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[Xantalos]

@Hanslanda: Don't Xenomorphs have a hivemind? If so they would be able to tell if one of their number stops communicating with the queen/others.

Unless you take that one comic by Dark Horse as canon, in which case Jeffrey can infect with a touch, and it's unnoticable to the infectee.

[Hanslanda]

@Hanslanda: Don't Xenomorphs have a hivemind? If so they would be able to tell if one of their number stops communicating with the queen/others.

Unless you take that one comic by Dark Horse as canon, in which case Jeffrey can infect with a touch, and it's unnoticable to the infectee.

Xenomorphs have some sort of non-verbal communication of a hitherto unknown format. It could be psychic, it could be EXTREMELY AWESOME pheromones, it could be Phlebotinum. So. That question doesn't have a set answer. Let's assume both yes and no.
Yes, then the Xenomorphs know the Thing has assimilated one of them, and they immediately try to kill Jeff in hand to hand. Which fails utterly, because he's the Thing. Anytime you wound him with melee, you're going to cover yourself with Thingcells. And if they spray acid on him, whilst he has assimilated an Alien, then it's going to be ineffective. I guess they could non-lethally overpower him and pin him to the wall with Alienwallstuff, but then he'd Thing his way off by transforming into a worm or something.
No, then the Xenomorphs get overpowered one by one, or worse yet, the Queen gets Thingified... And shit gets very, very bad for everyone else in the universe.

[Frumple]

@ Frumple: Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a TA commander need access to the raw materials to make all that stuff?

Metal makers. Technically, TA tech could construct an Imperial battlefleet from the output of a single solar panel (and I'm not talking a TA solar panel. I'm talking, like. One of ours.). It'd just... take a while. Materials on hand would (massively) speed things up, but TA can go solar -> metal makers -> fusion -> moho metal makers and basically conjure materials from the aether. They've got energy -> matter and vice versa solved, if somewhat inefficiently. And as for starting, whatever dark magic/hypertechnology powers the commanders is capable of generating small amounts of power and materials just... innately. TA construction technology allows for snowballing like little else. It positive feedback loops.

Besides, without access to spaceships and a Navigator the commander would never get off-world. Even if he did, the Imperium has massive battlefleets at their disposal.

Spaceships are an issue, yeah. The TA 'verse has spaceflight, but its extent or capability is never detailed or even particularly alluded to, and even with TA construction tech it'd take a while to start building up fleets (whose construction methodology they could just lift from patterned/cloned techpriests, after capturing or building shipyards) and who knows how they'd manage to prevent existent Imperium battlefleets from stopping the buildup. But... yeah. If the TA folks can manage to get past those hurdles, the flat fact remains that they can basically call up an infinite amount of resources and their building capability is limited strictly by the amount of resources they can pump into the construction. Given enough power (and subsequently metal -> materials), they could be spitting out entire multiple-mile spaceships out in... days. Hours.

[Xantalos]

@Hanslanda: Don't Xenomorphs have a hivemind? If so they would be able to tell if one of their number stops communicating with the queen/others.

Unless you take that one comic by Dark Horse as canon, in which case Jeffrey can infect with a touch, and it's unnoticable to the infectee.

Xenomorphs have some sort of non-verbal communication of a hitherto unknown format. It could be psychic, it could be EXTREMELY AWESOME pheromones, it could be Phlebotinum. So. That question doesn't have a set answer. Let's assume both yes and no.
Yes, then the Xenomorphs know the Thing has assimilated one of them, and they immediately try to kill Jeff in hand to hand. Which fails utterly, because he's the Thing. Anytime you wound him with melee, you're going to cover yourself with Thingcells. And if they spray acid on him, whilst he has assimilated an Alien, then it's going to be ineffective. I guess they could non-lethally overpower him and pin him to the wall with Alienwallstuff, but then he'd Thing his way off by transforming into a worm or something.
No, then the Xenomorphs get overpowered one by one, or worse yet, the Queen gets Thingified... And shit gets very, very bad for everyone else in the universe.

EVERYONE.
Also I'm pretty sure that the Thing fits all the descriptors for the Christian AntiChrist: charismatic, will rise out of nowhere, start a global war (when true form is discovered) ...
Shit.

[Hanslanda]

Is TA Total Annihilation?

[Frumple]

Yes. Yes, it is.

[Hanslanda]

Yes. Yes, it is.

Note to self: Play TA.

Moving on, I think the uh, EVAs from Neon Genesis Evangelion would make a good match for say, an Imperator class Titan. I expect the Imperator to be... Much. Much larger, but the EVAs can move like a real person, at extremely high speeds. And they're all agile and shit.

[Sirus]

-snip for size-

Jeepers, and here I thought the WH40k universe raped physics hard enough already

Of course, the single biggest hurdle facing the Commander would be on the ground. The Imperium doesn't exactly lack things that can chew up building-sized mechs for breakfast, y'know. Hell, the sheer amount of dakka that a Leman Russ brigade can produce would probably bring it down. There are tanks that are referred to as "titan killers" for a reason. Or if it ran into an actual Titan; THAT would solve the problem quickly.

@ Hans: Refresh my memory, are the Imperators the super-ginormous titans or the smaller ones?

[Frumple]

Also the AT field! EVA's basically a psyker bio-titan.

Which yeah, EVA and WH40k's been done a few times. The Academia Nut mentioned earlier in the thread did a good one (to my tastes, anyway).

[Aklyon]

How about we add one of the gurren lagann's bigger forms to that fight as well?

[Darvi]

Let's say Arc-Gurren Lagann? Just to keep it fair.

[Hanslanda]

-snip for size-

Jeepers, and here I thought the WH40k universe raped physics hard enough already

Of course, the single biggest hurdle facing the Commander would be on the ground. The Imperium doesn't exactly lack things that can chew up building-sized mechs for breakfast, y'know. Hell, the sheer amount of dakka that a Leman Russ brigade can produce would probably bring it down. There are tanks that are referred to as "titan killers" for a reason. Or if it ran into an actual Titan; THAT would solve the problem quickly.

@ Hans: Refresh my memory, are the Imperators the super-ginormous titans or the smaller ones?

Imperators are the biggest Imperial titans. They have a massive battle-cathedral on their backs that has spires of guns and such on it that are the size of Warhound Scout Titans. It takes several Legios of smaller Titans to kill one.

[Aklyon]

Let's say Arc-Gurren Lagann? Just to keep it fair.

That was the moon one, right?

[Flying Dice]

Let's go back to the whole "cloning the God-Emperor of Mankind" idea for a moment. Take Star Wars cloning tech: I think we've got sufficient evidence to conclude that it functions perfectly insofar as that it creates exact genetic duplicates of the original donor, but the issue is whether it would also function in such a way as to transfer the GEoM's pskyer ability/status as a living god to the clones. If so, any Imperium v. Empire scenario would end pretty much the moment a reasonably sound of mind Imperial got their hands on SW cloning tech and... Okay, it would be game over after several months/years/decades of travel, when it got back to Terra. I think the thought process there could probably follow this pattern:

[Assumption]: Cloning duplicates the body.
[Knowledge]: GEoM's body is failing, soul is intact.
[Knowledge]: GEoM is, as indicated by the name, a god.
[Assumption]: ∴ if a duplicate of the body of the GEoM were to exist, he could transfer himself to it.

(Note that this may take the form of the 'pull the plug' scenario with that splinter section that wants to go through with it.)

Once they clone the GEoM, assuming his status as a god is preserved, everything is irrelevant. You've got a GEoM with no experience (given that the Jango clones had to be taught everything during their development cycle rather than inheriting his knowledge), who will be raised by the bloody (in more than one sense, hah) Imperium. Best case scenario for everyone involved is that his natural talents and intelligence guide the clone onto the same path as his "father".

The worst-case scenario is that you have a God-Emperor of Mankind who completely buys into the superstitions and pathological hatreds of the Imperium, with the ability to clone himself endlessly. Every enemy of the Imperium would be overrun by a virtual tide of power-armored God-Emperor clones. It would turn the Imperium into the gorram 'Nids!

[Darvi]

Let's say Arc-Gurren Lagann? Just to keep it fair.

That was the moon one, right?

The city-sized one. The moon was the Chouginga Dai-Gurren.

Also I cloned the GEoM once. Was kinda disappointing.