Jedi and 40k

[Charistoph]

Palpatine could keep himself alive indefinitely. He has the ability to transfer his conciousness/soul into other bodies. Good thing, too, as he cycles the Dark Side more than Magnus does the Warp and it shortens the lifespan of the body. Combine that with cloning tech and the rejuvenation tech of the Imperium, and wallah, immortality of a sort. And if cloned the Marines as is and controlled their hypno treining like the Clones...

Grey Knights would still kick his ****, though.

[Iron_Lord]

Something that doesn't seem to have been considered in the Death Star vs. Imperial navy argument is range. What is the maximum distance a super-laser can fire accurately (this is a non-rhetorical question, I do not know this and am genuinely curious)? A nova-cannon can indirectly fire at a target from staggeringly long distances, even by space standards, and it is possible that an Imperial battle-group armed with nova-cannons could simply bombard the Death Star from outside it's range, or even simply outside the super-laser's firing arc, giving them a chance to cause significant damage before the Death Star could retaliate.

In the Rogue Trader game the Mars pattern Nova cannon has a standard combat range of 400,000 km, and a maximum range (needs a very good gunner to get a hit at this range- otherwise you'll be 10,000 km off target per degree of failure) of 800,000 km.

In the novel Death Star, the estimate one of the characters gives for the range of the Death Star's superlaser was "Anything within half a million klicks isn't safe, including asteroids, moons, even planets"

and Wookieepedia gives an even bigger figure- estimating its optimum range as 2 million km and its working range as 420 million km.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Superlaser

However I suspect Curtis Saxton was the one responsible for that figure in his Incredible Cross Sections- in-universe figures show it targeting Alderaan at a much closer range- 6 planetary radii.

Considerably. 1600m is on the small end of Imperium ships. The biggest are more or less in the 8km range.

In terms of size and firepower, an average 40K freighter could probably give a Star Destroyer a run for its money.

The biggest freighter mentioned in the Rogue Trader books was 16 km- the Bountiful Beast. The Universe class mass conveyor is 12 km. And a troopship mentioned in the rulebook timeline had a crew capacity and passenger capacity vastly bigger than the Universe class. 8 km is a good approximation for 40K battleships though.

That said, when it comes to bombardment by a lone ship, it generally takes a cruiser to "scour a continent" and a grand cruiser to have the firepower to "destroy small moons".

Lone Star Destroyers seem to approach the continent-scouring firepower level given sufficient time, and a big enough group of them can scour a planet.

[totgeboren]

The Death Stars defences are most effective against capital ships. However, a capital ship in SW is of the same size as an escort like the Cobra in 40k. The ability of the Death Star to defend against 40k cruisers would depend entirely on the fire rate of the super-laser, seeing as how its normal armaments would hardly be enough to fend off more than a very few 40k capital ships, if even a single one if we take the huge difference in range into account.

[Iron_Lord]

The Death Stars defences are most effective against capital ships. However, a capital ship in SW is of the same size as an escort like the Cobra in 40k. The ability of the Death Star to defend against 40k cruisers would depend entirely on the fire rate of the super-laser, seeing as how its normal armaments would hardly be enough to fend off more than a very few 40k capital ships, if even a single one if we take the huge difference in range into account.

In the early EU ship-killing was portrayed as something only the 2nd Death Star could do well.

Later on, in sources like the novel Death Star, the first Death Star turned out to be able to hit ships- though range might be a factor- a few thousand km rather than hundreds of thousands.

The gun can be dialled down- and even after a planet-killing shot, the low-powered shots the Death Star could still make, pack more punch that all a Star Destroyer's guns firing at once.

[Mike3791]

I thought Grey Knights were Jedi Knights

[Iron_Lord]

I thought Grey Knights were Jedi Knights

Probably closer to Shadow Guard- psychic powers, moderate armour- blade on a staff.

The Galactic Emperor has his own "inquisitors" very like the 40k ones.

[de Selby]

forgive my ignorance, but where is The Culture from?

The Culture is an anarcho-syndicalist society of superintelligent giant space ships (supporting large numbers of human and drone pets/attack vectors) popping up in most of Iain M Banks's space opera novels. I imagine them at least out-strategising the Empire/Imperium, but they would probably regard the warp as an Out Of Context Problem.

@MarcoSkoll: I'm just teasing, I do understand the nature of the energies involved. Although I found the comparison with Solar output interesting as it brought home just what a Kardashev type 2 civilisation would actually be capable of.



Edit: incidentally, I back the inhabitants of Krikkit and their very, very small bomb against all comers.

[Dylius]

Edit: incidentally, I back the inhabitants of Krikkit and their very, very small bomb against all comers.

I don't think anyone's arguing with you there!