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Phantoon

I cuss you bad
I don't remember where I read it, but during a discussion about who would win in a fight between Worf and Boba Fett, it was suggested that they would probably find some way to both lose.
At least they'd make it to the fight. Phasma would probably get stuck in the turbolift
 
No idea what Trek natives could do against a Clone Wars cartoon Jedi, though. Those guys pull starships out of orbit.
Psychic/Psionic power is a thing in Star Trek, and it works within the franchise's concept of physics, so it's also something they can measure with science and employ countermeasures against or figure out the logistics of and then work around its blind spots.

On a similar note, there’s like, one space wizard in Trek and he’s an ass
Theres a whole whack of Space Wizards in Wars and they’re usually asses
Ya there's tons of space wizards in Star Trek, only some of them are assholes. (The Wizards of Megas Tu stand out as pretty dope dudes.) But on average they completely outclass Jedi. Take for instance, that one time space wizards caused a galactic wide extinction event for all life more complicated than basic chordata.

If you're allowed to have Star Trek technobabble get involved in this then Vader's allowed to force choke Picard from across a comlink
The minute that began to happen though, Worf would use the transporter to just transport Vader's head off of his body into space.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
There wouldn't be time for that, Vader could rip everyone's head off on the bridge, if that's what you're going for. He'd read Worf really easily. Also, the Force works through shields. Transporters don't.
 
There wouldn't be time for that
Sure there would be. Vader loves dramatics and also underestimating his adversaries. He let the Death Star plans get away because he wanted to take his time slowly torturing all the dudes getting in the way of him instead of just getting shit done.

Also, the Force works through shields. Transporters don't.
Except for when they do, which is actually all the time.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Are we talking personalities or power levels here? Because there's no Star Trek answer to a Sith. Transporter locks are terrible and take ages when it's nice and dramatic. While they're faffing around trying to tweak the phase variance they're getting torn to shreds.
"Star Trek has psionics, they'll science their way out of this!" How long do they have? The Jedi and Sith have the sentient life force of an entire galaxy behind them, and can strike from across a galaxy using their untrackable and unchaseable tech. Good luck with the science!
 
Because there's no Star Trek answer to a Sith.
Sure there is, and one of the many/basic answers is that it's the same answer in the Star Wars universe: get your own force user to help you

Transporter locks are terrible and take ages when it's nice and dramatic.
That's because they're trying to do a successful transport. In this scenario, a 'successful' transport doesn't really care if you get the person out whole and in one piece.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
That's because they're trying to do a successful transport. In this scenario, a 'successful' transport doesn't really care if you get the person out whole and in one piece.

Yeah, I figure brute-forcing a transporter through shields or without a proper lock would get you whatever happened to the poor saps from The Motion Picture, so technically you could just do it on purpose... if the situation is dire enough to disavow your ethics.
 
Something that always amuses me is the meta context of these hypothetical fan duels of Trek vs Wars. It's always the good guys in Trek, vs the bad guys in Star Wars. And that's always out of necessity because if Captain Sisko faced off against Han Solo, they'd peacefully resolve any differences over some booze at Quark's and you wouldn't get your hypothetical nerd fight. But it's such a weird thing because it forces Star Wars nerds to line up behind and proudly defend the honor and capacity of... Space Nazis? Meanwhile, if we made this a baddies vs baddies thing, Star Trek baddies like the Borg, or Q, or the Jem'Hadar, or V'Ger, or even the Romulans would wipe the Empire off the galactic map with very little effort. The goodies in Star Trek keep besting these terrifying, overwhelming, existential threats. Why would the Galactic Empire be any different?
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
I think people prefer to use the SW baddies because, Sith especially, they would use everything in their power to defeat their opponents, whereas the Alliance and the Jedi would likely try to negotiate, understand, or mind-read/trick first. And for the other side, we're more familiar with the cleverness and wit of the good guys because they're the ones we follow around, and they tend to have out-of-the-box solutions to insurmountable difficulties.

That said, do the Borg have any defense against the Force, light or dark?
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
Part of the aesthetic of Star Trek is that everything works logically and is reducible to material principles, even if those principles are kinda made up, and understanding those principles better and applying them more creatively leads to progress. The invention of new technology creates new social possibilities, which a sufficiently wise culture might use to escape from ancient dilemmas.

In Star Wars, there is no progress. The fundamental capabilities of the machines remain the same. There are local design improvements that make them more optimized for a specific use case, but at the end of the day culture drives technology and not the other way around, and the culture is an allegory.

So it depends on the kind of story you want to tell. If it's a Trek-like story, the Federation could interpret the sociopolitical dynamics of the Republic or the Empire as analogous to a period of their own history, and apply an analogous insight to exploit their technology in a way they can't anticipate and thereby position themselves outside of their normal systems of control. If it's a Wars-like story, then the Federation is simply a political faction with enough strength to assert its independence from rival powers, but not enough to challenge a hegemonic superpower, and their high-minded ideals may prove a liability.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Something that always amuses me is the meta context of these hypothetical fan duels of Trek vs Wars. It's always the good guys in Trek, vs the bad guys in Star Wars. And that's always out of necessity because if Captain Sisko faced off against Han Solo, they'd peacefully resolve any differences over some booze at Quark's and you wouldn't get your hypothetical nerd fight. But it's such a weird thing because it forces Star Wars nerds to line up behind and proudly defend the honor and capacity of... Space Nazis? Meanwhile, if we made this a baddies vs baddies thing, Star Trek baddies like the Borg, or Q, or the Jem'Hadar, or V'Ger, or even the Romulans would wipe the Empire off the galactic map with very little effort. The goodies in Star Trek keep besting these terrifying, overwhelming, existential threats. Why would the Galactic Empire be any different?
Because the Rebels wouldn't fight the Federation, and there's no point in fighting any of the villains from Star Trek because they're fundamentally pretty dull unlike the Empire. Well, the Borg are OK, but they aren't representative. Also the Empire had the weapons tech that's more easily understood because they like to show it off. Almost all of Star Trek is seen from the Federation perspective.

Also you forget that the Empire is the existential threat. At the end of episode 9 every single Star Destroyer has a planet cracking weapon (which I hate, but here we are). Unlike the atom bomb The Final Order / Empire would absolutely use it. They annihilated a populated planet once for no reason. They destroyed four (?) planets from across a galaxy through hyperspace. The Federation couldn't fight the First Order because it would be wiped out without a declaration of war, using weapons that can't be defended against.

The problem with all this "the Federation will reverse engineer the Force" nonsense is that it buys into the Star Trek understanding of science, which is effectively magic with made up sciency terms. The Force is actual magic, its practitioners are dismissed as wizards. Data et al can make up physics all day, it won't help. It also ties into the bit of Trek that annoys me. It's supposed to use sci-fi to explore the human condition, not tell stories where made up [SCIENCE] fixes the made up [SCIENCE]. There's no story there. Also that when they do this it's always fixable with equipment that they already have, without any experimentation or prototyping. To misquote Finn, science doesn't work like that.
 
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there's no point in fighting any of the villains from Star Trek because they're fundamentally pretty dull unlike the Empire.
Big YMMV territory right here. The Empire is literally just Nazis in Space. People like them IMO for their cool drip, moustache twirling, and ability to unreservedly hate them without feeling guilty about it. That's pretty boring to me. Meanwhile Klingons are basically just Vikings in Space. Which seems pretty cool to me, and at least as cool as Nazis in Space. And that's just one faction among hundreds.

I'd also argue that the ability to 'easily understand' the capacity of Trek villains is probably easier than it is for Star Wars, since the body of canon in Star Trek dwarfs that of Star Wars, and you just have more frequent look at technical aspects of things. But that would also ask a Star Wars fan to watch 800+ episodes of Star Trek so that's probably not going to happen most of the time.

Also you forget that the Empire is the existential threat. At the end of episode 9 every single Star Destroyer has a planet cracking weapon (which I hate, but here we are). Unlike the atom bomb The Final Order / Empire would absolutely use it. They annihilated a populated planet once for no reason. They destroyed four (?) planets from across a galaxy through hyperspace. The Federation couldn't fight the First Order because it would be wiped out without a declaration of war, using weapons that can't be defended against.
If the ragtag remnants of the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic can band together to choke that threat in the cradle, why wouldn't the UFP be able to do so? Every moderately sized 24th Century Federation Starship has planet-cracking technology as well as a default, I don't really see why the UFP would be outmatched in this scenario. And most core worlds have planetary defense grids and shields that can effortlessly repel most weapons fire from the stray ship that comes into orbit looking to cause problems.

It also ties into the bit of Trek that annoys me. It's supposed to use sci-fi to explore the human condition, not tell stories where made up [SCIENCE] fixes the made up [SCIENCE]. There's no story there.
Also another very YMMV perspective. This formula that doesn't work for you, works extremely well for me. Because IMO there IS a story there, and it explores the fundamental basis of human nature.

Human beings are inherently afraid of the unknown. It's a survival instinct hard coded into our DNA to keep us alive. Having the unknown fly at us and imperil our lives is terrifying stuff. And it's very easy for people to give into terror or existential dread. But human nature also encompasses a curiosity and drive to understand. Figuring shit out is also a survival instinct that's just as much a part of who we are. And if we foster that drive, hone it, and don't let fear cloud our judgment, we can overcome fear and whatever unknown obstacles lay in our paths by making the unknown known, and sussing out how to neutralize those scary obstacles.

Like, to me, that is THE fundamental story of the human condition. These stories captured and enthralled my imagination as a kid and helped form my worldview. And I find this repeating story of the human condition a lot more interesting, meaningful, and meaty than The Hero's Journey. Because in reality, only a small number of people get to become epic heroic figures, but we can all find ways to contribute to the advancement of humanity/society in our lives.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Fear of the unknown is indeed part of the human condition, but "whoops we went at infinite speed and now Paris is a newt" isn't it. Those are the stories that I can't stand, and too many Star Trek episodes suffer from made up problem with no applicability to anything any human will ever face, ever. Whereas something like Duet, which is about the scars left by war and the degree of culpability somebody has who lived under a fascist government has is brilliant beyond words. It's the strength of good sci-fi. Battlestar Galactica told the story of the American occupation of Iraq with the Cylons as the Americans and got away with it while it was still happening.

Star Wars isn't about the Hero's Journey. The Hero's Journey is the structure, not the story. It's about faith, and never giving up against insurmountable odds. It's about how the only way to break the cycle of violence is to refuse to repeat the mistakes of past generations. It also has a surprisingly accurate view into the last days of a democracy. It's also a silly thing with space wizards and ridiculously over the top hardware, which is why it's awesome.

Which makes all of this argument about who'd win in a fight pretty antithetical to both series.

Anyway, how are the Klingons even supposed to work? One of the duties of the first officer is to assassinate his captain when he becomes weak or unfit. How do they manage to achieve anything? How is there such a thing as a Klingon scientist? How do you get a Klingon out of a bar room fight and get him to sit at a console for hours?
 

muteKi

Geno Cidecity
People write off the Holiday Special too quickly, to be honest. It's a made-for-TV movie that answers the most important question that all of us spend all our waking moments thinking of, I'm sure, which is, "What would the Muppet Show be like if Kermit and Co. were trying to hide from fascist state agents?"
 

Trar

Grilling
(he | him)
I posted the 40k picture as a joke but since it spawned a bit of discussion...

40k is definitely over the top and was meant (at least at first) to be satirical, and the Imperium of Man is a fascist hellhole whose only claim to being "good" is that they're fighting against enemies even more awful than they are. There's definitely shitty people who don't seem to Get It, or people who seem to think that the Imperium being a bit less awful than the rest means they're totally right.

But there's a surprising amount of lore novels written in its universe that try to humanize the little people in the setting, or show how crushingly awful life in the Imperium usually is. Well, that or it's space marines fighting eldritch abominations and hordes of aliens that exist just to eat things. Something striking is that the Imperium is said to number in the millions of worlds, with all kinds of varying levels of control and technological development. Some planets are medieval, some are like the real world, and some are more like the infamous hive cities or totalitarian dictatorships 40k is known for. There's a guy who made a 1 hour 45 minute long video about life on a hive world, kinda crazy really.

What makes the setting interesting to me is that while Star Trek is set, like, 400 years into the future, 40k is...well, 40,000 years into the future. It's more or less stated a few times that the 40k universe is the aftermath of a Trek-like universe, something that descended into war and brutality after the fall of a more peaceful society. All the zippy supertechnology and peaceful ways of the past have been forgotten, and now there's only war waged with industrial machinery that has guns bolted to it.

Also on the topic of military capabilities, the Imperium of Man has trillions of soldiers, a whole bunch of stupidly powerful space marines, and planet killing weapons - and they're barely holding the line. I don't know a lot about Star Trek's bad guys but I imagine the Imperium could at least hold its own against the Galactic Empire.
 

Felicia

Power is fleeting, love is eternal
(She/Her)
My big problem with the 40k setting is that most of the time, for all its talk of being a satire, the Imperium is portrayed as a "necessary evil". I mean, in a universe where actual demons can break through into reality and cause planetary-wide destruction if a single human mutant loses concenration for a moment, and where there are secret cults that physically alters its members to be fanatically devoted to summoning planet-devouring alien insects, a certain paranoia and surveliance seems necessary for humanity's survival. And since there are several very prolific alien species who apparently exist only for warfare, who can't be negotiated with in any way, there is a need for a pretty sizeable standing army, and a focus on producing weapons over peactime necessities. And since apparently most of the galaxy's non-human population, aside from the Tau and maybe the craftworld Eldar, are huge assholes, it's understandable why humanity has become quite xenophobic.

It also seems very rare that the fiction suggests that the Imperium is somehow the cause of any of these threats (most of the things that caused the universe to be such a hellhole happened thousands or millions of years before the Imperium even existed), or that there is any better solution than what it's currently doing (you can't negotiate or create any long-term peaceful situation with Orks, Tyranids or Chaos, as far as I can tell). So Games Workshop has basically set up a universe where humanity can only survive through a fascist, xenophobic and religiously fanatic necrocracy, and anyone who tries anything else inevitably ends up getting eaten by demons.

Well, I guess the tech-priests are the exception. They really do seem like humans that could make the universe a better place if they'd start doing things differently. But even they often get eaten by demons when they try to invent new stuff instead of just churning out more of the same old stuff.
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
I'm not sure that's correct? It's somewhat implied the utopian human society pre-collapse basically beat the crap out of any and everyone who tried to start shit with humanity. GW has never really been interested in that portion of the setting outside letting people write novels about plucky Space Marine crews finding deserted hulks run by AIs from that period or tracking repositories of old tech. What little bits of setting material you get for old humanity basically paints them as technocratic libertarians who only cared about pushing the boundaries of science and who decentralized everything because FTL travel was easy and risk free.
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
I mean, GW basically lifted whole chunks of Frank Herbert's Dune to create the world of 40K.
 
Also on the topic of military capabilities, the Imperium of Man has trillions of soldiers, a whole bunch of stupidly powerful space marines, and planet killing weapons - and they're barely holding the line. I don't know a lot about Star Trek's bad guys but I imagine the Imperium could at least hold its own against the Galactic Empire.
If a rag tag group of rebels can take down the Empire (twice!) then pretty much anyone can.

Star Trek baddies run the gamut from space garbage men who like to dump their waste irresponsibly, to immortal and omnipotent gods that can blink everything and everyone out of existence on the smallest of whims. So it really depends on who you're going up against. Your standard Local Space baddies like Romulans, Klingons, etc would probably get overwhelmed by sheer numbers. But the Borg or Species 8472 would make lunch outta the Imperium. The Borg in particular would easily prey on them. Since their civilization is completely stagnant and doesn't grow or seek advancements of any kind, you just gotta let a Borg assimilate a few people with knowledge or one of those ugly ships and it's all over.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Anyway, how are the Klingons even supposed to work? One of the duties of the first officer is to assassinate his captain when he becomes weak or unfit. How do they manage to achieve anything? How is there such a thing as a Klingon scientist? How do you get a Klingon out of a bar room fight and get him to sit at a console for hours?

You punch him often enough, so that he finally comes and sits down. If you aren't stronger than your crewman, you aren't a capable Klingon captain.

A bit more serious, the Klingons we see, starting in Enterprise, are a people who are beyond their prime. There is an Enterprise episode, where we learn that stuff like art and science was once highly valued, but that the horrible culture of honor and warriors has slowly but steadily eaten away at the moral core of the Empire. They became an Empire when they were at their peak. What we see is it falling apart, because everyone is obsessed with honor and death.
 

Felicia

Power is fleeting, love is eternal
(She/Her)
This is all assuming they’d fight one another.

What if everyone were friends?
Hm, let's have a think, who would get along among Trek and 40k factions?

The Federation might have som reservations about the Tau, but I'm sure they could negotiate a deal that makes both sides mostly happy.

The Klingons would probably get along famously with the Space Wolves, and maybe some of the more brutal Klingons would give the Khorne thing a try.

On the one hand, the Adeptus Mechanicus would view the Borg as heretical alien technology, but in many ways, the Borg are everything your average Tech-Priest dreams about being. I imagine that the Borg would be quite sucessful if they tried to infiltrate the Mechanicus, since nobody would be able to tell the difference when it comes to appearance.

The Vulcans and the Craftworld Eldar... now this is interesting. It seems like the Eldar as a species is dealing with a similar problem as the Vulcans, extremely intense emotions and passions that need to be kept in check, especially due to widespread psychic powers. But instead of trying to supress their passions completely, the Eldar focus them into one particular pursuit at a time, trying to perfect it before moving on to the next. It would be interesting to see how the Vulcans would react to that, maybe some of them would even want to try it out.
 

Purple

(She/Her)
Klingon Culture is basically what if MAGA culture kept progressing unimpeded for centuries.
I strongly disagree.

curzon-my-beloved-old-friend-im-jadzia-now-jadzia-my-32613436.png


Meanwhile the biggest problem with fascism in 40k isn't in the lore, it's in the fanbase. Which they apparently realized enough to unceremoniously nuke their own forums over it, and yet keep throwing more food to.
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
But the Borg or Species 8472 would make lunch outta the Imperium. The Borg in particular would easily prey on them. Since their civilization is completely stagnant and doesn't grow or seek advancements of any kind, you just gotta let a Borg assimilate a few people with knowledge or one of those ugly ships and it's all over.
Doubtful.

The Imperium intentionally sows ignorance into its society specifically to combat infiltration by malicious forces external or internal. I suspect the Borg might assimilate enough Imperial citizens to accomplish A Thing, but little else. Furthermore, the Imperium is so decentralized that it often takes literal centuries for interstellar logistics to accomplish anything. The Borg would also find that a conflict with the Imperium to be a war of attrition, since pretty much all Imperial citizens are trained from a young age to be ready to fight. The Imperium also embraces the use of a range of weaponry, unlike Star Trek civilizations who rely so heavily on an energy-based arsenal. Everything from simple clubs and axes to chainswords, or ballistic projectile weapons like stubbers or bolters. Even the mighty meltagun would quickly reduce Borg to hissing black puddles, and you may scoff at this, but put a Borg drone in a microwave and no personal forcefield in the world would stop them from getting boiled like a potato.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
A bit more serious, the Klingons we see, starting in Enterprise, are a people who are beyond their prime. There is an Enterprise episode, where we learn that stuff like art and science was once highly valued, but that the horrible culture of honor and warriors has slowly but steadily eaten away at the moral core of the Empire. They became an Empire when they were at their peak. What we see is it falling apart, because everyone is obsessed with honor and death.
This is fascinating, and makes me wish we'd seen more of this aspect of Klingons. A culture metastasizing sounds like a rich story to tell.
 
I strongly disagree.
Kor individually being open minded doesn't exactly say much to me about Klingon society/culture in general, especially when his comrades Kang and Koloth in the same episode initially and vehemently refused to believe and honor Dax. Meanwhile, Klingon society is basically stuck in our 19th Century, in that women can't own property or be the heads of their own houses without special legal circumstances. Klingons are often the embodiment of toxic masculinity, they're imperialistic, xenophobic, scoff at academic pursuits, and have an insane worship of the military. They're very much MAGA to a T.

Doubtful.
The Imperium intentionally sows ignorance into its society specifically to combat infiltration by malicious forces external or internal.
That wouldn't be that big of a setback to the Borg. In fact, it would be something that would work in the Borg's favor. The Borg don't need to assimilate scientists and smart people in order to adapt to weaponry and render their enemies neutralized. They'd just need to tank a few hits, analyze the effects, then employ modulated shields that would completely neutralize the incoming hits. That whole process would go faster if they could assimilate the tech directly, which I imagine wouldn't be hard. The nanites would figure it all out. And since everyone is dumb/ignorant, good luck figuring out creative ways to fight the Borg like the Enterprise or Voyager did.

but put a Borg drone in a microwave and no personal forcefield in the world would stop them from getting boiled like a potato.
Microwaves are just EM radiation, and not particularly energetic forms of it at that like say X-Rays or Gamma Rays. It wouldn't take much to just attune shields to reflect or absorb microwave wavelengths.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Borg have a hard time adapting to low-tech weapons like bullets and... err... just smacking them really hard, so I feel like most of the 40K races wouldn’t have a hard time giving them some rough business
 
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