altnameJag said:
-Federation does have land vehicles, and land warfare still does happen in the ST setting even if it isn't the focus of any of the series.
-Like with many other things, why didn't the federation mass produce those shields and hand them out to their infantry then? They didn't use them in the war against the dominion nor do you ever see shielded redshirts when they board the borg. Either way it isn't the equalizer, the 40k guardsmen could be unarmed and they would still win through sheer weight of numbers and cold blooded savagery. If the klingons or jemhadar can enter melee range with redshirts, there is no reason why a guardsman couldn't even if they take losses on the charge.
-Again, i'm seeing a massive disconnect between what i've watched, and what you're telling me. You bought up how there's different versions of 40k and which version we should go with, but the same seems to be true of star trek.
Your technical manual seems to be about as valid as a copy of the tabletop rules from 2nd edition 40k, because none of what you mention are things i've seen in the show. And even though i'm arguing in favor of the 40k side, i like my star trek, i've watched all the original series, TNG, a fair amount of voyager, all of DS9 and some enterprise. I might not be as familiar with the supplementary material but i'm familiar with the primary sources of canon.
I've NEVER seen these super long range ship duels you describe, more often then not, ships seem to be fighting at relatively short distances, to the point Borg cubes can just use tractor beams on ships.
Honestly i'm wondering if this isn't like the phaser thing, where the supposed science of how it works doesn't match the actual lore of the setting nor what you see in the shows. I'm starting to realize the science and logic in star trek isn't really that hard as you're making it out to be nor are the rules consistent. So as much as you mock 40k for having conflicting lore or rule systems that suggest different interpretations, it seems star trek isn't that much better.
-The point about the blockade thing is that close range ship fights obviously do happen, it seems long range pew pewing from opposite sides of a solar system doesn't seem to be the norm or possible all the time. Ultimately the federation has to defend its turf, and to do that it needs to physically be a presence there or those millions of guard are going to be landing.
Also as an aside i've always wondered how a blockade in space could even work, it's a hell of a lot of space to cover.
-I can somewhat understand what we see in a tv show has to be taken with a grain of salt, but you can't discount it entirely either. Those federation ships were buzzing around borg cubes at close range, every single space battle we have seen has been at ranges where ships were visible to each other, if only distantly. Ships are routinely able to teleport people to each other when shields are down, they are often in tractor range, etc.. You really can't say "they were actually shooting at each other from super far away!" to hand wave all these moments, it just doesn't add up.
-Lasguns =/= Slug throwers unless we are sticking purely to the tabletop where a muscly catachan is as strong and tough as an underfed hive street urchin.
-"If we're going to play "who'd win in a fight" you can't say, "my guy, because the other guys wouldn't fight". That's a lazy cop-out."
It's not a lazy copout if it's true and that's not what i was saying anyways. Just like how the 40k side is capable of building sentient AI soldiers but doesn't due to psychological factors, the federation side has psychological factors of its own that seems to prevent it going all out. It's also why the imperium's size and response time is something discussed in this thread, that the imperial response would take time to muster which gives the federation prep time, maybe a lot of it.
So to go back to this, you never see the federation fight this way, they never bomb cardassian or dominion planets and installations with super long range ordinance, they never use all these super weapons you mention.
The 40k side has no such reservations when it comes to going all out, this isn't a lazy copout, it's something rather important and even intrinsical to the federation: their utopian ideals. Which you even conveniently bring up later that they could use as part of a propaganda attempt.
-The point is the imperium is able to fight against the necrons. The reason they can't eliminate the necron threat entirely is due to factors which don't apply in the case of the federation. Redshirts don't warp out when they die to tomb worlds to be reconstructed for example. The federation has necron style weapons and tech if i am to believe you, but they are not necrons, and have homeworlds to defend and a clear civilian population to target which the necrons don't.
So by handle i mean they are able to actually fight them and even hit their super fast ships just fine, it's their necrodermic whatever you call it armor that gives them problems and allows them to tank imperium firepower so effectively.
-Fair enough regarding in system short warp jumps, guess i been playing too much battlefleet gothic armada where i do short range warp jumps all the time xP
-"You know Starfleet is still composed of tool users, right?"
Yes and i don't get what you're trying to say. I already mentioned your average redshirt would likely be a tech whizz, but it doesn't change that if something happens to their replicators and they lack the means to fix it for whatever reason like in that siege of x episode from ds9, they do very poorly. It's not a stretch to say relying on tech makes you somewhat dependent on it, that's true for a lot of people even in our modern world.
-Federation propaganda is a valid strat. But i think you're overestimating its effectiveness. What kind of damage do you think the propaganda would do exactly? The best the tau could do after years of effort is getting a few planets on their borders with flaky planetary governors to secede, but this was also due to a sentiment that the imperium had abandoned them or were busy elsewhere. It's not like entire sectors broke off to join the tau and if there was any real possibility of damage, suddenly you've drawn the attention of the inquisition.
You just can't compare this to callidus infiltration who can easily work their way up to the upper echelons of starfleet command (something which has already happened in the show), made all the more easier by the federation's small size and more simple hierarchy in comparison the byzantine like power structure of the imperium. A section 51 agent trying to work their way up to the high lords would have his work cut out for him, not to mention having to deal with pyskers and inquisitors. The imperium is a totalitarian state full of paranoia, whereas the federation is an utopia all about freedom and personal liberties, and as wonderful as that is, it is only much more susceptible to infiltration tactics.
-Assuming the imperium can warp travel to earth (and if they can't, then an invasion of federation space becomes just plain unfeasible), then they would get even less warning then they had with the borg since their method of FTL is faster when it comes to vast distances. Furthermore fleet travelling through the warp wouldn't be picked up by the federation's sensors unless they already did extensive research on warp travel and did techno sciencey stuff to be able to detect an approaching fleet without psykers.
-The federation beating the dominion was a massive hax. In all seriousness i felt absolutely cheated by Ds9 in that regard. Dukat should have won, he beat the federation fair and square, until a litteral deus ex machina happened and wops, that massive dominion armada got wiped by extra dimensional powers.
The federation didn't win the dominion war by themselves, without the intervention of the prophets and that the protagonist starfleet officer happened to be their chose emissary, they would have lost that war.
