range and they have more concentrated firepower (I guess it would be little problem to destroy the star destroyers shield generator with the Earthforce Cruisers weapons, without having to rely on starfighters)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[s/LaSH]

<snipped to ribbons>
Well, maybe they can get Odo or Data (I admit, they are probably unaivailable, but usually, Sith Lords and Jedi are this, too)

OK, fair enough. Those two are going to be fairly effective (even though lightsabers have a fairly good track record against mechanical entities).

Startrek Ships are capable of planetary bombardment - the combined Cardassian/Romulan army completely and utterly destroyed the old home planet of the Founders (I admit, it didn`t explode). Sisko once threatened to destroy a planet using "tricobalt" torpedos or something like that.

Again, I'm led to question whether that's due to torpedoes or phasers/disruptors.

And Sisko? To memory, he actually used the torps, but they were laced with a biohazard lethal to certain races, not planetbusters. That was when I decided Sisko was the coolest Trek captain.

All these things aside, my bets are still on the side of Starfleet.
Even their biggest ship are extremely fast and maneuverable (Impuls engines allow flying at up to 0.9 c), and all of the ships (even the smallest shuttle) have shields. They use weapon based on Antimatter/Matter Anhilation (Photon & Quantum Torpedos) that can fly at similar speed (torpedos can even be fired at warp speed) as the ships themselves, and their weapons have great ranges. (300.000 km for Phasers and 1.500.000 Km for Torpedos).

But I admit, the Defiant Class ships and Whitestar ships look equal in combat abilities.

Torps can be fired at warp, but I don't think they can engage other vessels that aren't at warp. Apparently, the spacetime corridor that's created by a warp drive creates a region of space that's just like normal space in relation to itself, but crossing the velocity barriers is impossible. As vague justification, I present the DS9 ep where Dominion agents plotted to fly a shuttle containing a really big bomb into Bajor's sun, and thus destroy everything in the solar system. The Defiant pursued at warp speeds but dropped out in order to tractor the shuttle. I don't know whether they were simply too imprecise at warp or not, but there it is.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

According to the visual effects in the show (it is currently rerunning in Germany, and I try to catch up all episodes), both Phasers and Torpedos were able to damage the planetary surface. (300.000 km of range should be sufficient to reach the surface, anyway )

(Just to show another proof of my geekiness):
I own the Technical Manual of the Enterprise, and they don`t mention there would be any problems firing torpeods at warp speed against targets at sublight speed. (The torpedos are capable of causing their own warp field, by the way, though longer flights use some of the antimatter for propelling instead of exploding)

Tractor emitters and Phasers are something different, they don`t work at warp speed. (And transporter use is very dangerous)
When they rerun the episode with the agents, I will check why they rely on tractor beam and not on torpedos to "stop" the shuttle. (Maybe they didn`t want to destroy it, unless neccessary? Or maybe it was some kind of sabotage)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Orius]

I own the Technical Manual of the Enterprise, and they don`t mention there would be any problems firing torpeods at warp speed against targets at sublight speed. [snip] Tractor emitters and Phasers are something different, they don`t work at warp speed.

Theoretically, that might be how it's supposed to work, but in practice, how the weapons work vary from episode to episode on how they're used. It's more of matter of what's required for the plot. I know I've seen episodes where ships fired phasers or disruptors at warp. It's really another case of the technology being a plot devive.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Theoretically, that might be how it's supposed to work, but in practice, how the weapons work vary from episode to episode on how they're used. It's more of matter of what's required for the plot. I know I've seen episodes where ships fired phasers or disruptors at warp. It's really another case of the technology being a plot devive.

Actually, they seem to have been pretty consistent in some of these aspects. I can`t remember Starfleet ships firing phasers at Warp speed, at least not without them having to rely on some techbabble to first make it work. But I remember that this doesn`t apply for the new series Enterprise. Maybe this can be handwaved away with it not being "real phasers" but some kind of "phase cannons" that work not identically to phasers.
But you are probably right when you say that sometimes they seem to ignore some facts from the book. (Though I can`t name any scene now where I really saw this kind of inconsistency)

Oh, but just some corrections and additional data from the book:
Torpedos have a range of 3,500,000 km (not 1,500,000 as I wrote earlier), and it can be increased if the antimatter/matter onboard is used for the engines instead of the final explosion. The typical warhead yields 1.5 kg antimatter (the explosion should be comparable to at least some tactical nuclear warheads. Unfortunately, I don`t know how much nuclear material is used with this kind of weapons, and how much mass is actually converted to energy).

The shields seem to be able to hold of 2.688 MW (Megawatt).
One Phaser Emitter (a phaser bank contains of several of them, but I don`t know how or if this adds up) can emit 5.1 MW (maybe someone has some comparitive figures from Babylon 5 or Starwars- Fiction, technical manuals, scenes from the show?)

Mustrum Ridcully