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[BFEL]

In that first one they point out that the arguments from trekkies are "Federation has tech Wars lacks" and "Federation has tech that beats Wars tech" and then only defends the second point. Once again it deflects away from the issues.

Are you talking about the first link I posted with 'that first one'?

Do you mean they don't adres the presence of unique ST techs adequately? They do have a page on both 'special' ST and SW techs: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Special/Special1.html and http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Special/Special2.html.
If you meant something else, could you elaborate?

For the record, saying that faction A of universe B could overpower its counterpart from universe C doesn't imply anything about any artistic or entertainment merit of either, and as said it's trivially easy to create a fictional universe that dwarfs a given other universe. So even if one's favored franchise loses, that doesn't really, you know, mean anything substantial (I'd rather have a interesting universe of lower power scales than the opposite). Just wanted to throw that out there.

Ok, started reading that link with federation tech and god its retarded. They actually said that the costs of transmuting energy into different elements wouldn't differ. WE KNOW THIS FROM REAL LIFE PHYSICS HOLY SHIT. Someone never learned about atomic mass. Presumably deuterium and other "rare" elements have a larger number of protons in their atoms, meaning it would take vastly more say hydrogen or whatever to replicate them.
Yet they don't understand an actual fact of physics and translate this into a victory for themselves.
It's hard for me to respect anything this site says after that. Maybe they made good points after that, but I can't bother reading them now.

And no my beef isn't just "MEH I LIKE STAR TREK SO IT HAS TO WIN", I flat out said that Daleks would wipe the floor with them, not because I like Doctor Who more then Trek, but because its patently obvious they have the advantage.
I'm not fighting this so hard because of fandom, I'm fighting it because I honestly feel you're not giving the Federation a fair shake and systematically dismissing evidence to the contrary.

Like mainiac said, I'm not defensive, I'm frustrated. Though I feel he IS getting a bit salty now. Which he isn't the only one, there's plenty of salt from the opposing side, but I'm not going to get upset about that. I'm going to focus on the issue at hand.

[mainiac]

actually said that the costs of transmuting energy into different elements wouldn't differ. WE KNOW THIS FROM REAL LIFE PHYSICS HOLY SHIT. Someone never learned about atomic mass. Presumably deuterium and other "rare" elements have a larger number of protons in their atoms, meaning it would take vastly more say hydrogen or whatever to replicate them

Plus... replicators dont seem to work that way in the first place.  In Enterprise (a couple years before the Federation was founded), Tucker talks about how the ship is recycling matter.  They turn poop into bulkheads and turn organic matter into meat paste with their protein resequencers.  It seems that the replicator is just the same idea but more advanced.  They are still putting existing matter into the replicators.  Picard doesn't like his tea so he has the replicator dissolve it  Keiko tells Molly to recycle the plates in the replicator after a meal.  Janeway tells Chakotay that he should recycle a fancy watch when they are desperate for energy and it could give them a first aid kit.  (which seems dodgy to me but maybe it was a very energy valuable watch?)  Jadziya Dax's family operates a mine.  Presumably they wouldn't be mining stuff if minerals didn't matter.

But it's not like I did a bunch of math from numbers someone pulled out of their ass so feel free to disregard this.

Like mainiac said, I'm not defensive, I'm frustrated. Though I feel he IS getting a bit salty now.

What I'm salty about is:

1) People are telling me I'm feeling things I'm not
2) People are telling me what to say
3) They are applying a double standard in doing it

It's pretty much a checklist of "things not to do if you want people to feel like you are reasonable".

[Amperzand]

Deuterium specifically is an isotope of hydrogen, and exactly one neutron heavier. It's also not especially rare, available in low concentration wherever hydrogen or water are. If the replicators just convert stuff into energy and back again, the only thing that matters is the mass of an object, so a two-ounce gold watch could easily become a two-ounce box of nanitic medical supplies or something.

[Kot]

TBH, comparing which Sci-Fi universe is better is like comparing whose dick is bigger better (because size is not everything, apparently) except those aren't even your dicks those are just dicks of your favourite male porn stars.
I can only say that God Emperor of Mankind is obviously the most attractive and has the best genitialia, while Star Wars Emperor dick is small and wrinkled just like his whole body... though I understand that it might be hard to choose between God Emperor and Patrick Stewart (or William Shatner, but he's old now too, while God Emperor of Mankind doesn't age), if you're into older guys, but in that case I guess that Star Wars Emperor would be pretty good choice too.

@mainiac
Getting salty over people telling you that you are salty is basically only a confirmation though. The only winning move is not to play.

[Rolepgeek]

mainiac you just hit poe's line. Ceasetime.

Tack, please stop this absolutely unreasonable conversation!  You should know better!

(Seriously though, you were fine when they were doing it and now you want to ride in like a white knight and referee?)

You saying things like that is why I said not to be hostile. I never said defensive, mind. You're just getting worked up in general and it's seeping into all your posts. You're being very aggressive about really little things.

[Tack]

I'm fine being accused of a double standard, but I don't think I know any y'all well enough for favouritism.

[Sergarr]

It's fairly well established that 40k beats Star Wars every time. Star Trek ships are fast and shielded, but they can't really deal with Nova Cannons or swarms upon swarms of strikecraft.

Star Trek ships can fight while in their FTL and perform drive-by shooting (because their go-to weapon, photon torpedoes, are also FTL capable), 40k has zero answers to that outside of Necron stuff.

Also you forgot to put the Culture at the top of the list. Or near it, at least.

Culture is below Xeelee. Very very much below Xeelee. So not quite the top.

If we're talking full-scale wars rather than ship v. ship comparisons (of which I will argue that Imperium>Star Wars>Star Trek, on engagement range alone, before getting to energy levels and specific capabilities of engagement)

Engagement ranges are irrelevant for Star Trek, they have FTL weapon systems which they can fire while also being in FTL mode, same for their sensors. There's a reason why I resorted to super-weapons when arguing for Star Wars - because Star Trek ships absolutely demolish anything Star Wars in normal combat, if they take it seriously.

Now, we still haven't discussed the Halo, Mass Effect, Babylon 5 and Stargate. I propose we change that immediately, and put them into their right places - namely, Halo should be below Star Wars/Star Trek, Mass Effect - above Halo, Stargate - above Mass Effect, and Babylon 5 should be below Xeelee/Culture.

[Sheb]

The Imperium of Man would collapse in all these settings for a bunch of reasons:

A) Its tech level is, generally speaking, crappy. They have huge-ass battleship, that use chemical guns. Loaded by crew. Sure, they go to space, but a lot of their weapons tech suddenly seems late 19th century. And they have a lot of ships, sure, but they sucks so much they're going to get mowed down like zulus facing a Maxim.

B) It cannot use its human wave tactic in space easily. The Imperium doesn't have the STCs for all ships, and doesn't have the high tech manufacturing capability to produce lots of them. Especially if they need to produce more ships than the enemy produce missiles (see 1).

C) The Empire is largely holding out because all its enemies are bunch of disgusting Xenos. If you're a governor of some backass world faced with an Ork or Tyranid invasion, your choices are fight and win or die. If you're face by a relatively humane human regime, which will let you have your planetary autonomy and stop sacrificing your citizens to the Emperor, you're much more likely to surrender. Hell, I'd expect half of the Empire to be in various kind of rebellions after a couple years of fight against Star Wars/ Star Trek/ Honorverse / Most of the other.

[Rolepgeek]

A) Macro Cannons are massive gravitic railguns. Exact method of firing depends on pattern. Their shells are explosive, and from the novels, apparently are meant to try and explode in the vicinity of the enemy, rather than get a direct hit, which is hard to do from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. A volley from a Retribution battelship is supposed to be able to literally blow up a planet if it lacks shielding. Furthermore, their ships are extremely tough, actually. Like, armor which is said to be hundreds of meters thick.

B)...Not for all ships, no, but for far and away enough of them, and they have Forge Worlds. Planets dedicated to pumping out equipment, including warships. Hell, Lunar-class Cruisers can be built on most Imperial Worlds, Forge or no.

C) The posterchild for what you're talking about are the Tau. And it's quite evident that centuries of hatred, devotion, and xenophobia are not something overturned by a kind word and an offer of humane treatment. Sure, it helps, but it takes work in the background, and it's only really relevant once you reach the ground battles. Imperial worlds actually have a lot of autonomy, and most happen to like their religion. The reason for the incredible scrutiny is because the Imperium is bugfuck paranoid about anyone not worshipping the Emperor and therefore being more likely to be an agent of Chaos.

Imperium of Man might collapse, but if it did, it would collapse onto the natives of the setting and crush them before dying under it's own weight without foes on all side to keep it's bloat supported.

[Sheb]

Regarding C) The Tau are Xeno, and thousands of years of xenophobia aren't set aside easily. But do not that I said Human and Humane. Most of the settings we've discussed are human-dominated.

As for macro cannons, I've seen a range of 40 km on the lexicanum. That's not going to help you much.

[mainiac]

@mainiac
Getting salty over people telling you that you are salty is basically only a confirmation though. The only winning move is not to play.

Okay now I'm genuinely curious.  See, I just listed three behaviors you can use to antagonize people.  You respond to that list by doing all three things in a single post.  What are you trying to accomplish with this?

[Sheb]

To be fair Mainiac, you may not realize it, but as a third party I can confirm: a lot of your posts do come out as aggressive, even if your subsequent posts make clear you didn't think they were aggressive, which cause people to then aggravate you. I think it's something in the way your posts are written, and something I've observed across a bunch of topics.

[Max™]

Culture is below Xeelee. Very very much below Xeelee. So not quite the top.

Ehhh.

The Culture in "peaceful non-scary benevolent ubertech group" mode would only have difficulties with the Xeelee use of tactical time loops/retrocausal computation.

Gridfire is every bit as terrifying as a Starbreaker, and of course we're probably assuming that the Xeelee didn't show up in the new universe, set up an anti-history loop to insert themselves at the beginning of time so they already have all the tech and science and everything figured out, right?

The few times the Exultant group really got clean wins was when they were able to pull shit literally out of nowhere (like the Alcubierre shielding trick) and Gridfire is like the ultimate "fuck that guy, and everyone around them, and good luck hitting me back because I'm behind 7 proxies light years away" toy.

A GSV or ROU or whatnot isn't as fast as a Nightfighter going flat out, but they have "reach out and fuck your shit up" capabilities way beyond anything outside of some Ghost fuckery turned up to 11.

Probably wouldn't get much luck trying to effectorize a Xeelee, but simply bathing them in Gridfire and zooped in CAM munitions until it falls apart is gonna be a heck of a thing to fight against.

The Photino Birds made use of the whole "we can hit you but you can't hit us as well" thing with gravity based weapons, dark matter kinetic strikes, and "unbelievable sorts of weaponry" only hinted at in universe.

Full out the Xeelee as a whole decide to stomp the Culture's shit in, shit is getting stomped in, but in a typical sort of engagement where the Xeelee try to swat away an annoying insect? I'd expect the Anti-Xeelee would have to take note and not be quite as amused as it usually seems.

Though last time I was in a discussion where those two got brought up, a wildcard ended up getting brought in: The Shrike.

Which led to various discussions over how the Shrike is way faster on the spot, but not actually faster over a long distance, so it could probably evade a Nightfighter up close, but never quite get entirely away, leading to one of my favorite forum quotes ever.

"So Yakety Sax. With intermittent supernovas." ~alguLoD

[BFEL]

Deuterium specifically is an isotope of hydrogen, and exactly one neutron heavier. It's also not especially rare, available in low concentration wherever hydrogen or water are. If the replicators just convert stuff into energy and back again, the only thing that matters is the mass of an object, so a two-ounce gold watch could easily become a two-ounce box of nanitic medical supplies or something.

Well then Deuterium is a very weird example then and I have no idea why its considered rare.

As for the "the only thing that matters is the mass of an object" no. What matters is the ATOMIC mass of an object. Basically how many protons are in its atom.
So you could convert lead (82 protons) to gold (79 protons) at a somewhat decent exchange rate, but converting oxygen (8 protons) into gold would quickly deplete the atmosphere.
This also explains why that watch would be energy rich, since it was gold and gold is one of the decently high massed elements.
Meanwhile most foodstuffs are made of carbon which has only 6 protons and is thus easy to make lots of.
So basically people mine things because metals and such tend to have higher atomic mass and thus make buttloads of food.

[Sheb]

That's dumb. The mass of an object is a product of the number of atoms and the mass of the atoms. A kilo of watch will have roughly the same number of proton and neutron than a kilo of water. It'll just be denser, so take less room.

I'm not sure why you're only talking protons and not neutron though. If there is a reason for that, then a kilo of oxygen would be better than a kilo of gold. Water has 8 protons and 8 neutrons. Gold has 79 protons, but 118 neutrons, so if you're interested in proton only (discouting the mass of electrions), water is 50% proton, hydrogen is even better at 100% proton (not counting deuterium). Gold is only 40% protons.