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[Loud Whispers]

I do think star wars' ftl is much, much faster than that of star trek. An extremely important advantage, I'd say. And I got it from reading this website: http://www.stardestroyer.net
Which is an entire website dedicated to the question of star wars vs star trek. Kinda biased for the former, but interesting nonetheless.

Tbh though that wouldn't be an issue given Star Wars' great vulnerability to asymmetrical warfare, their better logistics could be countered with gorilla warfare

[Il Palazzo]

gorilla warfare

Ewoks are not gorillas!

[Sergarr]

Star Wars FTL is also reliant on having hyperspace lanes/charts AFAIK, which requires a lot of time to make.

But still, their sheer size and their planet-destroying super-weapons like Death Star, combined with Federation being very small and centralized around Earth, ensures the Empire's ultimate victory through annihilation of the entire Solar System.

First Contact was won by Federation only through plot fiat, and without it, Federation would've been done in by a single Borg Cube. Death Star is like a Borg Cube, but moon-sized and equipped with a long-range planet-busting super-laser.

[mainiac]

Assuming that the federation doesn't just hastily resurrect the Pegasus program and fly an attack craft directly through the death star into the power core of the station.

Or that they dont just send half a dozen roundabouts to make an attack run at warp four on those vulnerable exhaust ports.

Star Trek clearly has the tech advantage.

[Sheb]

Do they? I don't remember stuff like droids in Star TRek.

[Kot]

Do they? I don't remember stuff like droids in Star TRek.

[Sergarr]

Assuming that the federation doesn't just hastily resurrect the Pegasus program and fly an attack craft directly through the death star into the power core of the station.

Or that they dont just send half a dozen roundabouts to make an attack run at warp four on those vulnerable exhaust ports.

Star Trek clearly has the tech advantage.

See, this is what I've been talking about when I've mentioned "plot fiat". Star Trek cannot win the war without relying on ridiculous outliers born from the tech-of-the-week stuff that is incredibly powerful, but doesn't exist outside of that one episode it's in.

But that actually doesn't matter at all, because since the new Star Wars movie, they (the First Order, actually, but that's even worse for this scenario, since they're just a fraction of Empire, and thus have only a fraction of full Empire's capabilities) have a super-weapon (Starkiller) capable of destroying the entire Solar System from half a galaxy away. How many years it would take for Voyager to cross that insane distance, again? IIRC it was at least several dozen years. And Star Wars can just shoot down the entire Federation from that distance, like ducks on a range.

And the capability gap is only going to get larger, since Star Wars will get new movies with new shiny stuff, while all Star Trek will get are stupid weak-ass reboots.

[Tack]

However, Star Trek at least has a stable government...
I think it's been noted by now that starkillers are a Bad investment.

[Taricus]

The republic was stable, and so was the empire for the majority of it's existence.

[BFEL]

First Contact was won by Federation only through plot fiat, and without it, Federation would've been done in by a single Borg Cube. Death Star is like a Borg Cube, but moon-sized and equipped with a long-range planet-busting super-laser.

First Contact occurs after TIME TRAVEL YOU DOLT.
If a single Borg Cube flew to Earth without zapping itself to before the Federation EXISTED it would've blown up well before it got near.

Speaking of which, STAR TREK HAS TIME TRAVEL. If they really wanted they could murder up the Empire/Republic before it existed.

But still, their sheer size and their planet-destroying super-weapons like Death Star, combined with Federation being very small and centralized around Earth, ensures the Empire's ultimate victory through annihilation of the entire Solar System.

The biggest (only) advantage I'll concede to the Empire is its size. You're correct that Federation is small comparatively, though I think you're under the impression its more centralized then it is (though it IS pretty centralized)
As for "planet destroying super weapons" Federation REGULARLY fights off people with such things, and in fact ANY STARSHIP could probably do a minor "dust all the people/infrastructure off the surface with phasors" version of that.
Not to mention all the Empires "super weapons" are vulnerable to plucky teenagers they don't seem like all that much of an advantage anyway.

But that actually doesn't matter at all, because since the new Star Wars movie

DOESN'T COUNT CANON BALLS FIRED LASER SWORDS DON'T HAVE LASER HILTS

[mainiac]

But that actually doesn't matter at all, because since the new Star Wars movie, they (the First Order, actually, but that's even worse for this scenario, since they're just a fraction of Empire, and thus have only a fraction of full Empire's capabilities) have a super-weapon (Starkiller) capable of destroying the entire Solar System from half a galaxy away. How many years it would take for Voyager to cross that insane distance, again? IIRC it was at least several dozen years. And Star Wars can just shoot down the entire Federation from that distance, like ducks on a range.

It would take less then a second for a federation ship to cross that distance at warp 4, i.e. a leisurely pace for even a runabout.

How do I know that it's a few seconds?  Because that energy beam is travelling slower then the speed of light.  We are shown people looking up from the surface of the planets in horror at the approaching beam.  This would not be possible if it was FTL.  So from this we can conclude that every one of those targets is in the same system.

...Either that or Star Wars jumped the shark and JJ Abrams gives zero shits about the lore or common sense.

Look sometimes in science fiction people fuck up and say things that make zero fucking sense.  In Voyager there is an episode where they develop the ability to instantly travel across the galaxy and travel back in time while "evolving" into lizards... the less said about that episode the better.  You dont hear me saying however that in Star Trek it's possible to do transwarp travel across the galaxy instantly on the basis of that episode.  If I were to talk about transwarp, I'd talk about the reasonable stuff we see later.  But honestly I'd rather not talk about transwarp at all.

So if you say that the Empire can blow up earth from the other side of the galaxy I will say that the Federation can travel back in time and make sure that Palpatine is put into a proper foster home.  But in both cases you are relying on the worst thought out parts of the lore.  I like the parts of the lore that are clearly established and come up a lot.  Dont throw out the stuff that actually happens on camera on the basis of someones brain fart where they decided that the galaxy has eleventy septillion citizens or that lasers can travel between star systems.

How long did it take Voyager to travel halfway across the galaxy?  Well it took them decades but there is a real discontinuity there.  Federation ships regularly travel a quarter of the way across the galaxy in months.  Yet it takes years to travel halfway across the galaxy.  Surprisingly in all those seasons they never really explain why this is.  My best explanation is that Voyager is facing some sort of constraint that keeps them from travelling like ships normally do.  That is why it takes them two years to leave Kazon space despite the Kazon being so much slower then Voyager.

The republic was stable, and so was the empire for the majority of it's existence.

Dude, like one tenth of the old republic left to form the corporate sector IN ONE GO and they didn't even resist.  This is on top of them completely losing track of worlds like Bespin, Tatooine or not even knowing about the existence of a sentient race on Endor.  The empire has about as much control on it's territory as Afghanistan.

[Amperzand]

If we're arguing about the physics of planet killer craft, I feel I should point out that the vast majority of all space vessels in both franchises could simply accelerate into and obliterate the planet/star/battlestation of their choice, using the fact that their realspace engines are very, very powerful, and do not seem to have fuel concerns.

A few tons of spaceship moving at 0.9999999c is a very scary thing, and nothing seems to prevent either franchise from making lots and lots of them.

[mainiac]

Star Trek ships barely have any velocity at all.  The warp drive works by distorting space, not adding kinetic velocity.

Star Wars?  I dunno.  Looks like some sort of wormhole thingie.

[stabbymcstabstab]

I'm pretty sure the Empire would win simply by the fact the Star Wars Universe has had mass organized space warfare over the scale of a galaxy for what? several thousand years at least? and Star Trek has had it for a couple centuries on the scale of singular battles? I think the Federation might be a little screwed.


Also seeing the fact it look like that when the Star Killer fired you could literally see it on a totally different planet, in a completely different star system, with your eyes in broad daylight. Even if it couldn't fire out of whatever cluster of stars it's in, it could travel through hyperspace by itself. All it would need to do what get to a star in the region of Earth and fire.

[mainiac]

I'm pretty sure the Empire would win simply by the fact the Star Wars Universe has had mass organized space warfare over the scale of a galaxy for what? several thousand years at least? and Star Trek has had it for a couple centuries on the scale of singular battles? I think the Federation might be a little screwed.

By the same logic, Song dynasty China would walk all over the United States.  After all, China had been engaging in mass warfare with a mix of professional soldiers and levies for four thousand years by the time of the Song dynasty.  The US military on the other hand has only been using full spectrum warfare for a mere two decades.  No way those n00bs in the US military can stand up against four thousand years of experience!

Also space warfare traditions go back to at least two thousand years ago.  After losing the civil war with the Vulcans, Romulans visited earth around the time of the founding of Rome.  So the Vulcans, one of the founding four races of the federation and a group that maintains a military separately from the federation have been engaging in space combat for 2700 years now at least.  The Xindi (a federation enemy) have had space combat for at least four thousand years.

But really that's just a distraction from the more relevant point that the technology disparity between the Federation and the Galactic empire is about the same as the tech disparity between the US Marine Corp and ancient Sumar.

Also seeing the fact it look like that when the Star Killer fired you could literally see it on a totally different planet, in a completely different star system, with your eyes in broad daylight. Even if it couldn't fire out of whatever cluster of stars it's in, it could travel through hyperspace by itself. All it would need to do what get to a star in the region of Earth and fire.

And if we are going to go for full trumps instead of discussing the military battles actually depicted, the Federation would just send  a ship back in time and change the timeline.

And it's not like the Federation doesn't have the ability to destroy a planet.  They could just turn on a cloaking device and start erasing planets with protomatter.  So the thing that takes a Death Star for the empire is something any ship the federation has could be equipped to do if they deemed it necessary.  But it's a bit silly, the federation isn't going to sit around for fifteen years letting the Empire build a death star and they aren't going to strike first with protomatter.