Poll: ST Federation or 40k Imperium - who would win in a war?

[direkiller]

last I check the IOM has more then 200 planet killing weapons kicking around.

How in the holy hell can trek do anything close to damage before holy hell-fire comes raining down?

For the same reason the Imperium is willing to spend millions of lives and centuries of rebuilding to defend the planets it currently has: if they destroyed habitable worlds at the smallest sign of resistance, it'd run out of planets.

Even when the IoM wins a conflict, it comes out of it weaker. That's been true throughout its lifespan. On considering the toll in men and materials, not to mention the inevitable rebellions, defections, and civil wars that are going to break out when they come in contact with a Federation that's human controlled, hugely technologically advanced, doesn't run its entire economy based around human rights abuses, and will even let defectors still worship the Emperor, the Imperium, even if they win, are going to pay a hugely disproportionate amount.

trek warp drive is not fast enough to do that. they have less then 2 months before black ships, kill ships, and battle barges start a genocide, not the 40-50 years warp drive needs to reach major strongholds of the IOM

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

trek warp drive is not fast enough to do that. they have less then 2 months before black ships, kill ships, and battle barges start a genocide, not the 40-50 years warp drive needs to reach major strongholds of the IOM

Two months...give or take the ten, twenty, or two hundred years it takes the Administratum to process anything new.

The Imperium is like...I mean, sure, when they come, they'll come down like a hammer whose homeworld was destroyed by a fleet of nails, and which now harbours a genocidal grudge against all nails and nail-like objects. They'll hit so hard they'll temporarily detach the very concept of a nail from the universe itself. But when they'll do that is kind of uncertain. Getting the Administratum to do anything is like going to the DMV, except it's Soviet Russia, and the desk is staffed by sadistic Time Lords. It's like playing Papers, Please, except the text is in classical Latin, the keyboard is in Braille, and the mouse is an actual live mouse. It's like artfully illustrating a ten-thousand-year-old religious text over seven decades, only to find out on your deathbed that it had to be done in triplicate, and that all the photocopiers had been hurled onto a pyre for colluding with Satan.

This is fun, I'm going to keep going. Trying to get the Administratum to do anything is like trying to teach a hippo to play Dance Dance Revolution on a dance pad that is rigged to set off a land mine if they make a wrong move. It's like Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill, except you're not Sisyphus, you're the guy who has to watch Sisyphus and labouriously track his every step and stumble, and then archive it in the form of a stop-motion animated short.

It's like filling a sieve with water, only gravity periodically inverts itself, and the sieve itself is made out of pasta. Okay, one more. It's like trying to weather a filibuster delivered by Stephen Hawking's voice synthesiser, reciting in sequence the chemical composition of the human genome and how it relates conceptually to the complete rules for poker and its regional variants.

And the synthesiser was programmed by Franz Kafka.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Two months...give or take the ten, twenty, or two hundred years it takes the Administratum to process anything new.

Not quite. It'd take forever for the bureaucracy on Earth to get anything done, but a lot of stuff gets done without going through all the hoops or going all the way. The wars on Armageddon, the Tyranid invasions, the Black Crusades, all were responded to in a timely fashion. To a greater or lesser extent, and it might have been a more localised response than one from Terra.

The Federation has a major advantage the Tau don't have: they aren't filthy xenon scum. Nor do they worship heathen gods, and they're politically dominant over alien races in their Federation.

Er...there's plenty of alien races and weird deities in the Federation. It's easier on the makeup to have most extras be human, but they are one race amongst loads.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Unless the Federation had something the Imperium really really wanted and the Imperium knew about it, there's really no reason why they wouldn't start hurling cyclonic torpedoes around as soon as the naval conflict went south. Assuming they're able to; it may be difficult if they can't locate Federation worlds or simply can't get a ship there safely.

If the Imperium isn't trying to conquer habitable worlds, then why are they there? Why wasn't the Tau Empire melted under waves of Cyclonic torpedoes? A)Their production, distribution, and deployment pipelines are significantly less than the "infinite" a lot of fanboys seem to think, and/or B) They're trying to conquer habitable planets with a semi-functioning biosphere.

Even when the IoM wins a conflict, it comes out of it weaker. That's been true throughout its lifespan. On considering the toll in men and materials, not to mention the inevitable rebellions, defections, and civil wars that are going to break out when they come in contact with a Federation that's human controlled, hugely technologically advanced, doesn't run its entire economy based around human rights abuses, and will even let defectors still worship the Emperor, the Imperium, even if they win, are going to pay a hugely disproportionate amount.

"Win but get weaker" is an oversimplication. Numerous wars in the Imperium's history have resulted in tangible, non-Phyrric gains. Lord Solar Macharius conquered one thousand worlds in just seven years, only a few centuries out from 40k's "present" day timeline. Not "reclaimed"; he literally pushed the border of the Imperium as far as it could go. Aside from that, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade and the Angevin Crusade (off the top of my head) both resulted in the reclamation of vast stellar territories that had been either uninhabited or just isolated for thousands of years.

It's easier to say that they were re-conquering territory humanity previously held, generally not against organized multi-system defenses. And certainly not over anybody with the technological sophistication, ability to adapt, or moral resolve of the Federation.

The Imperium is decaying, but it is doing so slowly and on a galactic scale. Individual campaigns still result in large gains or the recovery of long-lost territory. As a historical comparison, the Byzantine Empire took nearly a thousand years to fall, and experienced a half-dozen vast fluctuations in the size of its territory and the strength of its armies over that time. It wasn't a steady one-way decline.

You're right, for a brief, shining moment led by someone who would be turned into a saint, the Imperium managed to expand without a significant reduction in power. Fortunately, he died before he could overextend himself, and thus became the Nirvana of crusades.

Meanwhile, fluff being written of great victories these days would have been described as pyrrhic a decade ago. Such is the propaganda of a failing racist state.

And would the Federation permit potential defectors to worship the Emperor? As in...the nominal ruler of the political entity that they are at war with? The guy whose state religion was founded on an extreme human supremacist ideology that makes Khan and his eugenicist buddies look like flower children?

I don't think Starfleet would be okay with that.

As long as some nutbar in a red KKK outfit doesn't go after Worf with a flamethrower, Starfleet wouldn't give a shit. Case in point? The Tau let their Gue'vesa worship The Emperor without a problem, and the Federation is far more open to other cultures than they are.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Two months...give or take the ten, twenty, or two hundred years it takes the Administratum to process anything new.

Not quite. It'd take forever for the bureaucracy on Earth to get anything done, but a lot of stuff gets done without going through all the hoops or going all the way. The wars on Armageddon, the Tyranid invasions, the Black Crusades, all were responded to in a timely fashion. To a greater or lesser extent, and it might have been a more localised response than one from Terra.

When the Imperium is attacked, local forces are expected to hold out for around a month with no support, during which some form of reinforcement is scrapped up from neighboring systems and sent through the warp as reinforcement. (Or ad-hoc counter attack if the enemy has already won.). Putting together a fresh offensive is an entirely other matter than can take decades. Remember that the Tau were trading with generations of outlying Imperial worlds before anybody who gave a shit even knew about it, and decades later for the crusade to actually launch.

The Federation has a major advantage the Tau don't have: they aren't filthy xenon scum. Nor do they worship heathen gods, and they're politically dominant over alien races in their Federation.

Er...there's plenty of alien races and weird deities in the Federation. It's easier on the makeup to have most extras be human, but they are one race amongst loads.

Not saying their aren't loads of aliens in Starfleet, but the headquarters for the Federation and for Starfleet are on Earth for a reason, and it isn't because Earth got conquered by filthy xenos scum.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Speed of the projectiles can be theoretically calculated from the BFG manuals.

mars pattern macrobattery: fires a kilo-ton(million kg or 1/3 the enterprise-E) projectile 6 void units(~10,000km) "almost instantly"
so 60,000km/s fair?

Ehhh, I mean, we're talking about an example of "almost instantly" in a culture where going from orbit around a planet to jump point being a week is "fast".

And are you sure they mean kilo-ton as in mass and not, say, the far applicable blast yield? Especially given that said shells would easily out weigh Imperial torpedoes?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Unless the Federation had something the Imperium really really wanted and the Imperium knew about it, there's really no reason why they wouldn't start hurling cyclonic torpedoes around as soon as the naval conflict went south. Assuming they're able to; it may be difficult if they can't locate Federation worlds or simply can't get a ship there safely.

If the Imperium isn't trying to conquer habitable worlds, then why are they there? Why wasn't the Tau Empire melted under waves of Cyclonic torpedoes? A)Their production, distribution, and deployment pipelines are significantly less than the "infinite" a lot of fanboys seem to think, and/or B) They're trying to conquer habitable planets with a semi-functioning biosphere.

The Imperium is wanting to conquer worlds, yes. But that's not to say they wouldn't change their minds if they were losing the war. No point trying to conquer worlds for long term gain in a war you are losing.

It's easier to say that they were re-conquering territory humanity previously held, generally not against organized multi-system defenses. And certainly not over anybody with the technological sophistication, ability to adapt, or moral resolve of the Federation.

The Sabbat worlds, at least, was against organised multi-system defence. Not sure what you mean about "moral resolve".

When the Imperium is attacked, local forces are expected to hold out for around a month with no support, during which some form of reinforcement is scrapped up from neighboring systems and sent through the warp as reinforcement. (Or ad-hoc counter attack if the enemy has already won.). Putting together a fresh offensive is an entirely other matter than can take decades.

Again, the wars on Armageddon, the Tyranid invasions, the Black Crusades, all were responded to in a timely fashion.

Remember that the Tau were trading with generations of outlying Imperial worlds before anybody who gave a shit even knew about it, and decades later for the crusade to actually launch.

Sure, because nobody cared. The Tau weren't doing anything particularly noteworthy. Compare that to the nids, a fleet was sent out from a different Segmentum to fight Behemoth at Ultramar because they were serious business.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

And would the Federation permit potential defectors to worship the Emperor? As in...the nominal ruler of the political entity that they are at war with? The guy whose state religion was founded on an extreme human supremacist ideology that makes Khan and his eugenicist buddies look like flower children?

I don't think Starfleet would be okay with that.

As long as some nutbar in a red KKK outfit doesn't go after Worf with a flamethrower, Starfleet wouldn't give a shit. Case in point? The Tau let their Gue'vesa worship The Emperor without a problem, and the Federation is far more open to other cultures than they are.

That's possible, though I see conflict arising with the Federation's Human and Vulcan crew, since they did have gripes with Clingons o-board the enterprise due to their culture and habits.

It would be insteresting to see how would Imperial-born Feds react to a siege on Holy Tera.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The Imperium is wanting to conquer worlds, yes. But that's not to say they wouldn't change their minds if they were losing the war. No point trying to conquer worlds for long term gain in a war you are losing.

Again, they didn't do that with the Tau even after they knew they had other things to do. Because they can always comeback later, and an exterminatused world is permanently worthless.

It's easier to say that they were re-conquering territory humanity previously held, generally not against organized multi-system defenses. And certainly not over anybody with the technological sophistication, ability to adapt, or moral resolve of the Federation.

The Sabbat worlds, at least, was against organised multi-system defence. Not sure what you mean about "moral resolve".

The Imperium is often described as having an unshakeable resolve. The Federation does too, and the multitudes of human rights abuses happening constantly goes against everything they stand for.

When the Imperium is attacked, local forces are expected to hold out for around a month with no support, during which some form of reinforcement is scrapped up from neighboring systems and sent through the warp as reinforcement. (Or ad-hoc counter attack if the enemy has already won.). Putting together a fresh offensive is an entirely other matter than can take decades.

Again, the wars on Armageddon, the Tyranid invasions, the Black Crusades, all were responded to in a timely fashion.

All of those are defensive. Tyranid incursions typically decimate entire sectors or more, Armageddon is a major site of strategic importance that's been rough over at least three times, and the Black Crusades all have to go through Cadia and the surrounding space, so it's literally on high alert in perpetuity.

Remember that the Tau were trading with generations of outlying Imperial worlds before anybody who gave a shit even knew about it, and decades later for the crusade to actually launch.

Sure, because nobody cared. The Tau weren't doing anything particularly noteworthy. Compare that to the nids, a fleet was sent out from a different Segmentum to fight Behemoth at Ultramar because they were serious business.

Which took months, would have been worse if the only Inquisitor who gave a shit didn't get lucky, which resulted in hideous casualties, and likely wouldn't have been stopped nearly so "quickly" if it hadn't been on the verge of eating the Ultramarine's home world.

So if Federation conflict is anything like the Tau, it's more likely that the Federation will have a century of trade, diplomacy, research, and conversions to work with before the Imperium takes decades to spin up to a proper crusade to stop the multi-sector wide heresy that's probably going on. And by that time, the Federation has probably figured out Imperium styled warp travel, only much safer and consistent. Because that's how they do.

And that's assuming they don't spend that century learning trans-warp and timeships instead, like in canon.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

And would the Federation permit potential defectors to worship the Emperor? As in...the nominal ruler of the political entity that they are at war with? The guy whose state religion was founded on an extreme human supremacist ideology that makes Khan and his eugenicist buddies look like flower children?

I don't think Starfleet would be okay with that.

As long as some nutbar in a red KKK outfit doesn't go after Worf with a flamethrower, Starfleet wouldn't give a shit. Case in point? The Tau let their Gue'vesa worship The Emperor without a problem, and the Federation is far more open to other cultures than they are.

That's possible, though I see conflict arising with the Federation's Human and Vulcan crew, since they did have gripes with Clingons o-board the enterprise due to their culture and habits.

It would be insteresting to see how would Imperial-born Feds react to a siege on Holy Tera.

Frame it as allowing the faithful to free their god from the shackles of the corrupt state binding Him to the mortal plane for their own personal power and I'd bet they'd get some very enthusiastic volunteers. And then promise to overhaul the golden throne and figure out how to keep it powered without sacrificing hundreds per day. I mean, they're just pumping energy into sub space, right? Starfleet is very good at power generation.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

And would the Federation permit potential defectors to worship the Emperor? As in...the nominal ruler of the political entity that they are at war with? The guy whose state religion was founded on an extreme human supremacist ideology that makes Khan and his eugenicist buddies look like flower children?

I don't think Starfleet would be okay with that.

As long as some nutbar in a red KKK outfit doesn't go after Worf with a flamethrower, Starfleet wouldn't give a shit. Case in point? The Tau let their Gue'vesa worship The Emperor without a problem, and the Federation is far more open to other cultures than they are.

That's possible, though I see conflict arising with the Federation's Human and Vulcan crew, since they did have gripes with Clingons o-board the enterprise due to their culture and habits.

It would be insteresting to see how would Imperial-born Feds react to a siege on Holy Tera.

Frame it as allowing the faithful to free their god from the shackles of the corrupt state binding Him to the mortal plane for their own personal power and I'd bet they'd get some very enthusiastic volunteers. And then promise to overhaul the golden throne and figure out how to keep it powered without sacrificing hundreds per day. I mean, they're just pumping energy into sub space, right? Starfleet is very good at power generation.

Then what, just let one of the most powerful beings in the universe sit with his hands crossed somewhere in the corner? If they do keep him alive, they would still be forced to negotiate with him as the man would have a profound ammount of influence over the galaxy due to his status alone.

Considering the Emperor's ego, the negotiations with him would be tricky to say the least.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Then what, just let one of the most powerful beings in the universe sit with his hands crossed somewhere in the corner? If they do keep him alive, they would still be forced to negotiate with him as the man would have a profound ammount of influence over the galaxy due to his status alone.

Considering the Emperor's ego, the negotiations with him would be tricky to say the least.

Ehh, Starfleet's dealt with their share of unknowable god beings with huge egos, they should be fine. Hell, Q's inherently more powerful than a chaos god, what with not needing sacrifices, being perfectly active on the material plane, and being able to maipulate reality in ways that would make Tzeench nurgle with envy. Only thing holding Q back are the other Q's and him not wanting to lose face.

Contrary to popular Imperial belief, the fleshy bits that can only be described in the loosest sense as "alive" isn't what's talking to the faithful. Or at least, wouldn't be hampered in doing so by not being bolted to his chair at all times. Hell, the old guy might even go New Testament-y if his precious humans can take their place in the galaxy without relying on half understood technologies that were old when he was using them.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

Then what, just let one of the most powerful beings in the universe sit with his hands crossed somewhere in the corner? If they do keep him alive, they would still be forced to negotiate with him as the man would have a profound ammount of influence over the galaxy due to his status alone.

Considering the Emperor's ego, the negotiations with him would be tricky to say the least.

Ehh, Starfleet's dealt with their share of unknowable god beings with huge egos, they should be fine. Hell, Q's inherently more powerful than a chaos god, what with not needing sacrifices, being perfectly active on the material plane, and being able to maipulate reality in ways that would make Tzeench nurgle with envy. Only thing holding Q back are the other Q's and him not wanting to lose face.

Contrary to popular Imperial belief, the fleshy bits that can only be described in the loosest sense as "alive" isn't what's talking to the faithful. Or at least, wouldn't be hampered in doing so by not being bolted to his chair at all times. Hell, the old guy might even go New Testament-y if his precious humans can take their place in the galaxy without relying on half understood technologies that were old when he was using them.

Probably removing the Emperor would cause the Imperium to collapse, since it is one of the few things that's holding the entire thing together. Would the Federation anex them or would they just leave half the Galaxy a jumbled mess of factions and demon gods like during the Warp Storms?

 

[direkiller]

Speed of the projectiles can be theoretically calculated from the BFG manuals.

mars pattern macrobattery: fires a kilo-ton(million kg or 1/3 the enterprise-E) projectile 6 void units(~10,000km) "almost instantly"
so 60,000km/s fair?

Ehhh, I mean, we're talking about an example of "almost instantly" in a culture where going from orbit around a planet to jump point being a week is "fast".

And are you sure they mean kilo-ton as in mass and not, say, the far applicable blast yield? Especially given that said shells would easily out weigh Imperial torpedoes?

When I re-read it I think I mixed up per-shell and per-salvo, It's stupidly vuage regardless, and mass is not the most important factor in a relativistic energy calculation.

"Mars Pattern Macrocannons:
The most common macrobattery, these are reliable, hard-hitting weapons firing kilo-tonne ordinance, mounted along the vessel's dorsal ridge or in broadside."- Rogue Trader

due to the use of the word macro battery, I think they mean the total salvo rather then per shell, it's an easy thing to misread in my defense.


as for the speed:
"Macro Weapons propel massive projectiles at near light speeds. These projectiles range from massive calibre high explosive shells and giant sky-scraper sized adamantium slugs to orbs of vaporising plasma and shells that literally contain the entropy of the warp. Macro Weapons are the mainstay of almost any fleet."-BFG:Armada

I stand by what I used.

 

[direkiller]

trek warp drive is not fast enough to do that. they have less then 2 months before black ships, kill ships, and battle barges start a genocide, not the 40-50 years warp drive needs to reach major strongholds of the IOM

Two months...give or take the ten, twenty, or two hundred years it takes the Administratum to process anything new.

The Imperium is like...I mean, sure, when they come, they'll come down like a hammer whose homeworld was destroyed by a fleet of nails, and which now harbours a genocidal grudge against all nails and nail-like objects. They'll hit so hard they'll temporarily detach the very concept of a nail from the universe itself. But when they'll do that is kind of uncertain. Getting the Administratum to do anything is like going to the DMV, except it's Soviet Russia, and the desk is staffed by sadistic Time Lords. It's like playing Papers, Please, except the text is in classical Latin, the keyboard is in Braille, and the mouse is an actual live mouse. It's like artfully illustrating a ten-thousand-year-old religious text over seven decades, only to find out on your deathbed that it had to be done in triplicate, and that all the photocopiers had been hurled onto a pyre for colluding with Satan.

This is fun, I'm going to keep going. Trying to get the Administratum to do anything is like trying to teach a hippo to play Dance Dance Revolution on a dance pad that is rigged to set off a land mine if they make a wrong move. It's like Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill, except you're not Sisyphus, you're the guy who has to watch Sisyphus and labouriously track his every step and stumble, and then archive it in the form of a stop-motion animated short.

It's like filling a sieve with water, only gravity periodically inverts itself, and the sieve itself is made out of pasta. Okay, one more. It's like trying to weather a filibuster delivered by Stephen Hawking's voice synthesiser, reciting in sequence the chemical composition of the human genome and how it relates conceptually to the complete rules for poker and its regional variants.

And the synthesiser was programmed by Franz Kafka.

None of the stuff I listed is under the authority of the Admistratum
It's Inqustion, and Astartes.

1/3 the Inqustion is out of a job, due to no deamons in this pocket war. The outer 2/3 suddenly have one target, humans who live with xenos(ordo hereticus), and aliens(ordo Xenos).
I think they will find something to occupy there time.

and it would be a race between Flesh Tearers, Carcharodons, and Black Templars on who can pack there bags first for the all you can kill buffet.


IOM will get there much quicker then you think.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

None of the stuff I listed is under the authority of the Admistratum
It's Inqustion, and Astartes.

1/3 the Inqustion is out of a job, due to no deamons in this pocket war. The outer 2/3 suddenly have one target, humans who live with xenos(ordo hereticus), and aliens(ordo Xenos).
I think they will find something to occupy there time.

and it would be a race between Flesh Tearers, Carcharodons, and Black Templars on who can pack there bags first for the all you can kill buffet.


IOM will get there much quicker then you think.

Yeah, I was mostly just having fun with metaphors.

Ehh, Starfleet's dealt with their share of unknowable god beings with huge egos, they should be fine. Hell, Q's inherently more powerful than a chaos god, what with not needing sacrifices, being perfectly active on the material plane, and being able to maipulate reality in ways that would make Tzeench nurgle with envy. Only thing holding Q back are the other Q's and him not wanting to lose face.

Dude! No. Q is not "inherently more powerful" than a Chaos God. The mere fact that there are other Qs to hold Q back means that he's subject to more limits than Tzeentch is.

Think of it this way. Q can, presumably, be killed by other Q's. The only way to kill Tzeentch is to literally kill the very concept of ambition. That, or to just kill all sentient life in the universe.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Sorry Metalix, the Imperium is a regime in decline, always has been. They're going to run out of dudes eventually, they're just huge enough it's going to take a bit.

Define, a bit, cause considering they still consider clearing a minefield by throwing men into and and exploding them a viable tactic, I rather doubt the conflict with the Federation is gonna drain them to the point where they have to start worrying about their troop population. For crying out loud, the Administratum's JOB involves keeping track of Guardsman numbers and even THEY don't really have a clue as to how many people they have in it beyond estimates.

A bit of maths, if you will. There are 32,380 Hive Worlds in the Imperium. The average population of these worlds is around 200 billion each. We put these together and we get 6.476E15 (6,476,000,000,000,000 or 6.476 Quadrillion) people on Hive worlds ALONE. Eventually there would be more human babies than there would be soylens viridiens and lasguns to come out of the Forge World assembly lines.

Yes, the Imperium is in decline, but it sure as hell ain't weak. Just a shadow of what it used to be, and what it used to be involved tech that could make anything and everything, and devices that could move entire stars on a whim. Even a shadow of that is still horrifying to witness.

The Federation has a major advantage the Tau don't have: they aren't filthy xenon scum. Nor do they worship heathen gods, and they're politically dominant over alien races in their Federation.

Hell, given the morale of the Gue'vesa, former imperials who've gone Fed would probably be edging into the fanatical range.

You're right. They AREN'T filthy Xeno scum. They just expect everyone in it to play nice with and tolerate xeno scum, and that crap just ain't gonna fly with former Imperium citizens and rulers. More likely than not Former Imperium worlds would just splinter off and do their own thing the second they figure out the Synthisizers, which will probably involve warring against the Klingons or the Vulcans.

Heck, pretty much the only reason Imperial world's joined with the Tau was pure desperation and being between a rock and a hard place. (Join the Tau and be killed in a few years, don't join and get nommed by bugs next week.)

 

[Mangod]

Sorry Metalix, the Imperium is a regime in decline, always has been. They're going to run out of dudes eventually, they're just huge enough it's going to take a bit.

The Imperium has been in decline for 10,000 years, and it's still the biggest dog in the yard, despite every other species in the galaxy ganging up on it.

Be honest with me; if the Klingons, Romulans, Borg, Ferengi, Cardassians, the Dominion, etc, etc, all launched their own simultaneous wars of extinction against the Federation, while the Maquis and Section 31 are both launching their own separate coups against Starfleet - how long would the Federation last? Because that's what the Imperium goes through, and has been going through, for ten millenia.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

as for the speed:
"Macro Weapons propel massive projectiles at near light speeds. These projectiles range from massive calibre high explosive shells and giant sky-scraper sized adamantium slugs to orbs of vaporising plasma and shells that literally contain the entropy of the warp. Macro Weapons are the mainstay of almost any fleet."-BFG:Armada

I stand by what I used.

...How many skyscraper sized bullets are you going to be able to fit in a ship that's only 3km long in total? Or if we're being generous and using a Battleship instead of a Cruiser, 5km long?

Probably removing the Emperor would cause the Imperium to collapse, since it is one of the few things that's holding the entire thing together. Would the Federation anex them or would they just leave half the Galaxy a jumbled mess of factions and demon gods like during the Warp Storms?

They'd give humanitarian aid where they could, induct worlds that wanted to join, etc. and if they kept pumping energy into warp space, the astronomicon could still be active. Hell, the pseudo-circuitry found in psychic amplification devices the Imperium has would be fascinating to study and improve on. They may be able to take the belief and prayers of the former Imperials and focus that like a lense to do so. Might take them a bit.

 

[JamesStone]

On considering the toll in men

Gotta stop ya right there Alt. If there is one thing the Imperium doesn't really give one iota of a crap about, it's the toll on men their conflicts have. They have solar powered laser guns, and yet Manpower is STILL their number one most common resource. As was said in Dawn of War, "When in doubt, throw more men at it."

Sorry Metalix, the Imperium is a regime in decline, always has been. They're going to run out of dudes eventually, they're just huge enough it's going to take a bit.

Not to mention, if the existence of an alternative of a hugely technologically advanced civilization that doesn't run its entire economy based around human rights abuses and will even let defectors still worship the Emperor was enough to get people turning against the Imperium the Tau would currently be the number one superpower in the galaxy. As it stands, the minute any rebelling worlds learn the Federation would be expecting them to play nice with the Xenos out there, the Federation would quickly lose those worlds support.

The Federation has a major advantage the Tau don't have: they aren't filthy xenon scum. Nor do they worship heathen gods, and they're politically dominant over alien races in their Federation.

Hell, given the morale of the Gue'vesa, former imperials who've gone Fed would probably be edging into the fanatical range.

They're fanatic because their hormones are being stimulated by the space maggots that live in the Ethereals' brains (new fluff, bullshit IMO but still exists).


And manpower is an irrelevant statistic in the context of Federation vs Imperium for the Imperium side. They have too many of it for it to matter in any meaningful way. A big Hive World can pump so many people per month that a war against the Federation wouldn't even be a blimp in their radar.


Let's put it this way. The Imperium is fighting a war against 8 enemies (on-off on some cases), are being led by stupid fanatics with almost no technological advancement, fight amongst themselves as often as against their enemies, and most space marine chapters are religious fanatic fuckheads more concerned with their traditions than they are with actually being effective. Hell, their main battle tank is a jury rigged fucking tractor, and the Baneblade, one of the Astra Militarum's pride, is just a medium tank by 30k standards. Yet they hold on against jackasses so advanced their planets fly, necronic night immortal man shaped war machines, giant funguses who kill, main and burn for fun and reproduce by being killed, corrupted versions of the jackasses, hormone-controlled hyper-advanced fuckheads, zerg on steroids and the forces of an entire dimension that's been corrupted by how shit men and eldar are, and still manage to hold on pretty well. One of their most important military worlds is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the gatewat to what might as well be hell, and it took what, 6 crusades from combined forces of four Chaos Gods to even get a foothold of it.


Point being, the Imperium has a lot of shit to deal with, and has been dealing with that shit for ten thousand years. They got so many men the only way they can have space for them all is by colonizing worlds so bad that a normal person surviving to 5 is an accomplishment. I doubt they'd be even slowed down by a bunch of prissy little shits with only 200 worlds whose ships are so small in comparison they can be shot out of the main weapon of a battlecruiser.

(Disclaimer: I love Star Trek, but 40k is ridiculous by nature. No faction in the Trekverse - if you exclude Q - could even hope to survive a few weeks against any 40k faction).