Federation vs the Imperium Scenario Challenge

[Namehere]

Section 31... Jesus DS9 did a serious number on every aspect of Star Trek, from how weapons function and what they can do to the very fabric of the Federation no longer based in mutual trust, trade and exploration but now held up by some sort of ultra secret unaccountable, police force. There's a bright future, right East Germany... oh it's gone now. Oops.

I am unfortunately woefully uninformed about warhammer, in any of it's inceptions. So I really can't comment directly on them and will state only the following knowledge - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Warhammer vessels are slower and less accurate in their navigation.
They're militarily focused.

Given the Federation's commitment to the safety of its citizens, I see armadas - flotillas if you will - of ships simply running. Even in the time of Captain Kirk it was established that there was very little a starbase could do that a starship couldn't. This makes being a worldless species practicable if not entirely desirable. TNG demonstrated that Star Fleet maintains mothballed hulls, mostly intact and even with environments still functioning, in vast junk yards. It would take very little effort practically and politically to get the ships fitted with modern warp drives and retrofitted to house refugees.

With that said it appears that the Warhammer 'faction' would pose a significant threat to not only the Federation but the other major governments of the Alpha Quadrant. Assuming this attack took place shortly before the Dominion War, I can see many of the major powers forming a temporary alliance in an effort to prevent the Warhammer faction from taking over Federation space. They'd make worse neighbours. And would appear ready to simply keep advancing until they'd conquered and or destroyed everything else.

If the vessels of the Alpha quadrant are on the whole faster, they could easily zip into the path of these massive warships and mine the hell out of it. Depending naturally on the ability of the vessel to manoeuvre around or away from such obstacles. In general being slow in combat is a good way to loose. The exceptions, by the second it seems, are fewer and fewer. Speed and accuracy are generally preferable to bulky area of effect machines.

And of course if worst came to worst... Kironide.

 

[veloper]

There was an ep of DS9 (well, a two-parter) in which the moral of the story was that taking any basic precautions against shapeshifting aliens mean the bad guys win so the Federataion decided not to.

So...they always lose? And deservedly? Unless we forget about DS9, which I try to do.

Teleportation ruins the entire scenario.

Procedure is just warp to the star system, scan everyone through the walls, teleport a trekkie in and then the trekkie touches the VIP and both get teleported out.

At the very least you'd have to rule out those omniscient scanners.

You can't do that via shields/jammers or weird alien things that stop that. Those crop up all the time to stop that being the end of every Star Trek episode.

Sure, when the scenario is approached solely from a standard narrative/plot device angle, then the trekkies always win regardless, but in some silly convoluted manner, probably involving a lot of talking. In WH40K the imperials are usually expected to only get deeper into shit, unless they are Ultramarines.

Now if instead we only look at what each side has, then it's boring teleportation again.

Shields/teleport jammers - unlike ST, the WH40K setting usually has the decency to call it's magic, magic (or psykers, gods or the Warp) and the current 40K imperial tech is all based on principles scientists already understand in our 21st century, but often super scaled or sometimes miniaturized. Imperials won't have the science-magic of ST to counter ST teleportation.

Alien things - imperials are far to xenophobic and traditional to have anything like that, unless they are inquisitors and in great need. Alien technology could maybe be expected in limited quantities, when the imperials go on the offense under the command of the inquisition, or as the inquisition, but not for something as passive as guarding a prison and the question is, why would the WH aliens even have anything like that, because all they never had to deal with that ST stuff either.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Shields/teleport jammers - unlike ST, the WH40K setting usually has the decency to call it's magic, magic (or psykers, gods or the Warp) and the current 40K imperial tech is all based on principles scientists already understand in our 21st century, but often super scaled or sometimes miniaturized. Imperials won't have the science-magic of ST to counter ST teleportation.

Why not? We've no idea specifically what technology is needed, so no idea if Imperial void shields, for example, would work for that they way they do for Imperial teleporters.

Alien things - imperials are far to xenophobic and traditional to have anything like that, unless they are inquisitors and in great need. Alien technology could maybe be expected in limited quantities, when the imperials go on the offense under the command of the inquisition, or as the inquisition, but not for something as passive as guarding a prison and the question is, why would the WH aliens even have anything like that, because all they never had to deal with that ST stuff either.

I didn't mean alien technology or artifacts (though, the Cadians don't mind the pylons), but in ST, very often the high concentration of some made up thing on some planet stops transporters.

 

[Satinavian]

Yes, Federation would approach cloaked and try to beam the person out. But let's just assume that whatever secret denfense is there makes beaming complicated like always in the TV-show when they didn't want it plotwise. There are nough situations where first "pattern enhancer" or something had to be placed for a safe beamout and that would probably be the case here too.

 

[veloper]

Shields/teleport jammers - unlike ST, the WH40K setting usually has the decency to call it's magic, magic (or psykers, gods or the Warp) and the current 40K imperial tech is all based on principles scientists already understand in our 21st century, but often super scaled or sometimes miniaturized. Imperials won't have the science-magic of ST to counter ST teleportation.

Why not? We've no idea specifically what technology is needed, so no idea if Imperial void shields, for example, would work for that they way they do for Imperial teleporters.

Well, it somehow might because magic, but the magic of warp teleportation through the psychic dimension is very different from ST transporters and the imperials just never had to deal with "subatomic matter streams" before, so I think the safer assumption is that since void shields aren't made to counter that kind of crap, they probably won't.
To a tech priest that kind of stuff would be as big a WTF as it would be to us.

Alien things - imperials are far to xenophobic and traditional to have anything like that, unless they are inquisitors and in great need. Alien technology could maybe be expected in limited quantities, when the imperials go on the offense under the command of the inquisition, or as the inquisition, but not for something as passive as guarding a prison and the question is, why would the WH aliens even have anything like that, because all they never had to deal with that ST stuff either.

I didn't mean alien technology or artifacts (though, the Cadians don't mind the pylons), but in ST, very often the high concentration of some made up thing on some planet stops transporters.

The prison through some stroke of fortune could have been build over something like that, but that would be another plot device.

Ultimately the main difference that it comes down to, is that trekkies violate the laws of physics as we know them very casually and on a daily basis.
Imperials at least have no idea how their magic works, make a big deal out of using the Warp and just prefer shooting lasers and rockets at stuff. That makes them much cooler and dare I say, more realistic even, but it also ruins this match up.