The Imperium of Man (pre-Horus Heresy) vs Galactic Empire (at its peak)

[Guest ricrery]

Which force would win.

 

Galactic Empire at the top of its power. With all its weapons and forces.

 

Against the

 

Imperium of Man before Horus betrayed the Imperium.

 

 

*Rules*

 

1. The Imperium can only use the Emperor if they use weapons such as the Galaxy Gun/Death Star/Sun Crusher.

 

2. The Emperor of Mankind can walk and can leave Holy Terra if he wants.

 

3. The Galactic Empire can't immediately use Hyperspace in the Milky Way unless they use probes to create a map, but the probes are a target by the Imperium.

 

4. The Imperium has to wait months to get anywhere in the Star Wars Galaxy. Therefor the Galactic Empire can setup defenses with no problems.

 

5. No Rebels/Chaos involved.

 

 

Ready? Get set... /discuss

[Guest ricrery]

Anyone?

[Guest ricrery]

Bump.

[Guest Zreth]

Bump.

Don't spam.

[Skirmisher]

The Imperium of Mankind in a wtfstomp of unbelievable proportions.

 

The Imperium has more ships, more men, more resources, higher tech and much much more tenacity... did I mention that they also have an abundance of Psykers?

 

Also I challenge the myth that Star Wars hyper drives can travel the length of the galaxy in hours or days. I have never heard nor seen conclusive data that even suggests this. From all the books that I have read it seems more like it takes weeks if not months to travel any sort of great distance within the Star Wars Galaxy.

 

I'll leave it at that to promote further discussion.

[Guest ricrery]

The Imperium of Mankind in a wtfstomp of unbelievable proportions.

 

The Imperium has more ships, more men, more resources, higher tech and much much more tenacity... did I mention that they also have an abundance of Psykers?

 

Also I challenge the myth that Star Wars hyper drives can travel the length of the galaxy in hours or days. I have never heard nor seen conclusive data that even suggests this. From all the books that I have read it seems more like it takes weeks if not months to travel any sort of great distance within the Star Wars Galaxy.

 

I'll leave it at that to promote further discussion.

 

 

The only truth is that it's faster than Warp travel.

[Skirmisher]

The only truth is that it's faster than Warp travel.

So are you saying that the Empire of Star Wars has better weapons? Better Tech? Better Ships and soldiers? That the mere handful of under-trained Darkside acolytes and the rarer still dark Jedi are better than Imperial Psykers that can literally rip platoons of soldiers apart with their minds from hundreds of kilometers away like they were ants? Your saying that Stormtroopers are better than the Dauntless and Indomitable Space Marines? Madness...

 

Let's put this into perspective!

 

In Battlefleet Gothic a Stardestroyer would rate at this:

 

 

 

Compared to Standard ships of the line such as this!:

 

[Guest Diskyr]

The Imperium wins this with ease. And The Emperor has been fighting Chaos gods all his life. What can palpatine do? Force lightning?

[Guest boston_celtics]

...

 

*insensitivity* stomp (3 guesses who)

[Guest ricrery]

So are you saying that the Empire of Star Wars has better weapons? Better Tech? Better Ships and soldiers? That the mere handful of under-trained Darkside acolytes and the rarer still dark Jedi are better than Imperial Psykers that can literally rip platoons of soldiers apart with their minds from hundreds of kilometers away like they were ants? Your saying that Stormtroopers are better than the Dauntless and Indomitable Space Marines? Madness...

 

Let's put this into perspective!

 

In Battlefleet Gothic a Stardestroyer would rate at this:

 

 

 

Compared to Standard ships of the line such as this!:

 

 

 

When did I say that? You just attacked me. I said Hyperspace was faster than Warp travel.

[Skirmisher]

When did I say that? You just attacked me. I said Hyperspace was faster than Warp travel.

You wanted a discussion, I gave you a discussion. Besides my statement was that the IOM has all the advantages, in men, ships and tech with only a speed drawback. Your reply was that the only truth in that statement was about the speed, implying that you did not think that the IOM had better ships, men or tech. Sorry if I came down heavy, but this too was a subject that I wanted to discuss and you kind of disappointed, with that small post.

 

 

Now onto the Topic at hand!

 

 

I'll leave it at that to promote further discussion.

The only truth is that it's faster than Warp travel.

I guess it didn't promote any sort of discussion as to the Speed within Star Wars, or any sort of comparative discussion... Ok, I'll lay out some of my cards.

 

#1) Bounty Hunters!

 

The Best estimate of speed that I have heard within Star Wars circles is based on the scenes within Ep:5. Where Vader had called bounty hunters to his ship in order to track down the Millennium Falcon. The assumption is that these Bounty Hunters came from all across the Galaxy and made it there in a about a day. However this doesn't take into account the fact that:

a) These bounty hunters could have and probably were already out in the fringes of the galaxy either waiting for work or already pursuing bounties that would hide in such areas, well away from the more inhabited and built up areas of the Galaxy. They more than likely wouldn't have had to travel more than 5,000 ly at the most, maybe even many times less.

Bounty Hunters would more than likely customize their ships for such things as better attack power, tougher armour and of course Faster Hyper Drives. Having a faster Hyper Drive would mean that they would spend less time flying about the galaxy looking for their targets and less time getting those targets back for their payday. This would mean that of course they would be faster than anything that the Imperial Fleet has, since it would cost many times more to include such a faster hyperdrive in more standard vessels such as Stardestroyers.

c) No time was actually given between when the call was put out and when the bounty hunters actually arrived. It started from when Vader was talking with the Emperor, they hatched a plan to try and turn Luke to the darkside, then there's a scene change to degoba, where luke convinces Yoda to train him, another scene change to the Falcon being repaired, and yet another scene change to show Luke training. Finally the Bounty Hunters arrive in the next scene after all that. An indeterminate amount of time, but one that allowed the Hyperdrive of the falcon to be fixed and time enough for Luke to get a fair amount of Training in. Now I don't know much about fixing a Hyperdrive, but I do know that they are very tricky and delicate machines, so one does not rush the job in fixing them. As well, I don't know how many people can Train for only a day and show such improvement. Improvement that could only happen with a several days

(at least)

of training.

So that would mean that those Bounty Hunters with their top of the line, tricked out hyperdrives traveled roughly 5,000 lightyears in a several days (let's say 4 average). That would put them at about 1250 lightyears per day, which is hardly the 120,000 per day estimate that I have heard thrown about. Let's assume that a non-tricked out Stardestroyer would push about 1000 light years per day.

 

 

#2) The Yuuzhan Vongs Intergalactic Journey

 

Now I'm not sure how far the Vong Galaxy was from the Star Wars Galaxy, but within our Local Group of Galaxies for the Milky Way, we see ranges of about 2.5 Mly to about 11 Mly for the distance of whole Galaxies. This journey was said to have taken them Several Millennia[1][2] to cross the void between the galaxies. So that would mean that it would have taken them approximately 2000-7000 years to cross 2,500,000-11,000,000 light years.

 

That would put their Hyperdrives at around 1ly per day to 15ly per day... quite crappy aren't they, and they're supposed to be almost as good as Republic and Imperial Hyperdrives? Now to get the kind of speeds that one would accept, the Vong Galaxy would have had to have been almost a thousand times further away, meaning well outside any sort of Local Grouping, which would mean that they must have passed up many, many other Galaxies... But wouldn't they have naturally gone for the Closest?

 

From Wookieepedia

[1]"With much of their galaxy ruined, the Yuuzhan Vong began a long trek to another galaxy in search of a new home. For a long period, perhaps millennia, the species was forced to travel through the Intergalactic Void in massive worldships. During this period, the Yuuzhan Vong nearly destroyed themselves."

 

[2]"When the Yuuzhan Vong left their galaxy, how long their voyage took, or if they even knew what their destination would be, was unknown. At least one account spoke of their journey taking at least several millennia"

 

 

Imperium Warp Travel

As for the Imperium of Man, the best estimates of Warp Travel speeds I could find were from White Dwarf issue 139/140. I have not read this myself and got these figures second hand, so take it with a grain of salt.

Average time elapsed during a warp jump

10 LY = 43-270 minutes

50 LY = 3.5-24 hours

100 LY = 7-48 hours

500 LY = 1.5-9 days

1000 LY = 3-21 days

5000 LY = 2-12 weeks

10000 LY = 1-6 months

50000 LY = 5-36 months

Here we can see the fickleness of the Warp in play, as Travel Times become more erratic the longer the trip takes. With travel speed ranging from a maximum of ~330 light years per day to a minimum of ~45 light years per day.

[Guest boston_celtics]

We all know how these discussions go. The first 10 posts all agree that the IOM or other faction will crush the Galactic Empire, and then the discussion dissolves into debating whether the EU is canon or not for 50+ posts.

 

THAT is how you debate a Star Wars match.

[Skirmisher]

We all know how these discussions go. The first 10 posts all agree that the IOM or other faction will crush the Galactic Empire, and then the discussion dissolves into debating whether the EU is canon or not for 50+ posts.

 

THAT is how you debate a Star Wars match.

Then someone starts comparing either the IOM or the Empire to the *uncreative*'s...

 

 

It's just simple mathematics, how these discussions form and grow.

[Guest Ruinus]

Also I challenge the myth that Star Wars hyper drives can travel the length of the galaxy in hours or days. I have never heard nor seen conclusive data that even suggests this. From all the books that I have read it seems more like it takes weeks if not months to travel any sort of great distance within the Star Wars Galaxy.

 

I'll leave it at that to promote further discussion.

 

Hyperdrive

"In numbers, the hyperdrive allowed travelers to traverse a galaxy spanning over 120,000 light years in only a few hours or days, the exact travel time depending on a number of factors including destination, point of origin, route, and class of hyperdrive."

 

The Imperium of Man covered the whole galaxy? I ask because I'm not too aware of most WH40K stuff, especially before the Horus Heresy.

 

BTW, I would also add that with faster FTL travel and droid spam, the GE can pick and choose it's targets at will, concentrating a large number of ships and effectively not worry about a counterattack, since the IoM would take months to reach the SW galaxy, and then even more time (since they have no Astronomicon) to get anywhere important in the SW galaxy.

[Skirmisher]

Ruinus, we meet again.

 

Ruinus said:

Hyperdrive

"In numbers, the hyperdrive allowed travelers to traverse a galaxy spanning over 120,000 light years in only a few hours or days, the exact travel time depending on a number of factors including destination, point of origin, route, and class of hyperdrive."

 

Where does it say this within Canon sources, AND with provable feats to back it up? If ships really could travel that fast then there would be no reason to Siege Planets, as (From what I've heard) it only takes one ship a "Matter of Hours" to destroy all major Civilian and Military sites on the surface. As well, if their ships really did travel that fast then the whole of the Star Wars Galaxy would have bee thoroughly mapped millennia ago, yet I have seen canon sources state that the vast majority of the galaxy still remains unmapped.

 

Think of it like this, if they were really that fast then it would take only milliseconds to travel between neighboring stars, if each star was stopped at for only one hour then the 400 billions stars could easily have been mapped twice over buy a very small cartographer force of a couple thousand persons, across the entire history of the Old Republic.It really doesn't take much time to just get to a system, take a picture, run some basic scans and move on... Yet according to CANON sources they have not done this, not even came close. I have heard of Cartographer like division of various governments who have had access to much more resources than I have stated necessary. Yet still the vast majority of the galaxy goes uncharted.

 

 

Ruinus said:

The Imperium of Man covered the whole galaxy? I ask because I'm not too aware of most WH40K stuff, especially before the Horus Heresy.

Vary early in the history of 40K was the whole galaxy settled. Then apparently human built AI's turned on everyone, and most of the Galaxy was divided by extremely powerful warp storms. The Emperor then created the Space Marines and re-conquered most of the Galaxy before Horus turned. The farthest point in the Imperium is the worlds controlled by the Ultramarines in the Ultima Segmentum. I have heard reports of it only taking ships roughly a year to reach such distances, however the warp is a fickle creature.

 

 

Ruinus said:

BTW, I would also add that with faster FTL travel and droid spam, the GE can pick and choose it's targets at will, concentrating a large number of ships and effectively not worry about a counterattack, since the IoM would take months to reach the SW galaxy, and then even more time (since they have no Astronomicon) to get anywhere important in the SW galaxy.

False

 

Navigators do need the Astronomican to travel but ships aren't limited by that.

Quote

Two types of jump can be made, a calculated jump and a piloted jump.

 

Calculated jumps rely on the warp maintaining a constant stability during the jump, and short movements can be made without the need of a Navigator as the warp engines have a mechanical version built in. This is good enough for short jumps but on longer jumps it is too dangerous as they encounter changes in the currents of the warp.

 

Piloted jumps are much more efficient as they use the psychic powers of the Navigator. These special mutants can literally see the warp and make use of the Astronomican, guiding the ship from warp current to warp current. This allows for much safer and longer jumps.

So, they would have to make many more jumps, but the shorter the distance the less instability with travel, which makes it actually faster to travel that way, and somewhat safer.

 

Besides, The Emperor himself can act as a miniature Beacon for the Fleets on any sort of Conquest of the Star Wars Galaxy.

 

 

As well, Any sort of Orbital Defense would be more than enough to shrug off all but the most determined attacks from the Empire, requiring numerous Stardestroyers to even assail one platform, with many, many destroyed or crippled ships left behind. The only battles the Empire could win against the IOM is if they were to out number them by a hundred to one, and that would never happen.

 

 

Figures on the ACTUAL (not theoretical) strength of the Star Wars Empire: This is an actual quotable source, it states that over the Life of the Empire, from when Palpatine took power to when the report was read some decades after his death, the Empire only produced 25,000 star destroyers. That's everything from the old Venators all the way up to the newest of the new Imperial Mk-II's and Super Stardestroyers. However this is only the number produced, and does not take into account the number of ships lost do to battle, to accidents, to sabotage, to age, to mothballing, etc. Reducing the number of ACTUAL WORKING SHIPS to only a fraction of that.

 

 

Compare this to the IOM, One small sector covers between 100 to 200 inhabited star systems. Each sector is protected by no less than a full 200 ship fleet that is usually spread out on patrol. There are uncounted hundreds of thousands of sectors in the Galaxy under the thumb of the IOM. That's just the Defense Fleets, there are still the fleets that do patrols of multiple sectors, and the special built fleets that are to reinforce hotzones. Not to mention the fact that that's ONLY the Imperial Fleets... there are still the innumerable fleets of the Space Marines as well as the Black Ships of the Inquisition. And all of this is AFTER they lost more than Half of their Fleets to Chaos in the Horus Heresy. This puts the battle Before they lost all of that.

 

I would expect that half the Primarchs would stay behind to guard the Milky Way, with Horus being given the title of Warmaster leading the defense of the Milky Way. The Emperor himself would lead the rest of the Primarchs and their fleets into the Star Wars Galaxy. They would meet little to no resistance when they do get there.

[Guest Ruinus]

Ruinus, we meet again.

 

Hey there Skirmisher, how have you been?

 

Where does it say this within Canon sources, AND with provable feats to back it up?

 

A New Hope: pg. 118 softcover:

"Navigation computer calculates our arrival in Alderaan orbit at oh two hundred."

 

This, from the very first movie, shows that travel from the Outer Rim to the Core takes less than a day.

 

Map, Tatooine is near the bottom, Alderaan is near the core. Both fall near the yellow marked trade route.

 

If ships really could travel that fast then there would be no reason to Siege Planets, as (From what I've heard) it only takes one ship a "Matter of Hours" to destroy all major Civilian and Military sites on the surface.

 

Planets are seiged when they have planetary shield generators, which makes a bombardment useless unless you have a torpedo sphere then you had to sit around and either sabotage the planetary shields or sit there for however long it took to bring them down by force.

 

As well, if their ships really did travel that fast then the whole of the Star Wars Galaxy would have bee thoroughly mapped millennia ago, yet I have seen canon sources state that the vast majority of the galaxy still remains unmapped.

 

I assume you are talking about the Unknown Regions?

"The Unknown Regions could be broadly defined as areas not connected with the skein of reliable or well-known hyperspace routes spanning the galaxy, did not look to Coruscant as the ultimate center of civilization, or were not under the broad hegemony of the Galactic Republic before the Galactic Civil War—but the full reasons behind this lack of contact remain unknown."

 

Read it's definition. Not only were they not connected by trade routes (showing people didn't go there because they had little or nothing to trade) but they are called "Unknown" simply because their political affiliation is unknown.

 

Also, remember what that Jedi librarian (or whatever they are called) from Ep. II said: "If it is not in our archives it doesn't exist." Even the map that Obi-wan used to attempt to find Kamino was almost entirely complete (except for Kamino, which someone deliberately moved from the map.)

 

Force Heretic II: Refugee

"15% of the galaxy's volume was contained within the Unknown Regions"

 

Also Skirmisher, you know as well as I do that I won't let you get away with "I have seen canon sources."

 

Think of it like this, if they were really that fast then it would take only milliseconds to travel between neighboring stars, if each star was stopped at for only one hour then the 400 billions stars could easily have been mapped twice over buy a very small cartographer force of a couple thousand persons, across the entire history of the Old Republic.

 

Ignoring the technical limitations (not enough fuel to fund this operation, no monetary incentives, speeds of early FTLs) most of the galaxy was mapped already.

 

Unknown Regions overview

"The Unknown Regions comprised only a few billion stars, out of a galactic total of 400 billion. For reasons yet to be demonstrated there was a lack of reliable hyperspace routes through the region."

 

A few billion out of 400 billion. Even if that "few billion" means 20 billion that is still .05 star systems that aren't mapped. Those .05% are peanuts compared to the rest of the galaxy filled with resources, people and such. Again, I think "Unknown" refers more to their political affiliation than to "We don't know what is actually there." An analogy would be seeing an island off the coast of the USA and going "Yeah, we know the island is there, but we don't know what kind of people are there, if any."

[Guest Ruinus]

Vary early in the history of 40K was the whole galaxy settled. Then apparently human built AI's turned on everyone, and most of the Galaxy was divided by extremely powerful warp storms. The Emperor then created the Space Marines and re-conquered most of the Galaxy before Horus turned. The farthest point in the Imperium is the worlds controlled by the Ultramarines in the Ultima Segmentum. I have heard reports of it only taking ships roughly a year to reach such distances, however the warp is a fickle creature.

 

Can you give me a source on this? As I said, I don't know much of WH40K, even less of the IoM's ancient history.

However, as you say, it takes a year, compared to Hyperdrive's hours or days to reach the same place.

 

Navigators do need the Astronomican to travel but ships aren't limited by that.

 

Your statement in no way contradicts mine, which was that without the Astronomican, it will be harder, since they have no reference point.

 

So, they would have to make many more jumps, but the shorter the distance the less instability with travel, which makes it actually faster to travel that way, and somewhat safer.

 

And even then you have not shown that Warp travel is comparable to Hyperspace. In fact your own calcs and the Warp table you posted already show that Hyperdrive is the faster FTL system.

 

Besides, The Emperor himself can act as a miniature Beacon for the Fleets on any sort of Conquest of the Star Wars Galaxy.

 

And yet it would still take a year to reach their own galaxy's entire lenght, or months or weeks. This still gives the GE forces ample time to attack several different planets, leave, and go and attack more.

[Guest Ruinus]

Quote

As well, Any sort of Orbital Defense would be more than enough to shrug off all but the most determined attacks from the Empire, requiring numerous Stardestroyers to even assail one platform, with many, many destroyed or crippled ships left behind.

 

Or, since even old Venator-class Star Destroyers have ranges of up to 10 light minutes, (and modern GE ships can bomb planets from outside the star system (as alluded too in The Empire Strikes Back, where Vader's plan was to bombar the Rebel base from outside the system) the ships of the GE can drop in at the far reaches of a system and bomb the IoM worlds. This is perfect for them, since they can keep moving while shooting, while the IoM cannot do the same (as a moving target, plus the distances involved and the speeds) would make a hit from that far almost impossible unless they close range.

 

Quote

Figures on the ACTUAL (not theoretical) strength of the Star Wars Empire: This is an actual quotable source, it states that over the Life of the Empire, from when Palpatine took power to when the report was read some decades after his death, the Empire only produced 25,000 star destroyers. That's everything from the old Venators all the way up to the newest of the new Imperial Mk-II's and Super Stardestroyers.

 

Prove that this is true, since this states otherwise.

Spectre of the Past

"The most recognizable symbol of the Imperial Starfleet was the Imperial-class Star Destroyer, which peaked at over twenty-five thousand vessels"

 

Also, here is someone else's argument that I saved, since it deals with the same argument you posted.

 

"RotJ novel states that the Empire is made up thousands of sectors. ? From the same G canon novel a typical sector group is 1 SSD (Com ship 6Km) and 24 ISD plus thousands of lesser war ships. ? If we take 2,0000 as a lower limit that's 2,000 SSD and 48,000 ISD with millions of lesser war ships. ?The ANH novel and movie mentions Over Sectors which Moff Tarken was over one. ?In the Black Fleet books we learn that a Over Sector is made up of 3 SSD and 60 ISD and was over 3 sectors. ?That means for Over Sectors 2,000 SSD and 40,000 ISD with millions of smaller warships. ?So for a lower limit of war ships for the Empire we have 4,000 SSD and 88,000 ISD with millions of lesser Warships. ?This is not counting roving units like Death Squadron. ?The movie RotS implies the Empire is made up of at least 6,000 sectors."

 

One way I have seen this rationalized (between, Admiral Palleon (the one who originally said the GE had only 25,000 Imperators) and the numbers gained from adding up all the ISDs stated using Sector Numbers) is that either:

 

A: The ISDs attached to sector groups are not part of the Imperial Navy. The Imperial Navy being a group used for attac, while the Sector groups are used for defense of sectors.

 

B: Admiral Palleon did not know what he was talking about. He had no accurate information about the actual numbers involved or he mispoke.

 

Both seem reasonable to me.

 

The Galactic Empire's territory at its peak consisted of over one million member and conquered worlds and fifty million colonies, protectorates, governorships, and puppet states streching throughout the entire galaxy stretching from the borders of the Deep Core to Wild Space.

[Guest Ruinus]

Compare this to the IOM, One small sector covers between 100 to 200 inhabited star systems. Each sector is protected by no less than a full 200 ship fleet that is usually spread out on patrol. There are uncounted hundreds of thousands of sectors in the Galaxy under the thumb of the IOM. That's just the Defense Fleets, there are still the fleets that do patrols of multiple sectors, and the special built fleets that are to reinforce hotzones. Not to mention the fact that that's ONLY the Imperial Fleets... there are still the innumerable fleets of the Space Marines as well as the Black Ships of the Inquisition. And all of this is AFTER they lost more than Half of their Fleets to Chaos in the Horus Heresy. This puts the battle Before they lost all of that.

 

Again, the faster FTL on the GE side means that they can attack the poorly defended star systems. While the IoM moves it's fleets to counter attack, the GE simply leaves, and attack the newly undefended star systems who's defenders just left.

 

I would expect that half the Primarchs would stay behind to guard the Milky Way, with Horus being given the title of Warmaster leading the defense of the Milky Way. The Emperor himself would lead the rest of the Primarchs and their fleets into the Star Wars Galaxy. They would meet little to no resistance when they do get there.

 

And again, how long would it take for these IoM ships to get there? Months? A year? Several?

During all this time the GE can constript or grow trillions of soldiers, churn out quintillions of war droids (like the CIS did during the Clone Wars) or build billions of ISDs.

 

You are severly misunderstanding the issue of response times and travel times.

 

Sorry about the multiple posts, it seems I can't put lots of quotes in a single reply?

[Guest Ruinus]

Gah! Forgot to add this.

 

There are uncounted hundreds of thousands of sectors in the Galaxy under the thumb of the IOM

 

Astrography of the Galactic Empire

"The Galactic Empire's territory at its peak consisted of over one million member and conquered worlds and fifty million colonies, protectorates, governorships, and puppet states streching throughout the entire galaxy stretching from the borders of the Deep Core to Wild Space."

 

Also the Shadows of the Empire sourcebook states that the Empire controlled billions of worlds. Not unreasonable, given they are the superpower amongst 400 billion stars.

[Skirmisher]

Gwagh?!?! Too many different posts and soooo much information to filter...

 

 

Ruinus said:

Hey there Skirmisher, how have you been?

Good, you?

 

Ruinus said:

A New Hope: pg. 118 softcover:

"Navigation computer calculates our arrival in Alderaan orbit at oh two hundred."

 

This, from the very first movie, shows that travel from the Outer Rim to the Core takes less than a day.

 

Map, Tatooine is near the bottom, Alderaan is near the core. Both fall near the yellow marked trade route.

Is there anymore context to that quote? Besides, GL isn't the best author I've read, and even the best ones mistakenly leave information out. Or just don't care. Or pare down stuff to help the flow of the story "fit".

 

So they were going to arrive at Alderanne at "0200", what day? It could just be GL showing off how accurate his computers are identifying the exact time at which they were to arrive down to the hour. Now if the quote went more like "Navigation computer calculates our arrival in Alderaan orbit in XX hours" then I'd believe it for what it was.

 

Ruinus said:

Planets are seiged when they have planetary shield generators, which makes a bombardment useless unless you have a torpedo sphere then you had to sit around and either sabotage the planetary shields or sit there for however long it took to bring them down by force.

Yet during the Outer Rim sieges when Courescant was being attacked they were too distant to return IIRC. Even if they didn't want to leave because the CIS might escape they could have left just a single Stardestroyer in orbit and sat there like a watchdog for what, the couple of hours that the rest of the Fleet would have been busy defending the Capitol Planet?

 

Ruinus said:

I assume you are talking about the Unknown Regions?

"The Unknown Regions could be broadly defined as areas not connected with the skein of reliable or well-known hyperspace routes spanning the galaxy, did not look to Coruscant as the ultimate center of civilization, or were not under the broad hegemony of the Galactic Republic before the Galactic Civil War; but the full reasons behind this lack of contact remain unknown."

 

Read it's definition. Not only were they not connected by trade routes (showing people didn't go there because they had little or nothing to trade) but they are called "Unknown" simply because their political affiliation is unknown.

You forgot the first part...

"The Unknown Regions, Unknown Space, Unknown Sector, or Unknown Territories was the collective term for all regions of the galaxy not formally charted it differed from Wild Space in that Wild Space was usually minimally charted"

 

Here's another one from the Wild Space article

"Wild Space differed from the Unknown Regions in that some of Wild Space has been explored, though not extensively; whereas the Unknown Regions remained mostly unexplored."

[Skirmisher]

Also, remember what that Jedi librarian (or whatever they are called) from Ep. II said: "If it is not in our archives it doesn't exist." Even the map that Obi-wan used to attempt to find Kamino was almost entirely complete (except for Kamino, which someone deliberately moved from the map.)

Lot's of people can be conceded and her implied statement that the Library held EVERYTHING is hyperbole. As well, a Star can still be considered in the charts of a Library just by observing it with a Telescope. Just because We have mapped a good number of stars doesn't mean that We are able to actually get to them with any kind of speed.

 

Force Heretic II: Refugee

"15% of the galaxy's volume was contained within the Unknown Regions"

Still though, that's on top of the nearly uncharted Wild Space, which covers a bigger amount of the galaxy and the vague, obscure and frontierish Outer Rim. That all adds up to a fair amount of uncharted % of the Galaxy.

 

Ignoring the technical limitations (not enough fuel to fund this operation, no monetary incentives, speeds of early FTLs) most of the galaxy was mapped already.

 

Unknown Regions overview

"The Unknown Regions comprised only a few billion stars, out of a galactic total of 400 billion. For reasons yet to be demonstrated there was a lack of reliable hyperspace routes through the region."

 

A few billion out of 400 billion. Even if that "few billion" means 20 billion that is still .05 star systems that aren't mapped. Those .05% are peanuts compared to the rest of the galaxy filled with resources, people and such. Again, I think "Unknown" refers more to their political affiliation than to "We don't know what is actually there." An analogy would be seeing an island off the coast of the USA and going "Yeah, we know the island is there, but we don't know what kind of people are there, if any."

60 Billion Stars almost completely uncharted within the Unknown Regions (Going by your 15% quote)

Add in the barely explored Wild Space which by the map you've provided covers a far greater area, and you have a much higher percentage of the galaxy that goes unmapped.

 

Lets assume that Wild Space covers twice as much of the Galaxy as the UR. This one has been only inadequately explored. Assuming 50% (generous) and that's yet another 15% of the Galaxy unmapped, and another 60 Billion systems unexplored.

 

The Grand Total on that Number is 120 Billion Systems Uncharted and Unexplored... That's 30% of the Galaxy...

 

Can you give me a source on this? As I said, I don't know much of WH40K, even less of the IoM's ancient history.

However, as you say, it takes a year, compared to Hyperdrive's hours or days to reach the same place.

 

The Warp Storms and the Age of Strife

"The Age of Strife, aka the Old Night, was a destructive, anarchic and regressive time period prior to the forming of the Imperium. It followed the Dark Age of Technology, which by all accounts was an age of great prosperity.

 

There were two causes leading to the end of the Age of Technology and the beginning of the Age of Strife: the first was the sudden appearance of psykers on every human world. The second was the massive and persistent warp storms erupting around the Terran system and other parts of the galaxy."

 

The Abominable Intelligences

"Abominable Intelligence or short A.I. is a term of the Imperium respectively of the Adeptus Mechanicus for adaptive, itself-enhancing, factitious intelligence with its own consciousness (which largely parallels the original meaning of the abbreviation A.I. for Artificial Intelligence).

 

During the Dark Age of Technology such artificial intelligences rebelled against their human masters and it came to bloody wars. Since that time and by a personal decree of the Emperor himself it has been forbidden to fabricate or service those machines that are able to think and act independently."

 

And Macragge the Homeworld of the far-flung Ultramarines

note: all the space within all of those lines is the IOM, notice that only a small slice of the northern and southern parts of the Galaxy is unconquered.

[Skirmisher]

Your statement in no way contradicts mine, which was that without the Astronomican, it will be harder, since they have no reference point.

Yet the Fleet could still leapfrog through the warp without it. Magnus the Red was an exceptionally powerful psyker and the Fleets travelling outside the reach of the Astronomican could use both the Emperor and him as beacons to navigate through the warp. The Emperor could jump while Magnus stays in the material universe, and visa versa until they get where they need.

 

And even then you have not shown that Warp travel is comparable to Hyperspace. In fact your own calcs and the Warp table you posted already show that Hyperdrive is the faster FTL system.

There is no question that Hyper Space travel is faster, I never set out to prove that.

 

And yet it would still take a year to reach their own galaxy's entire lenght, or months or weeks. This still gives the GE forces ample time to attack several different planets, leave, and go and attack more.

And at each of those planets, there would be defenses that could easily cripple a handful of ships with ease, as well as Massive Shield Generators that could easily repel anything the GE throws at them. The Largest Shield Generators out there would be Battleship grade shield generators, which from the looks of it span about 8000 to 10,000 kilometers in diameter. (Battleships in Gothic use the large base to identify their shields; the large base fits over roughly a third to a half of a Earth sized planets "base" which would be about a quarter of the circumference)

 

Or, since even old Venator-class Star Destroyers have ranges of up to 10 light minutes, (and modern GE ships can bomb planets from outside the star system (as alluded too in The Empire Strikes Back, where Vader's plan was to bombar the Rebel base from outside the system) the ships of the GE can drop in at the far reaches of a system and bomb the IoM worlds. This is perfect for them, since they can keep moving while shooting, while the IoM cannot do the same (as a moving target, plus the distances involved and the speeds) would make a hit from that far almost impossible unless they close range.

I still have trouble believing that 10 light minute crap. Technically if I were in space and threw a rock, my range would be Infinite. Really, in space the actual range on any sort of weapon is infinite, so assigning a useless number on that is idiotic. They only use range values in Gothic to denote Effective Ranges, not Maximum ranges; this evens out the playing field and makes it easy to play.

 

Besides, they can have all the range in the world, but they can't really do anything with it. IOM Defense platforms are built tough, and shielded like ships of the line. One platform could easily shrug off the fire power of a small squadron of ISD's for dozens of hours or even days, allowing the Imperiums defense fleet to respond, and respond they will as the GE can't jam Psychic Communication.

 

 

Prove that this is true, since this states otherwise.

Spectre of the Past

"The most recognizable symbol of the Imperial Starfleet was the Imperial-class Star Destroyer, which peaked at over twenty-five thousand vessels"

 

Also, here is someone else's argument that I saved, since it deals with the same argument you posted.

 

"RotJ novel states that the Empire is made up thousands of sectors. ? From the same G canon novel a typical sector group is 1 SSD (Com ship 6Km) and 24 ISD plus thousands of lesser war ships. ? If we take 2,0000 as a lower limit that’s 2,000 SSD and 48,000 ISD with millions of lesser war ships. ?The ANH novel and movie mentions Over Sectors which Moff Tarken was over one. ?In the Black Fleet books we learn that a Over Sector is made up of 3 SSD and 60 ISD and was over 3 sectors. ?That means for Over Sectors 2,000 SSD and 40,000 ISD with millions of smaller warships. ?So for a lower limit of war ships for the Empire we have 4,000 SSD and 88,000 ISD with millions of lesser Warships. ?This is not counting roving units like Death Squadron. ?The movie RotS implies the Empire is made up of at least 6,000 sectors."

 

One way I have seen this rationalized (between, Admiral Palleon (the one who originally said the GE had only 25,000 Imperators) and the numbers gained from adding up all the ISDs stated using Sector Numbers) is that either:

 

A: The ISDs attached to sector groups are not part of the Imperial Navy. The Imperial Navy being a group used for attac, while the Sector groups are used for defense of sectors.

 

B: Admiral Palleon did not know what he was talking about. He had no accurate information about the actual numbers involved or he mispoke.

 

Both seem reasonable to me.

 

The Galactic Empire's territory at its peak consisted of over one million member and conquered worlds and fifty million colonies, protectorates, governorships, and puppet states streching throughout the entire galaxy stretching from the borders of the Deep Core to Wild Space.

There is a problem with that assessment of fleet strength. It's based on the theory that the GE was a their predicted peak strength. They wanted sector groups to have 1 SSD and 24 ISDs but that never happened. In fact they only ever produced about a half dozen SSDs... so does that mean that there were only about 140 to 150 ISDs in service?

 

As well, who's to say that an Oversector group was in addition to sector groups, from the numbers it just looks like three sector groups that are to be governed by one person instead of three. Or that it could be like a different rank, like a company has so many platoons in it, but doesn't consist of all the platoons that would go under it AND the platoons under it.

 

In fact I keep wondering about the fabled industrial might that is spoken of... I just haven't seen it. I read about Massive fleets... of a few dozen vessels.

 

I stop and wonder where the other 98% of that fleet went. To me it just isn't there.

[Skirmisher]

Again, the faster FTL on the GE side means that they can attack the poorly defended star systems. While the IoM moves it's fleets to counter attack, the GE simply leaves, and attack the newly undefended star systems who's defenders just left.

The problem with that is that no undefended star systems ever last that long in the IOM. They all have a myriad of orbital platforms or dedicated non-navy system ships and defence monitors that would be more than a match for a couple Stardestroyers. They could easily hold out for days against such an inferior foe, that has no choice but to use ineffective hit and run attacks. That would easily allow for an Actual Navy Fleet presence to show up in system and chase away the offending rabble of small ships.

 

 

And again, how long would it take for these IoM ships to get there? Months? A year? Several?

During all this time the GE can constript or grow trillions of soldiers, churn out quintillions of war droids (like the CIS did during the Clone Wars) or build billions of ISDs.

 

You are severly misunderstanding the issue of response times and travel times.

 

Sorry about the multiple posts, it seems I can't put lots of quotes in a single reply?

They can conscript all they want... then those conscripts would have second thoughts and they might even rebel. Droids? Yet, they would be mowed down faster than you could "say what?". There's another instance of that magical warmachine that the GE supposedly has, but never has shown... Billions of ISDs, well that's 3.88 Billion credits per ship... factor in the cost of paying the crews... their meals... the cost of the supply ships for those meals the cost of the pay for the supply ships crews... Wow, you just broke the Empire! Well they could always print more Imperial Credits to bail out the military, wait that s*** don't work.

 

Mean while the IOM doesn't have that problem, the Military gets what they need, and the people happily give it to them for free.

 

Besides, if you build that many ships in such a short while there are bound to be malfunctions and other gremlins hopping about them, not to mention how Green their crews would be, as well as the general disorganisation of expanding the military by a few hundred million percent overnight. Then you have the possibility that many of those conscripted captains go rouge and decide to defect and avoid putting their necks on the line.

 

You have utter Chaos reign in the Star Wars Galaxy as the Emperor and his fleets hop, skip and jump their way towards their target.

[Skirmisher]

extra post... sorry.

 

Edit: found a use for this one...

 

 

 

Conscription of Trillions of soldiers... manufacturing Quintillions of war droids... and building billions of ISDs...

 

Let's say that yes they raise that big of an army... What are they going to fight with? It would be easy if they all had weapons like a Lasgun that only needs energy to work, but Blaster and their larger cousins the Turbolasers need more than energy to work. They need blaster gas, a substance that even with current mining operations still can't supply every sentient in the galaxy with enough gas to have even a bottom of the bucket variety blaster. Whats worse is that the Blasters that are made to conserve blaster gas are weak compared to the ones that don't. Worse than Lasguns I'd say about a Blaster... Then again they could do something like the Russians in Stalingrad "The First one has the Gun, the Second one has the Ammo. When the First one dies, the one with the ammo picks up the gun"... hell of a way to fight a war...

 

But don't you see? The best a Blaster can get is to be compared to a Lasgun... The Imperial guard are all equipped with Lasguns as standard issue weapons... and it is said that a Single Space Marine would find it only moderately difficult to decimate a single IG regiment. And there are how many hundreds of thousands of Space Marines on their way in this new Crusade? Let's see, The Emperor himself with 10 of his sons... Each with a Legion of Space Marines under their Command, supported by the innumerable armies of the IG that follow in their wake to secure systems.

 

Numbers on the Strength of Space Marine Legions vary, but my guesstimate is that they probably had a standing strength in the range of 10,000 to 20,000 Space Marines. As after the Heresy, Legions were to be split into chapters of a 1000 Marines in ten companies. After their ranks were decimated by the Heresy, they were still able to split up into about a dozen chapters each.

 

So that would be about 165,000 Space Marines, each with the ability to wipe out 1000 regular men each with little trouble. Then there's their equipment and tanks, Terminator Armour and heavier weapons than just a bolter...

 

 

For Fleet strength there is the fact that Each Chapter of Space Marines has access to three or more Battle Barges according to BFG source books. That means that that massive crusade would have at least 500+ Battle Barges each one more than strong enough to gut an SSD in minutes. Along with them there are the numerous Strike Cruisers that I would say would number at least 5:1 against Battle Barges giving a number of around 2500... then the many hundreds of thousands of smaller frigates and destroyers that are each easily an able match an ISD. On top of the Regular Imperial Fleets that would Flock around the Emperor and try to get in on the Crusade. Literally thousands of Battleships each almost a match for a Space Marine Battle Barge, ten times that in Imperial Cruisers, and another ten times that in smaller escorts, that like their Space Marine counterparts would be able to easily match an ISD in battle. The there are the 1200 or so Ramilies class star forts that each on it's own would spell the doom of any planet foolish enough to try and hide behind even a double Planetary shield. These massive, moving fortifications of space have enough firepower to literally control an entire star system, and defend it from all but the most powerful and overwhelming of attacks.

 

Think of it like this, you may have a billion ships, but if every battle you loose hundreds or thousands to my one or two, then who wins in the long run? I can comfortably say that I would expect the IOM to effectively be able to deal with tens of billions of ISDs with this size of fleet.