On Resurrection in Fantasy Realms

            One of the most enduring staples of Dungeons and Dragons, as well as other fantasy games and settings, is the possibility, and frequency, of resurrection within the game.  In context of a game, it makes sense that such provisions exist—who wants to spend months, or even years, developing and creating a character, only for one bad night to result in the permanent and irretrievable loss of said character?  I know there are a number of people who enjoy such challenges, but many people don’t want to play when they can arbitrarily lose substantial emotional investment in a character.  As such, allowing for spells such as Raise Dead and similar makes plenty of internal sense.  However, this does lead to a number of considerations to the worlds that develop as a result of this.

            The one with the greatest repercussions, in terms of how society would view such things, is how it affects inheritance, especially among the landed classes.  If the heir dies, and is later returned to life, is he eligible to inherit?  Greater still, what if the lord of a castle dies, and then is returned to life?  Was he “dead”, for legal purposes?  Would his heirs inherit?  Would he retain his position instead?  This isn’t just idle speculation, especially since a number of these spells that return others to life can work on bodies years, decades, or even centuries old.  If the king is slain in battle, and his body not retrieved for years and then returned to life, this could foment a nasty war of succession.  Also, what good would the notion of an assassin be if a bit of coin could undo the entire effort? 

            As such, it seems that a set of laws would assuredly be in place in any developed society where the resurrection of dead men is a realistic possibility for those of wealth and means.  After all, it would be a matter of time before a king is slain in battle, and what happens to the realm then?  There must be some succession, and it must be codified into law.  Either it happened, and this results in a civil war, or (far less likely), great foresight was demonstrated and laws set into place to preempt such a passing.  There are a few possibilities.  First, death is legally final—you die, and that’s it.  A subsequent return to life does not undo the death, and a succession occurs.  Two, there is a period of grace in this situation, akin to a mourning period—after so many days, if you are not returned to the living, you are forever legally dead, regardless of any subsequent resurrection.  Finally, a resurrection returns your property and station to you.  So let’s discuss these option.

            The third, that resurrection legally undoes death seems to be the least likely solution.  This could cause great havoc in the inheritance, as well as legal, religious, and physical battles to settle the matter.  Imagine if, after an estate is settled, the dead man returns to life, and then seeks return of his assets?  A nightmare, certainly, especially if legal rule is part of the assets lost.  Also, who would ever pay to have anyone returned to life in such a situation?  Only the most devoted, or dastardly, of servants would consider causing such a scheme.  Thus it seems unlikely that this would be the legal situation.

            The first, at immediate glance, seems reasonable—that the dead, once dead, are instantly and permanently legally so, and thus lose property and station.  However, considering this proposition carefully, it also seems unlikely for this to be the case.  In the real world, major wars have been started, resumed, or averted because of an accidental and unexpected death—the Hundred Years War is certainly an example, where the accidental death of an English king set the succession of the French throne once again into doubt.  The death of Frederik Barbarossa also is a case in point, where another accidental horse death ended the Holy Roman Empire’s involvement in the crusade.  The kings involved, I would wager, would not like the random chance of a horse throw ending their reign very much, when remedy is at hand to return them to life.  Nor would they like the notion that their heirs could so similarly be removed from succession, especially given the many travails the real world has had with such incidents. 

            This leads to the final option, that death is undone legally only if the resurrection occurs within a specified timeframe, or in response to specific means of death.  An honorable death in battle, perhaps, would be considered to be final death, even if resurrection occurs.  However, accidental death or assassination would indeed be remedied by a resurrection.  Certainly, the wealthy would have such an interest in preventing random and unfortunate death to hindering their rule.  Naturally, some sort of period would have to be in place, such that one could not remain in death for years at a time, to be recalled to life to rule again.

            Of course, this also has interesting results in regards to crime and punishment.  A man of station could be executed, then returned to life stripped of property and rights, reduced in station.  He could be kept “in death” for a period of time, then returned to a world now changed, without assets or rights.  This would functionally be more severe than exile or dispossessing a man—an exile could have supporters seeking to return him to position that was merely stripped, but a man who is formally dead?  Few would undo such a major social rule, because that would keep them from effectively asserting their dominion if they overthrew a government.  After all, if the dead can return to their rights, then what’s stopping their deposed and slain enemy from troubling them a second time?  So, death would be death for these people, return to life or not. 

            Thus, it seems a set of rules for the dead would be in place.  One killed outside of honorable conditions (such as a formal battle or execution) could be recalled to life within a short period of time (a few days) without loss of property or station.  Those killed in an honorable manner, such as a formal execution, battle, or duel would remain legally dead regardless of resurrection.  However, I can see some interesting exceptions being made to this kind of rule—that a mighty warrior be kept “on death” so that they can be ever-ready in the event of great need, returning to life to fight a great battle, then being returned to death to wait his recall.  This is similar to King Arthur, who awaits to return to defend England from grave peril.  Of course, there could be many troubles with this as well.  But, for plot purposes, it could be rather great.  The legendary warrior’s tomb is lost and forgotten to the ages, and the party must find and return this warrior to life.  One could look to the Fifth Element for this kind of case, beyond just the case of Arthur.

Updated Healing for RPGs

One of the things that I've been thinking about recently is magical healing in games like Pathfinder and D&D.  It really quickly negates the utility and need for the heal skill.  Why take ranks in heal when a potion can do more, quicker, and is pretty damn cheap?  It's okay, ish, in the early levels, but by third level it's almost useless.

So I had a thought:  what if magical healing didn't actually repair all the damage.  It just kept you going for a bit longer.  It stops bleeding, and it gives you a push to stay on your toes long enough to get out of danger.  But, short of truly powerful magic like heal or regenerate, the feeling and capacity to protect fades after a period of time.

Alternate rules:

Cure spells, channel positive energy, and lay on hands stop all bleeding, and provide temporary hit points instead of healing damage, up to the maximum hit points of the targeted creature.  A creature that is below 0 HP can be brought to 0 HP through these means, instead of temporary hit points being applied (no greater than 0 HP) These hit points fade after 1 hour per caster level of the spell or effect that caused the healing before fading.

Effects of this rule:

Combat is potentially more dangerous, and players must be more careful about engaging.  They are not assured to be in full health before every encounter as well, which means that these encounters can be more dangerous to PCs.  Natural healing is required to restore health, and recuperation periods are necessary between major events.  It also eliminates certain nagging questions, like battlefield healing realities.

Things I learned in Bronze TvT

Look, I suck at SC2.  I know it.  I'm in bronze, that's what that means.  But, man, this stuff is just...I don't know.

1. Best opening build ever?  3 reapers
2. When that gets crushed, build four banshees.  Cloak is for pussies
3. Under no circumstances should you attack the mineral line when using those banshees.  That's for pussies.  Go for the command center so that way your opponent can stim up some marines and crash your birds.
4. Do not attack again after that.  Ever.  Turtle power!
5. Cluster the hell out of your tanks.  That way, when your opponent is dropping, he can drop marines one at a time on that group so your splash damage kills half your line.  Genius!
6. The natural is for morons.  Build over in a disused start location.  Defending both at the same time is easy.
7. That drop sure did a lot of damage.  I know how to stop this:  turrets at every location physically possible along the perimeter of my ninja expand.
8. Remember that barracks for the reapers?  Because I sure don't.  No need to have any sort of force to move at all, sieged tanks are the best.
9. Reactors are for pussies. 
10. My opponent has set up outside my little enclave with a few siege tanks, a couple of dozen marines, and a handful of vikings?  I know how to break this!  Battlecruisers.
11. That didn't work?  I'll try sending my 15 tanks on the ramp to siege up.  Nothing can go wrong.
12. He's landing vikings to finish off my buildings?  I know, I'll use lift-off/land micro to save them because my non-existent units can't!
13. If you've lost three full mineral lines, have one base left at all, it's 40 minutes into the game, and your opponent is knocking on your last base's door, don't GG.  He might get frustrated with the time of the game and quit.
14. When your opponent has killed your last CC, and your last SCV, and your last unit, say "Faggot."  and quit.  You showed him!

Yes, this was culled from four consecutive TvT games.  Let me tell you, none of this is an exaggeration.

Quick Estimation of Turbolaser Power

Last post I talked about photon torpedoes, and came up with a range (and a pretty wide one at that) for their max yield. This will go somewhat quicker.

The basis for comparison that I am using is the asteroid that is vaporized by a single turbolaser blast in the asteroid field. As in "not there" any longer--and this is a legitimate claim, just watch Empire Strikes back. Also note that this is well below their actual yield per shot--the bolt continues onwards after vaporizing the rock.


So, let's estimate the size. 20m diameter seems about right (if you think this is too much, please let me know). That gives a volume of 4200 m^3 (a little less, but not too much.) At irons density of 7.87 g/cm^3, this gives 33*10^6 kg of iron. Now, just like last time, I'm going to assume initial temperature of 11 Kelvin (as I did for the asteroid in Pegasus, to be wholly fair). In order to vaporize, it first must increase temperature by 1800 K, melt, then increase temperature by 1323 and then vaporize. Molar heat capacity is 25 J/(mol*K), heat of fusion is 13.8 kj/mol, heat of vaporization is 340kJ/mol. At 55.845 g/mole, we have 5.9*10^8 moles of iron. This means 2.7*10^13 Joules to increase temperature the first time, 2.0*10^13 to increase temperature the second time, 2*10^14 Joules to vaporize, 8*10^12 to melt, for a total of ~2.5*10^14 Joules/shot., .1 megaton.



But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, this is quite low--the asteroid in question is a diameter of 80 meters (using the Millennium Falcon as a point of reference), which would require 16000terrajoules of energy to vaporize--which is 40 megatons.)

Review of Civilization IV

Yes, this is way late, but this actually will serve a purpose for newer things that I will get to in my own, loveable, and roundabout way.

Civilization IV is objectively not a good game.  I am not saying you cannot like it--if you want to like it, go ahead, that is your right.  But it is not a good game, and it in no way represents a net improvement over Civ III.  That might seem harsh, but I am going to give you my many, many reasons for this statement.

Let's start with the good.  They absolutely made diplomacy more transparent, which was quite good--you knew why they hated you, and how much they hated you because of things you did.  Same with liking, but the AI never really liked you all that much anyhow, and I'd rather just avoid people senselessly attacking me rather than being friendly with me in Civ games, so that's a plus.  Also, new tile improvements were cool, the idea of dynamic governments via civics were cool, great people were cool, non-generic promotions were cool, units having strength and total HP rather than offense/defense stats and a variable HP count, all good.  Still with the units, adding units that had bonuses versus classes and specific other units, also good, as well as the idea of collateral damage and "flanking" to whittle down the stacks of doom.  Adding religion in was good.  So why do I say the game was objectively bad?

Every single thing I said was done really, really poorly.  Terrible, in fact.  Let's we go in the order I mentioned everything.  Okay, the diplomacy wasn't bad overall, except that they put emphasis on religious similarities and differences actually influencing behavior in states.  Historically speaking, this never really has anything to do with anything at all on the policy level--Catholic lords never had a problem going to war with each other when they had the opportunity to expand their power and their coffers, nor did any other person. Religion only seemed to ever be used in stoking passions, rather than a fundamental cause.  But that's pretty minor.  Otherwise, seeing exactly how people think of you, what you did to upset them, and how much it did upset them is really nice--I wish that Civ 5 had a bit more of that in it, honestly.

The tile improvements were pretty damn cool, having more than just roads, mines, and irrigation.  But what was absolutely terrible was the fact that there were simply too many.  There were, what, 12 different tile improvements by the endgame?  How the heck are you supposed to have an idea on how to optimize, or even set a priority, for a given city with that kind of absolute mess?  Then you have to factor in that these all change over time, and with various civics, so your city might dramatically change as you change governments, and given that some tile improvements (I'm looking at you, cottages) changed as they were used, this made planning a nightmare.  Civilization is a turn-based game, which means all you do is plan.  Planning shouldn't be made harder, it should be made simpler.

Civics were also completely bungled.  Their value was not at all in proportion to when they became available in game, as some that were unlocked later were absolutely worthless compared to earlier civics.  Also, their advent made hurrying production absolutely impossible unless you had one of two civics, neither of which was actually all that good aside from allowing production to be hurried.

Now for the units and all that entailed:  where to begin?  Well, in all honesty, it boils down to one thing:  absolutely no transparency whatsoever.  Too many concepts, which made too many promtions (again with the too much stuff to plan for) made the idea of optimizing a unit even for a specific role almost impossible.  What did first strikes do?  Was it at all better than going with a straight combat bonus? Who knew?  How could you? Why all the different promotions for literally every terrain type at all?  Good lord, you'd literally have to have plains, hill, and forest/jungle specialists, just to do well!  Counter-units were never good in offense, which meant that you had to carefully select which unit to attack with, and hope that they didn't have that unit's counter in that stack.  Then you had to contend with damage.  Now, it always told you what your odds of killing and your odds of retreat, giving a total "unit not die" probability, and that was good.  But you never, ever, had any idea on how much damage this could mean you inflicted or would take, meaning that you couldn't reasonably estimate how much damage your cavalry that would likely withdraw before killing the foe would do.  Since this was a turn-based game, not being able to properly plan is a problem.  This was compounded by the absolutely too many different units throughout most of the game.  Every unit had a counter, which meant that there had to be more and more units.  It started to simplify a bit around gunpowder, but only a little.  It wasn't really all that straightforward until you got to a modern army.  Even then, it's still a bit spotty.

Finally, religion.  Okay, this was just god-awful.  Everyone starts as pagan, but simply having one of the five approved non-Pagan religions in a city made that city objectively better than one that was pagan.  This would be less of a problem if it wasn't for the founding/spreading problem.  The first to get a tech, even by a turn, gets the associated religion.  Everyone else?  Tough luck, hope you beat the others to it.  This, again, wouldn't be so bad if it were not for the fact that having a religion made your city objectively better.  Then, you had to contend with spreading this religion.  It wasn't necessarily fast, and settlers from cities, even cities that founded a religion, never brought their religion with them--which is patently absurd.  This meant that if you wanted your city to not objectively be worse off, you had to have a missionary with you.  This was problematic, since you had to build a specific building for that religion to build missionaries, and that building could be made obsolete (as in, can never ever again build) by technological advances.  That's right, you could technologically advance and screw your ability to set up foreign colonies properly or even change state religions.  Good job, team!

But, really, I dislike the message it sends--you having a religion is better than not having a specific religion, and everyone is better off if they just find some sort of god.  That is a highly offensive notion to anyone who ever thinks for his self and doesn't allow religion to be the focus of his life.  Thomas Jefferson would be appalled by the notion of the game.

This brings me to my main point:  Civ 5 has an expansion, Gods and Kings, coming out.  They're adding religion in.  Now, they did everything that I complained about better in Civ 5, so maybe they won't bugger this one either.  I am still leery though--religion already passively exists in the form of culture and the piety policy track.  I'm a bit wary of all this, but the initial information seems to not be terrible, overall.  Still, I'm not so certain.

Quick Estimation of Photon Torpedo Max power

Since my last post caused some controversy about how powerful Federation weapons are, and photon torpedoes in particular, I thought I'd take a few minutes while I have a bit of a break to take a rough estimate of the power that photon torpedoes have.

This will be an upper bound estimate. I am going to use "Pegasus" to determine this yield because, really, it's quick and straight-forward, and I'm going to use some loose parameters, but I should be on the proper order of magnitude here, and that's what I'm looking for.

Start with the 5km wide asteroid. Yes, I know it is not solid, but this will overestimate the yield of a photorp. That gives a volume of 6.4*10^10 m^3 of nickel-iron. Assuming iron's density of 7.874 g/cm^3, this yields 5.1*10^14 kg of material.

Now, I'm interested in the gravitational binding energy. This is the minimum energy necessary to blow this mass apart. Now, I do know that in an actual destruction, it won't be scattered to infinity, and I'm also neglecting to include the mass that may be vaporized or melted in the process. Again, I don't think that this will be a terribly large difference, but if you want to go through the time and effort to prove me wrong, go ahead. Please show your work!

This energy is 3GM^2/5r--G being the gravitational constant (6.67*10^-11 m^3/(kg*seconds^2), M being the mass in KG, and r being the radius in meters. So, quick calculation: 4.25*10^15 joules. Sounds like a lot? Well, a kiloton of TNT is 4.184*10^12 Joules. The gravitational potential energy of that asteroid? 1 megaton. And it's supposed to take 250 warheads to take it out? That's pretty weak.

Well, suppose that I melt the thing instead. Melting point is 1811 k, and the heat of fusion is 13.8kJ/mole and the heat capacity is 25.1J/mole. Iron has an atomic weight of 55.845g/mole. So we have 9.22*10^15 mole of iron. Space is pretty close to 0K, so I'm going to use a temperature difference of 1800K for this calculation. This yield 5.44*10^20 joules of energy, or about 100 gigatons of energy.

If it took 250 torpedoes to do this (the payload of the Enterprise), then we have 400 megatons of explosive yield per torpedo. That's much better. However, this is probably a gross overestimate. The asteroid would be blown apart far earlier than this--the gravitational potential energy is much lower, so it is not unreasonable to believe that huge sections would be blown off with each torpedo.

Of course, there is a third possibility: that Riker is just a moron, and it would take far less than 250 photorps to destroy it. It wouldn't take 250 modern nukes to blow that thing to dust.

I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.

(Edited because I erred greatly--I used the heat of vaporization instead of the heat of fusion!  That's a huge energy difference.)

An analysis of the Federation vs the Galactic Empire

I will begin this by saying, simply, that while I do enjoy both Trek and Star Wars, I am by no means a great expert in either. I certainly am more familiar with Star Wars, and I will admit that I am slightly biased towards it. So, if I make errors here, please feel free to correct me.


I'm going to start with describing the Federation. My fist assessment of them is, basically, semi-inept scientists put into a conflict scenario. Why do I say semi-inept. Well, they can treknobabble their way out of some situations, I'll admit, and they do have some truly innovate and exceptionally talented crewmembers. I cannot possibly deny that. However, all that said, they have a very civilian mentality towards, well, everything.


First, let's take a look at their flagship, the Enterprise. It's filled with non-combatants and children. That second part is kind of key. Also, no one has small rooms that you'd see in a combat vessel, or even anything other than a luxury liner. Honestly, those rooms that everyone has are absolutely gigantic. For a place where space must be at a premium, they certainly did not skimp with their quarters. I'm sure they have great food recycling programs (i.e. poop to food via replicator tech), because they simply have to. No room for anything, really. It's a very civilian operation, which is alright if their missions were not frequently "Run here, deal with this crisis where people will be shooting at your ship and may be able to take it out." As you can imagine, this is not exactly responsible behavior. Even if it was just an exploration vessel, that's still very risky--a few hundred families bite it if that ship goes out, and given that they often go into unexplored territory with ancient dangers and hazards, it's all but inevitable that there is a massive loss of civilian life on that ship.


Now, let's look at their security/internal weapon systems. They use phasers. To be honest, this is a bad, bad policy. Why? Well, for one, they don't seem to have consistent effects on various types of materials. Sometimes, on some settings, they do well, other times, they are barely effective. They have a small power plant, which means if they increase power to do more damage against a target, they have fewer shots. It has to be limited power supply, because their overloads are about as effective as a modern hand grenade (give or take). Also, they're not exactly the most well-designed weapon. It's not shaped like a pistol, and it takes that function. Pistols have their grip and design for a reason, and it's not looks. It is function. It fits the hand, it's easy to aim, and it's easy to maintain ease of firing. The phaser has none of that. It fits the hand badly, and has no real way to aim well. If you watch the firefights, and have any actual experience in any armed service, you'd see that any squad with any actual combat tactics would clean them up in no time at all.


While I'm on the phasers, I have another beef: why don't they have shotguns for shipboard security? A good, honest, 10-gauge shotgun with shot or slug. It would do wonders for shipboard defense against the Borg, or any boarding action, really. Any security situation, a shotgun would do well in. Even if they didn't want to kill someone, non-lethal rounds could be used. Even if we hadn't developed them in 1989, I don't see why they couldn't have imagined them for the show. Combine replicator/transport tech into their chambers, and you never have to reload and can switch out rounds on the fly. Seems reasonable enough.


Since I just mentioned it, their transportation tech is sorely underused from a tactical perspective. We know that it is quite possible to duplicate people with it, each with the same memories and skillsets of the original. Given how it's supposed to work, this is, to be honest, quite feasible. So why is it that there isn't a dedicated squad of assault troops, volunteers all, who transport clone into combat in shipboard actions, wreak all kinds of havoc with targeted sabotage in enemy ships, even to the point of critical overload of reactors? You'd have no net losses of your own, and your enemies would suffer catastrophic losses. The Borg don't do this, the Klingon don't, no one does. But it is quite highly possible to do so. I could understand ethical limitations on this (creating clones to die, but that's pretty much what a two-way transport via transporter is anyhow), but Klingons certainly don't have that kind of limitation.


Even if the idea of using it to replicate assault troops for boarding actions is repugnant, it could be used for highly ethical purposes. Just keep a log of people who transport down on away teams. Hey, look, Tasha Yar isn't dead any more. Data is a unique resource, and they want to make more. There are ethical concerns with taking him apart to do so, but Data seems to have no objections to a replication via transport. That would either enable research into creating more sentient AIs or it could simply negate the need for such research--every ship could have an android to serve as officer. But that aspect is never used. It's kind of baffling, really.


Another baffling thing is their use of the holodeck. It seems that, every so often, it goes horribly wrong, and nearly destroys the ship somehow. So the first question is "If it does this every so often, why do they let people use it at all?" The second question is "Why haven't they weaponized this at all--Picard was willing to to take out some Borg once, so why isn't this standard practice?" The third question is, "Why isn't this extremely powerful training tool used heavily for training of various types of espionage and combat missions?" Think about it--you can have a fully realistic combat experience, minus actual death of personnel, whenever you needed it. One would think that there would be at least a team of agents who used it routinely for such things, given the number of problems that the Enterprise deals with.


All in all, they seem to be, basically, civilians who are only half-heartedly transitioning into a military position. And, to be fair, that fits their supposed character--explorers and scientists, exploring a galaxy that is still new to them. They're still learning from everything, all the time. And their domestic problems are largely settled, I'd imagine--they have replicators and holodecks, so it's hard to imagine anyone would truly lack a basic necessity. And those things can't be that expensive, since they are apparently in every crewmember's luxurious cabin, no matter their rank. If they were, then the Federation would be, well, bordering on corrupt military dictatorship, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt there.


They are quite successful, however, and there is a great reason for this: their enemies are utterly incompetent morons. The Borg, for instance, have a time machine. They want to beat the humans. So they use it to go back to a few days before the launch of the first warp drive, which would be noticed by the Vulcans and then they'd be integrated into galactic society. That plan is moronic. They have a time machine. There is a much better time to hit earth, hard, and irrecoverably--it's called "before the pyramids were built." Seriously, there would be little to no resistance when they show up literally from nowhere and proclaim themselves now in charge of Earth. Most such peoples would worship them and gladly let themselves be assimilated. Problem completely solved. No pesky humans, and a planet that has had no real mineral or environmental exploitation is now in their grasp. Simple. But they can't do this, at all. They had the imagination to use a time machine, but why give the humans even the slightest chance to succeed? Heck, here's a more salient question: Why did they go to Earth, then use the time machine? They could have used the time machine, then gone to Earth, thus avoiding the huge Federation fleet that damaged and nearly prevented their whole operation. Something just seems off here.


And the Klingon! Strength and honor, but sneak attacks via cloaking tech are okay. Sure, I get that. Ambush is legitimate, and I have no gripes with that. But I do have gripes with them using the bat'leth. That's not exactly a practical weapon for a humanoid (please note the lack of weapons like that in human history, and realize that it's for a good reason). Okay, it's a sacred thing. But why use it at all? They're supposed to be hard-core, but they just seem to be, well, kinda bad at combat. Despite near total militarization, they never really seem to be able to get anywhere.


The Romulans? Sorry, but they have battleships, actual battleships, that can cloak, but they can barely make headway either. They supposedly have this great covert ops program, but they never seem to be able to get even a small raiding fleet anywhere deep into anyone's territory. They get caught in pretty small nets. Look, space is big. Really, really, really big. Our nearest neighbor? 4 light years away. Given warp-drive technology, they could take a non-direct route, and totally avoid almost any picket. Instead of the perimeter of a circle to defend, the Federation and Klingon Empire have a sphere to defend. That area goes up dramatically, and there simply is no way to practically defend it. A raiding fleet could do immense damage, and could force an opponent into guarding certain lanes heavily, and hanging around their outposts exclusively. This is a classic guerrilla campaign. But they can't seem to be able to do this. Yes, their infiltration was caught by an innovative technique, but the point is that they shouldn't have even been at risk of that in the first place.


So the Federation's enemies seem to be, more or less, pretty much worthless, which is why the Federation is still viable--their foes are just less competent than they are.


Now, how about the Empire? The Empire has one truly glaring weakness, and it's called "The Emperor." Really, that man just doesn't understand how a trap works. He uses himself as bait, and actually shows up. Then he has his whole fleet of capital ships not fire at the enemy fleet so he can have some fun. Even if the rebels never took down the shield, that still cost him quite dearly because rather than quickly and utterly annihilating the Rebel fleet, he loses many valuable capital ships--including the Executor. So, that's a big drawback.


But, tech-wise, it's clear that they are better off, from a military standpoint. They have actual rifle-gripped weapons, and that makes a difference in boarding actions. Or ground combat. They have all sorts of ground combat weapons, and they're really good with them. My previous bit on Stormtroopers should attest to that.


Now, they do lack transporter tech, but that may be for religious/ethical/practical reasons. It's not a great combat maneuver, really, given that large ships tend to have large crews and the transport limit is pretty small. Given that thick armor makes good scans harder, it would be all but impractical in their ships. Plus, you are sort of killing yourself and hoping your clone does well. So there may be an ethical or religious consideration there.


But their ships are larger, pack more firepower, and have larger crews. Their crews are military, and do seem to have combat tactics down. Their engagements occur at longer distances than is typical in Trek (maybe a few dozen km or so in Trek vs a few hundred km as point blank in Star Wars). They use fighters as screens and for various other supporting roles. They clearly are a militaristic group, and are good at it.


Before anyone mentions Ewoks, let me point this out: The Ewoks joining, at all, was literal divine intervention. Imperial scouts certainly noted their xenophobia, and counted on the rebels being unable to effectively join with them, which would serve as a good secondary threat to taking out any incursion force. If Threepio hadn't happened to look just like a God to them, then it would have been game over for the Rebels. They'd not have been able to count on them in any fight.


But, even barring that, it's not fair to say "LOL stormtroopers get taken out by teddy bears! HAHAH DERP!" because, really, that's not exactly what happened. Outside of mechanical traps vs the AT-STs, they were of very limited direct effectiveness against the Stormtroopers. Their primary use was surprise against an already engaged foe. That's pretty huge, even against disciplined elite. It creates a new front to fight against, and it distracts them quite dramatically. Their attacks against the Stormtroopers show this--mostly, they drive them from cover, or ruin its effectiveness, and that really is a huge factor in any legitimate firefight.


Overall, the Empire has an extreme advantage, in sheer combat ability and experience. But, let's consider this thematically. Star Trek is about moral dilemmas that an exploring population faces. That is the core theme here. Star Wars? That's about massive conflict, across the galaxy. And since moral certainty is part of this, then ethical considerations don't appear. In a conflict mode, the Empire would probably win, all things equal.


This is in no way to say that the Trek isn't fun, or worthwhile, but I am saying that, in the end, a war would see the Federation probably losing.