ST/WH40K wanky fanboy question.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, say that you were a Star Trek kind of captain during the end of the TNG/VOY/DS9 run with all of the technology and whatnot. You not only had full access to the resources of the Federation, but because you had access to some kind of technobabble you could conjure up as much material or personnel that you needed--including technology gleaned from any of the other Trek forces.

So why do you need all of this might? Because you have a ridiculous new fanboy mission--establish yourself as a credible force in the WH40K universe and hold on to your share of pie without it going to shit.

How much mojo would you need to make this work?

[Meikle641]

They'd need to finally use their cloaking tech, for one. Use their smaller ships and ability to their advantage, swarming the Imp navy like a cloud of bees.

Hopefully that would negate the usefulness of the broadside firing of the battlebarges and stuff. Or they could try and transport bombs inside their Void Shields, if that's doable.

Probably should do their best to trade for or steal some tech from the Tau, maybe. Sure as hell better do *something* to get their infantry better than meatshields, whether that be lots of dakka or powered suits of some sort.

Of course, this assumes that the Federation can even move with their tech, this is what, another universe?

Still, if the federation sticks to their strengths, they might be able to be a pain in the ass like the Tau. Hell, they're practically Luddites in spite of their high-tech, so it's possible Imperium people would defect without *too* much trouble. Or not, filthy heretics.

[Username17]

The Star Trek ships are incomprehensibly faster than WH40K ships, but they can't actually intercept Imperial Ships because Imperial Ships go through supspace rather than using warp drives. Essentially they don't really exist between points. Any federation vessel can pretty much destroy limitless Imperial Battleships and Space Hulks. It's not even sensible. Imperial space weaponry is a fucking joke.

The one problem - and it's a huge problem - is that the WH40K Imperium can and will drop hydrogen bombs onto your planets. That sucks. I mean, Federation mining ships can destroy entire planets in minutes, so it's not impressive or anything to the Feds. But if you lose everyone on a planet, you lose everyone on a planet.

Basically, Star Trek ships can go anywhere they want and destroy anything the Imperium happens to have. At will. But that might not be enough, because the Empire has a million inhabited worlds and planet wrecking (if not destroying) weaponry all over the place. It would be a lot like playing Space Invaders.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Well, first we need to ignore the fact that either the Tyranids or the Orks are going to win, even as it is, due to each having somewhere between "Thirty eight British Trillion" and "10^(10^100)" doods... per grain of sand that Earth has.

But we have to ignore that just to have 40K go ahead normally, so whatever.

Taking that into consideration, remember that 40K was made after both Star Trek AND Star Wars, in a time when fans of both were having penis contests (ie "Always") and elected to say "Ahem, mine is bigger." Seriously, there are psykers that can make planets explode, space ships (with cathedrals built on top) that can make planets explode, and in one obscure case, a mecha that is BIGGER THAN A PLANET and that fires daemons out of a cannon... to make planets explode.

So next we ignore a lot of the "MY NAME IS HUGE" fluff (as per usual for anything 40K). Basically we now get it down to tabletop scale.

Their best bet is to forget that Tau are seriously small fry and ally with them. That can work - both sides would be amenable to such a thing. Yes, it means there's one more force in Codex: Tau that isn't actually Tau, meaning it really should be called Codex: Misc.

Otherwise they'd have to join the Imperium, saying "Look, we're human too!" But that would involve having to trade their tech in for Imperial stuff (possibly - it depends on who they ask) and setting all their xenos friends on fire (but if they entered the world of 40K, chances are the xenos friends would suddenly decide to try to eat their faces off). So it wouldn't be pretty.

But yeah. As a force on their own? It's unlikely at best. Allying with Federation of Misc is their best chance for survival - after we rule out two different levels of crazy that make 40K fall over as it is.

[virgil]

Reminds me of those epic Federation vs Empire debates I stumbled upon in the internet. Man, the sheer level of obsessive analysis by the Star Wars people in showing why & how the Empire is big enough to utterly wipe the Federation off the map.

[Psychic Robot]

You can't, because everyone in Warhammer 40k is grimdark, and Star Trek has all these notions about diplomacy and shit. While I don't know a ton about Star Trek, I would think that the Trekkers would get absolutely pwned in any type of combat because, well, they just aren't that focused on exterminating entire species.

So what's a Trekker to do?

1. Ally with Tau. They're all about peace and unity and harmony and that kind of bullshit. They're also the yuppies in 40k, but their technology is already awesome. Sharing and swapping tech with the Trekkers while working together to make things better is a good thing.

2. Avoid the Imperium. There's no way to reconcile the Imperium's warmongering and hatred for alien life with the Trekkers' ideals. And even if the Trekkers were all humans ('bye, Worf), then they would still have issues from being allied with the Tau. But allying with the Tau is a better bet than allying with the Imperium.

3. Accept that you're going to have to kill shit. In 40k, you can't be peaceful. You're going to have to conquer and slaughter people. It's the only way. You might do it in self-defense, but you're fucked six ways to the weekend if you try and do the peacenik thing.

4. Rapidly expand from the Tau area in the universe and terraform worlds as quickly as possible. Establish well-populated colonies on those worlds and begin a strict military regiment.

5. I lied. Send diplomats to the Imperium. Not at first, mind you, but when you've gotten buddy-buddy with the Tau and have developed the firepower to protect yourself. Knowledge is power. Learn everything you can about the 40k universe even if it's from a biased perspective. Learn about Chaos as much as possible. Research the Tyranids.

6. Drop ethical considerations and begin manufacturing all sorts of crazy shit to use against the Tyranids. (I'm focusing on those right now, since it seems that they're the biggest threat looming, even larger than Chaos.) If you can develop tech that will wither their limbs and kill their firstborn, you do it because you're going to die otherwise.

7. Remember when I said not to deal with the Imperium? Fuck. Right now, they're the best chance that any society has at survival. Even if they're evil, they're still the goddamn good guys. Their biggest challenge is navigating the Warp. Well, Star Trek's awesome faster-than-light travel doesn't rely on the Warp. That's one problem solved. (Work with the techpriests on this one, since the Imperium frowns on science.) Fix the Golden Throne for shits and giggles.

8. Make contact with the Eldar. While they are contemptuous toward humanity, there's a chance that they might respond in a typically dickish-but-not-unworkable attitude that is so common in D&D.

9. Start blowing shit up hardcore.

[Grek]

Really, huge swarms of stuff isn't a big deal. Space mahrines of both flavours can fight of a ridiculous number of Ork or Tyranid foot soliders. It's only the Tau who are actually screwed in the long run by not having huge swarms of dudes and it's already been established that the Federation would team up with the Tau and that Tau+Federation is a decent matchup for just about anyone.

The Federation is really more like the Necrons from a strategic point of view. They zip around unseen in cloaked ships that are stupidly fast, have tech that's better than everyone elses on every level and can easily teleport from one side of the planet to the other at the drop of a hat. And the best way to get rid of them is to vaporise whatever planet they were on.

[Mr. Bane]

If Lago is secretly JJ Abrams I'm going to be really really weary about Star Trek 2.

[Koumei]

The Star Trek ships are incomprehensibly faster than WH40K ships, but they can't actually intercept Imperial Ships because Imperial Ships go through supspace rather than using warp drives. Essentially they don't really exist between points. Any federation vessel can pretty much destroy limitless Imperial Battleships and Space Hulks. It's not even sensible. Imperial space weaponry is a fucking joke.

The joke bit I'll agree with, but - and I know fuck-all about Trek, because I tried to watch some of it and decided it was shit - I think you're underestimating the power of Imperial Spess Combat.

All their large ships can fuck off through the warp (and risk getting destroyed in the process, granted), and have warp shields. These shields seem to be the dodgy kind that may or may not protect it against a single torpedo, a complete storm of laser blasts, or a supernova.

They also have macro cannons that just hurl moon-sized ballbearings at you, laser cannons that are designed for destroying space vessels, clouds of mines and even the ability to teleport terminators onto other ships.

Although the speed thing might be enough of an issue - if the human brains that do the aiming (as opposed to advanced AI systems) can't keep up, and the guns themselves don't turn fast enough, their only bet might be just releasing clouds of mines or unleashing expanding waves of plasma (which few vessels can do).

Also, entering the setting of 40K means being subject to their rules: AI will turn against you and try to kill you, your alien friends will turn against you and try to kill you, and making anything bigger makes it better.

The one problem - and it's a huge problem - is that the WH40K Imperium can and will drop hydrogen bombs onto your planets. That sucks. I mean, Federation mining ships can destroy entire planets in minutes, so it's not impressive or anything to the Feds. But if you lose everyone on a planet, you lose everyone on a planet.

True. There are very few planets the Imperium actually cares about (and they care enough about them to pull forces away from everywhere else and flood those planets so that every 5' square contains a terminator or assassin, and turn the horizon into a wall of baneblades surfing on top of hellhammers, riding on the tops of titans). The rest, they might just say "Fuck this, exterminatus." and call it a day. I imagine the Federation would be a bit reluctant to just throw planets away like that.

Basically, Star Trek ships can go anywhere they want and destroy anything the Imperium happens to have. At will. But that might not be enough, because the Empire has a million inhabited worlds and planet wrecking (if not destroying) weaponry all over the place. It would be a lot like playing Space Invaders.

Yeah. The Imperium is willing and able to destroy/lose a lot more planets than the Federation, and has the benefit of not giving a shit about human lives. So once they're on the ground, it turns into a war between... humans with lasguns? and "the combined might of the Imperium". And if the Imperium lose on the ground, they're not ashamed to detonate the planet out of spite. If the Federation lose on the ground, they probably DON'T want to blow the planet up (at least, not all the time).

---

I seem to recall a /tg/ thread where every universe was thrown against each other. The only two that rose on top (with 40K coming third) were... something about "The Culture" (Sci-fi novel about crazy-replicating robots or something?) and TTGL, an animu where they have mecha that are bigger than the biggest stars that we know of (an animated .gif was provided for comparison).

[Grek]

The plot of "The Culture" is basically that there are these super powerful AI called Minds who run a galatic utopian government using robots to do all the work except paint and sit around on the beach siping drinks with umbrellas. They have quantum free engery generators, cures for every disease, old age, death and can read your mind with computers ala Shadowrun.

[Orion]

Why not just get Vulcans and Klingons declared human by some High Inquisitor? They're humanoids unlike orks and nids, and nothing is wrong with their souls, like the eldar.

[FatR]

Although the speed thing might be enough of an issue - if the human brains that do the aiming (as opposed to advanced AI systems) can't keep up, and the guns themselves don't turn fast enough, their only bet might be just releasing clouds of mines or unleashing expanding waves of plasma (which few vessels can do).

I have seen very little of Star Trek (didn't like it), but in pieces that I have seen their space combat was like that of SW or Babylon 5 - relatively slowly moving ships, often within visual range of each other. So, I don't think that WH ships will have any problem with aiming.

As about The Culture - mind reading is not what makes them uber. Stuff like frying entire starsystems with their standard space weapons, building fleets of ships that can do so from scratch in weeks at most, and willingness to wage wars where casualties are measured in billions does.

[RandomCasualty2]

The main real advantage of the Federation is their ability to adapt. Pretty much whatever you do, the Fed is going to analyze it and find a weakness.

Really I don't think that power armor would be much of a problem on the ground as a phaser can basically disintegrate anything, which is why I think ST ground troops don't bother with armor. And while their weapons are powerful, they're still pretty vulnerable to just pure numbers, because one shot can basically down any Federation soldier.

The problem with the Federation is that they're too peaceful. They're really not ready for a full blown war, and will never really use their weapons to full effectiveness. It's not that Federation science can't create brutal engineered plagues or atmosphere poisoning warheads. They totally can, but they just don't.

If the Federation was willing to take the gloves off and use their war technology to its limits, then they could win, otherwise they'd end up handicapping themselves to the point of losing.

[cthulhu]

Well,

You not only had full access to the resources of the Federation, but because you had access to some kind of technobabble you could conjure up as much material or personnel that you needed--including technology gleaned from any of the other Trek forces.

would obviously win

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yeah, I wasn't asking for some sort of universe comparison--

I was asking how much more crap the Federation would need to do certain shit.

IOW, everyone knows that a modern-day infantryman will win against 10 peasants. However, they'll lose against a million of them. So my question is how many of these infantrymen do you need until they conquer the peasant army?

[norms29]

The Star Trek ships are incomprehensibly faster than WH40K ships, but they can't actually intercept Imperial Ships because Imperial Ships go through supspace rather than using warp drives. Essentially they don't really exist between points. Any federation vessel can pretty much destroy limitless Imperial Battleships and Space Hulks. It's not even sensible. Imperial space weaponry is a fucking joke.

what the hell are you on about? I'm pretty sure WH40K warp travel is way faster then ST warp drive. I mean, Trek has been massivly varible in descriptions of speeds and travel times, but voyager's 70 ETA on getting back to earth was a distance that 40K ships could cover in a matter of months.

also, I question the dismissal of Imperial space weaponry. Given the observed overspeccallization of ST shields, I doubt that they'd be any help in an engagement with the imperium. (for example, there are numerous examples, the most recent being the JJ Abrams movie, where we know that the shields were raised, but gave zero protection against physical impacts) you could just as easily question the applicability of void shields to phaser fire, but imperial ships have actual physical armor, and Federation ships don't

also, comparing ST ship combat to our primary source on WH space combat (Battle Fleet Gothic) we know that 40K's standerd engagement distances are orders of magnitude greater then Star Trek's.

[Judging__Eagle]

Against a million 'peasants' with just farm tools as weapons (and by 'farm tools', I mean hand-made wood and metal axes, steel studded clubs etc.).

It depends, if you've got a full military apparatus, with helicopter or airplane recon, heavy weapons like machine guns and mortars, the attachment of even the smallest artillery unit, a mechanized corps of infantry (this fact alone will make a big deal, Farm tools = 0, APC's Armour = 1 ), and light or heavy armour to help spearhead attacks.....

4 platoons of ~14 men each
-APCs for said platoons (4-5)
one field artillery unit (5, plus ammo carriers and haulers for the guns themselves)
one armour section (3 tanks)
air recon (you could seriously use a Cesna for this; 2-3 Cesnas to give 24 hour recon on the 'peasant army').

That's enough armour and firepower to make the 'numbers' very inefficient. Just trenching in around the artillery with the APCs, and moving the artillery back/away when the peasants get too close would be more than harrassing enough.

You could do away with the artillery and just use more APCs and Tanks with ammo carriers for each, that would also work. They're both pretty mobile gun platforms, and their mobility is what will keep them from being truly overrun. In fact, they could engage in "tank shocking" to conserve on ammo, and use each vehicle spread out to 'herd' the enemy before firing anti-personnel shells (fragmentation) into the bunched up crowds.

The most vunerable things in the "vehicles only" tactic would be the ammo carriers, as they tend to be large trucks. Fitting them with all metal cargo areas, bullet proof glass, armoured driver's cabins and solid run-flat tires would reduce that as a threat though; and the ammo carriers could act as extra 'herding' vehicles.

Now, in an ongoing pitched battle this won't work, but to defeat a one million strong enemy it would work. Mostly by harrassing, then firing on the peasants when they're routing or bunched up.

The real problem is that the enemy will eventually just go to guerrilla tactics if they're determined enough. However, we're talking about medieval peasants here, so they will probably rout and go back to their farms. The mechanized army is now their obvious overlords, and will do with them as they please.

[Josh_Kablack]

Well my knowledge of 40k is pretty scant, but based on the various series, the Trekkies weird devotion to diplomacy gives them one very interesting power that nobody has brought up yet: each new show they totally get to recruit one unit/PC from whoever the major antagonist of the previous show was.

Kirk fights klingons - Picard has Worf as security chief
Picard has issues with Ferengi - Quark is a major characetr on DS9
The Borg attempt to assimilate earth in the Next Generation movie, and then on Voyager Seven-of-Nine becomes a cast member.

How this effects the big picture I couldn't tell you - but it does provide some interesting adaptability in tabletop - where the Trek forces are not limited as much by the army composition rules of other factions and can field out one unit from whatever faction they fought last battle

[Hicks]

The problem with Trek vs. Imperium is a matter of scale ,where Treck needs to be THIS tall to even compete, and it isn't. The Federation seriously occupies one quater of a quarter of the galaxy, while the Imperium sits on the resources of 3/4ths of a galaxy. Trek has cloaking devices, and can attack at reletivistic speeds, while the Imperium CAN'T BE ATTACKED IN TRANSIT. Seriously: the Imperium shows up from nowhere and blows up your worlds and dissapears into nowhere. The Federation has, like, 200 member planets to the Imperium's MILLION WORLDS.

The Federation uses antimatter torpedoes and disintegration phasor beams, and later adds zero point energy conversion quantom torpedoes, but the Imperium seriously has more warships (each larger than any starbase, with a dozen or more meters of armor plating and armed to the teeth with plasma, kinetic-kill, and laser weaponry) than the Federation has torpedoes. Oh, and the Trek's "Ramming always works" ace in the hole? Imperial ships are designed to survive ramming and use that tactic offensivly.

Look, dispite what you may think, I am a trekkie at heart. I loved it all: TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager... I even ate that lame Enterprise shit up. I've seen and like all the movies. but even a die-hard fan like myself has to give credit where credit is due; I'm a badass, and more frightning than a dark ally in dark ally, but there is no way I can box a 900 lb silverback to death; and neather can Trek expect to make the Imperium tap out, ever.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Mm, the Imperium claims a million worlds, but it's (specifically) like the Holy Roman Empire: most of them do not consider themselves part of your organization, except under threat of force, because they literally haven't seen an Imperial representative for generations. Supposedly Imperial worlds would be lining up to join the Federation if they were given the option. And the Imperium wouldn't even know about it, because Astropathy is like using messenger pigeons.

In fact, the Imperium also has stupidly large coordination problems, even leaving aside their ridiculously inferior communications system. Two ships that set out from the same location at the same time for the same destination may arrive weeks or months apart. So for all of their great numerical strength, they might very well be taken apart piecemeal and nobody on Terra would know anything about it until it was all over.

[RandomCasualty2]

Seriously: the Imperium shows up from nowhere and blows up your worlds and dissapears into nowhere. The Federation has, like, 200 member planets to the Imperium's MILLION WORLDS.

Well, this assumes that Trek can't find a way to track them. I mean ST has tracked wormholes that jump around, strange temporal fluctuations, theoretical paradoxes and all kinds of other shit, and that's a challenge that just one ship can handle. I mean the Federation can develop solutions to entirely new technology, like temporal erasure beams in a single episode from a single ship. If it's one thing the Federation excels at, it's coming up with new shit under pressure.

If it turns into a battle of brute force, then obviously the Imperium is going to win. But trek has the ability to innovate. So honestly, I'm not sure if they couldn't figure out how to track (or even attack) Imperium ships in transit.

The biggest advantage of Star Trek isn't so much what they have now, but what they can create. The imperium is a brutally effective and vast machine, but it's not all that creative under pressure. It has what it has, and likely it's probably not going to come up with any breakthrough counters to ST's technology.

ST on the other hand is pretty much all about counters. Any little technological edge that the imperium has, I can't see it lasting more than a few engagements before the Federation finds a way to counter it. Because that's pretty much what the Federation does.

Then it's just a question of if ST can beat the Imperium's numbers. ANd of course this becomes a question of if the Imperium is just fighting ST or if it's still embroiled in all its other wars. If it's the full might of the Imperium against only ST, then the Imperium could swarm them long before they had a chance to adapt sufficiently. If on the other hand the Federation began as a fringe nation in the 40K universe (travelling through some kind of wormhole or dimensional portal of course). then they may have sufficient time to build a power base and win. Because as time passes,the Federation's tech growth is much faster than the Imperium, so if they hold out for like 20-30 years or so, they end up with Voyager anti-Borg armor plating which is nearly impenetrable and can soak ridiculous amounts of damage.

So really, it's a game of ST just having to hold out before the proper enhancements are made to their tech to let them win the war.

[Kaelik]

The part I find hilarious about all this, as someone who only knows shit about Warhammer 40K from reading this forum, is that literally no two people here have coinciding statements about what the Imperium is and can do.

Everyone agrees it's big, but that's basically it.

On the other hand, every single person has the exact same idea of what ST people can do.

My own opinion?

For all this talk about blowing up planets, you guys missed the part about finding them.

If the federation starts with a goddam planet colony or 30, the Imperium isn't going to find them ever.

If in return the Federation starts making contact with worlds and offering them protection, the Imperium still isn't going to even find out that those worlds are fed now until after the feds have already been told about the Hydrogen bombs and built planet blocking shields.

The Imperium is a giant mass of dumbfuck Reres who seriously fight each other as much as any other fucking enemy. The Fed ships can apparently not explode when traveling at warp speeds, which all on it's own is enough to win the battle of attrition.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I'll add in another prediction:

Feds lose the first couple fights. Hardcore.

Then, the current Kirk/Picard/Sisko/Janeway/whoever the Enterprise fuck was thinks of some random tactic that works, beats the Imperium decisively, then starts taking them out one by one.

The Imperium has all the advantages. Manpower, Resources, Weaponry. However, the Imperium also represents stagnation, and the schtick that the Federation has is they come up with random-ass solutions and beat superior foes.

When you are talking about fiction, you can't just go over the stats and numbers, you have to think of the schticks. The Imperium keeps making the same mistakes over and over, the Federation represents the Resourceful Hero who gets his ass beat until he figures out a way to cheat.

[Psychic Robot]

Wait, I thought the Federation were helping the Imperium fight the 'nids. There are bigger fish to fry than some random-ass group of humies.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You mean Captain Archer?

Actually, this video is all you need to know about the character.