# Robotech vs 40K



## Cyleune (Nov 10, 2010)

Not sure if you guys are familiar with Robotech, but if you are, this is about the Zentraedi at the height of their power (all Robotech Masters forces combined with all available assets so they'd get the Zents and such... BEFORE THE MASSIVE MILLION YEAR WAR) vs the Imperium at the height of theirs (so Dark Age?)

Rules are:
-Any peice of reference is allowed.
-Assume each faction lives in roughly equal size galaxies with similar resources.
-Scenario is annihilation, but TAKE AND HOLD, so no planet-busters or the equivalent of one.
-No special characters (so no "Emp wakes up and ZOMGWTFPWNAGE!!!!")
-Say each faction doesn't have to deal with their usual enemies (so Imperium doesn't have to worry about Orks/Nids and Zentraedi about the Invid).
-Both sides have access to their elites (Imperium - SMs, Zentraedi - Masters, blah, blah)


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## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

When it comes down to it, the Imperium beats any force from a Sci Fi universe. And if you give them access to all Dark Age of Technology equipment, they'd be pretty much unstoppable.

Think about a conversion beamer. It causes a controlled sub atomic reaction within it's target, they don't even have crap like that on Star Trek. And the conversion beamer is evidence of tech that survived, just imagine what weapons they would have had during the actual Dark Age.


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

Minmei is the robotech equivalent.

It can open up a hole into hell and keep you there.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

the Imperium would win, because of time and money, as has always been the case with robotec, the zentradi would be part way through there plan only to get the plug pulled by some studio exec and have there rights sold off or rewritten or edited into a completely different fashion.
Im a fan of robotec, and if there was an anime worthy of a genuine big screen hollywood conversion it is it,it already has all the elements of a good old summer block buster, all it needs is a good writer and director and some serious special effects cash.

ranting aside, from what i remember the Zendtradi struggled with earth so the entire imperium ,its navy,armys and legions of titans and countless troops might pose a problem.
But in real terms it wouldnt be difficult to work out, robotec has/had a roleplaying system,by palladium books, which has relative stats which would make it fairly easy to work out, combine that with the numbers of zentradi and convert over imperium weapons and troops and you coud in therory work out who could win based on the numbers for both armies.


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## Uber Ork (Aug 23, 2010)

Wusword77 said:


> When it comes down to it, the Imperium beats any force from a Sci Fi universe.


I agree.

If on nothing more than simply it's size and scope. 



*Star Trek:* Any of the factions... Federation, Klingons, etc. make up a small fraction of the galaxy. The Imperium would outnumber them 1 trillion to one.


*Star Wars:* The Empire is probably pretty comparable in scope to the Imperium as they control (for the most part) all of the galaxy that's far far away. I would imagine (although I don't know the size/stats comparison of ships and firepower) that the naval situation might be comparable. However, I think space marines would wipe the floor with storm troopers, and ATAT's would be absolutely no match for Titans. 


*Battletech:* The entire B-tech universe takes up a teeny tiny fraction of space in the galaxy. That being said, I'd love to see space marines try to take down battlemechs. I'm uncertain how many total Titan's exist, but I'm sure the combined battlemechs of all the great houses, periphery states, and clans would outnumber them greatly. In the end though, the Imperium is so huge that I couldn't imagine how the B-Tech universe could survive.


*Battlestar Galactica:* Even at their hight the 12 colonies would be obliterated. Same story with the cylons. 


*V* & *Independence Day:* The visitors & Aliens in Independence Day can't even take earth much less the galaxy... 


*As well...* Firefly, Flash Gordon, Babylon 5, Robotech, etc. and the empires described in each (the Alliance, Ming the Merciless, the Minbari, Narn, Centauri, Vorlon, Earh Alliance, etc., and the Zendtradi) are all way too small to take on the Imperium.



The one I wonder about would be Andromeda. I never really watched the show, but I know at it's height the former commonwealth existed in 3 galaxies. I'm really not sure about ship/ground troop capabilities of the Andromeda universe, but seeing that the crews seemed to be pretty small, I'd imagine the Imperium was stronger. I think the space marines would wipe the floor with them in ship to ship boarding actions.





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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

sorry uber but no way would the imperium stand up to the empire, the empire has the deathstar job done.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Sorry to break it to you but the Palladium Robotech RPG books are no longer considered "official." They got downgraded in a retcon sometime back.

In terms of tech, it is hard to judge since the Imperium's Dark Age is not exactly detailed to any great extent. The Zentraedi's height of power though is a bit scary (the fleets they sent to Earth numbered 1 million and 4 million, respectively). 

In an epic space operatic battle, I can see it coming down to a war of attrition with the edge going to the Zentraedi because they can send their fighters out into space to attack/infiltrate enemy ships, heck, these things could make planetfall (fifty-foot giant in power armor equivalent--yeah, IG are going to have to fight for that paycheck). And I don't know if the Imperium could ever field ships in the millions. And the SMs could not be sent out into space like the Zentraedi fighters.

On the Imperium's side, you get psychic ability and the Warp (don't know if that can be considered an advantage). Boarding ships might prove difficult if you wind up among fifty-foot giants, though. 

In space I'd have to give it to the Zentraedi. 

Planetside battles would be a toss up, frankly. The Zentraedi did not do many ground battles, so I don't know what kind of transport or other armor they had. Any well-equipped PDF would cause difficulty for any Zentraedi making planetfall (if not outright repel them). 

The one major change and factor would be Lynn Minmei and human culture (the one from _Robotech_). One of the reasons the Zentraedi had such difficulty was because of Minmei and what her songs evoked--I can't imagine the Imperium jamming comm frequencies with a pop song. These feelings of love, compassion, and sympathy were rather foreign to the Zentraedi. The other problem they had was with defection--too many Zentraedi became enamored with human culture. 

At one point there is a schism because some Zentraedi feel the need to purge this "contamination" from the rank and file (sound familiar?). Without Minmei and mass defection, the Zentraedi would have remained unified and much more of a threat.

I imagine that the Zentraedi encountering the Imperium would have thought it had found a similar culture bent on subjugating the galaxy to its will and would have fought it even harder.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

bitsandkits said:


> sorry uber but no way would the imperium stand up to the empire, the empire has the deathstar job done.


You forget though, that The moon is basically a giant orbital defense array in 40k. IE, a Deathstar.... and most important planets with moons have something similar, or they just build a huge-as spacebase. In other words, the Imperium has multiple Deathstars.

Also, with psychic powers tougher then The Force, I think that problem with the Deathstar and dropping a single missle down its vent wouldn't be a problem for the Marines.


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

bitsandkits said:


> sorry uber but no way would the imperium stand up to the empire, the empire has the deathstar job done.


Exterminatus. Simple as that. opcorn:


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## Uber Ork (Aug 23, 2010)

GrizBe said:


> Also, with psychic powers tougher then The Force, I think that problem with the Deathstar and dropping a single missle down its vent wouldn't be a problem for the Marines.



I agree 100% 

_"Who hoo! You're all clear kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home!"_























Ha ha! Say goodbye to your false Emperor! :biggrin:



















Also... 



Dicrel Seijin said:


> The Zentraedi's height of power though is a bit scary (the fleets they sent to Earth numbered 1 million and 4 million, respectively).


*and*


Dicrel Seijin said:


> In space I'd have to give it to the Zentraedi.




As to the Zentraedi sending 1 and 4 million ships, if we look at the Ultramarines Warhammer 40K Wikia article, we see this...




> Normally, Space Marines Chapters possess four or five battle barges but the Ultramarines can field ten as the Realm of Ultramar depended on them for sector naval protection rather than on a sector battle fleet of the Imperial Navy.
> 
> 
> *10 Battle Barges:* Aeternus, Emperor Incarnatus, Adsidus, Seditio Opprimere, Lord Laomedon, Honours Fist, Faiths Pyre, Icon Of Faith, Imperator Rexelius, Infernus Iconus.
> ...



Assuming each SM fleet (minus the 5 extra battle barges) would be roughly comparable... we're looking at roughly 40 capital ships for each chapter. Taking that number times roughly 1000 chapters (*not* factoring in that fleet based chapters would be much larger, and increase these numbers) we're talking about roughly 40,000 capital ships for the space marines combined. Not too impressive right... but wait till you get a load of this...




Looking at the wikia article on the Imperial Navy we see this...



> Each Battlefleet is assigned a number of cruisers and battleships, usually between fifty and seventy-five vessels. The Battlefleets are also assigned multiple squadrons of escort starships, and is also in command of a large number of transports, messenger craft, orbital defenses, space platforms and system patrol vessels.



So not including the escort squadrons, that's 62.5 capital ships (on average) per battlefleet...



In and of itself, those numbers don't give us a feel for really how big the Imperium is. However, we start to get a better picture when we factor this in. Check this out, also from the same article...




> The Imperium of Man is divided into five territorial "Segmentae": the Segmentums Solar, Obscurus, Pacificus, Tempestus and Ultima. Every starship of the Imperial Navy is assigned to one of these Segmentae, and falls under the command of the respective Lord High Admiral of that Segmentum.
> 
> In turn, each Segmentum is divided into "sectors", regions of space that are generally cube-shaped and contain 8 million cubic light years of space. These sectors contain multiple sub-sectors, collections of star systems no more than twenty light years in radius. The starships of each Segmentum are divided amongst the sectors. These Battlefleets are assigned the task of safeguarding the sector they are assigned to



So that's roughly one battlefleet (62.5 ships, not including escorts) for each sector which is roughly 8 million cubic light years.

I did a little research and found this. The Milky way galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diameter, and about 20 thick. For the sake of argument saying the galaxy's more or less a circle, we can take Pi times the radius squared which gives you roughly 7.85 billion square light years. Multiplying that by 20 and we get a total volume that's 157 billion cubic light years. 

That means there's roughly 125,000,000 sectors (each sector being roughly 8 million cubic light years) for every 1 billion cubic light years of space. Times that number of sectors by 62.5 ships and you get 7,812,500,000 capital ships (again, not including escorts) per billion cubic light years. Finally, multiply that number of capital ships by 157 total cubic light years, and we get a staggering 1, 226, 562, 500, 000 capital ships for the Imperial Navy (again, not including escort vessels, etc.)!

Add in the Inquisition and Rogue Trader fleets, etc. and I think the Imperium's over 1 trillion ships makes them quite safe from the Zentraedi. :wink:






* I'm really tired... so someone should probably check my math. :crazy: :laugh:





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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

nice bit of maths but its highly unlikey that the imperium would blanket produce fleets for the purpose of defending dead space, the fleets and such will only be protecting strategic areas of the galaxy and sectors where they are required,im sure your maths is good but the numbers will be vastly less because there will be billions upon billions of cubic light years with nothing in it and therefore no reason to put anything there to protect it.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Space is like 98% dead space isn't it? Soo... by that measure, removing 98% of the result of that maths, the Imperium still has billions of ships.


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## Uber Ork (Aug 23, 2010)

bitsandkits said:


> nice bit of maths but its highly unlikey that the imperium would blanket produce fleets for the purpose of defending dead space, the fleets and such will only be protecting strategic areas of the galaxy and sectors where they are required,im sure your maths is good but the numbers will be vastly less because there will be billions upon billions of cubic light years with nothing in it and therefore no reason to put anything there to protect it.



Good point. See... that's something you miss when you have a staggering lack of sleep. 

However... even with an overwhelming amount of dead space, it's hard to figure where the populated planets would be. For instance take our solar system for example. It's probably 99.9% empty space, however, you can bet it's protected by a battlefleet. :biggrin:



Looking at the 5th ed 40K map  and we can see that the Imperium is spread out all over the galaxy.


All it would take is for a few key worlds to be in a 8 billion cubic light year sector for it to require the protection of a battle fleet. The majority of space would be empty to be sure, but it would still require protection.

Unless GW comes out and says the Imperium has "X" amount of ships I suppose we'll never know for sure. However, what we can know is that the Imperium is stupefyingly huge with a mind bogglingly enormous fleet to protect it.





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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Uber Ork said:


> However... even with an overwhelming amount of dead space, it's hard to figure where the populated planets would be. For instance take our solar system for example. It's probably 99.9% empty space, however, you can bet it's protected by a battlefleet. :biggrin:


Yeah, but here is the thing, it isn't. Most systems in the imperium are actually left unprotected. There has been entire solar systems vanish without anyone actually noticing. You are putting way to much faith in the imperium.

Also, strike cruisers other suck ships are not capital ships, in most cases, and they certainly aren't in major fleets.


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## Uber Ork (Aug 23, 2010)

gen.ahab said:


> Also, strike cruisers other suck ships are not capital ships, in most cases, and they certainly aren't in major fleets.


Fair enough. I should have been more precise as capitol ships would be more specifically referring to the battleships. That's my bad, sorry about that. The quote in the wikia article I quoted earlier is unclear on the exact disposition of cruisers to battleships.... 



> Each Battlefleet is assigned a number of cruisers and battleships, usually between fifty and seventy-five vessels.


I assume the author of this wikia article got their information from BFG which I don't play. Maybe someone who plays and has the fluff materials could shed more light on the subject. However, I think my main point (which is what I'm really trying to focus on) is that the Imperial Navy is incomprehensibly large, just like the Imperial Guard.






gen.ahab said:


> Yeah, but here is the thing, it isn't. Most systems in the imperium are actually left unprotected. There has been entire solar systems vanish without anyone actually noticing. You are putting way to much faith in the imperium.


True, the Imperium is unbelievably ponderous. A system is attacked, and by the time the fleet is mobilized and sent, the invaders are long gone. At other times however, they are capable of great defense (Armageddon, etc.). The reality is there could be a lot of worlds to defend in 8 million cubic light years, just as well as there could be none. 

In the case of a large invasion... say a black crusade, or a Tyranid hive fleet, or in this case a hypothetical Zentraedi invasion... it might take time to get a combined fleet together, but eventually they would. So what if they lost a few systems in the meantime, the Imperium has worlds enough to spare. 





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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

If the Singlr SFDF 1 can wipe out 30-40 Zentardi Ships at a time then a Nova Cannon Strike Cruiser can do the same. Just saying....


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## Bhaal006 (Apr 11, 2010)

two words. Geller Field

Looks like the zentraedi are reduced to Tau level warp travel, if even that.


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## Drannith (Sep 18, 2010)

Throwing in a bit other Sci-Fi:

What about the aliens from "Aliens", sure they have no real travel but all it takes is a few IG troopers to get hit from face huggers and suddenly there is a lot more trouble brewing on ships and planets, kinda like the Tyranid yeah but these guys have a hollywood contract 

How about the whole Predator race? Now I am not too much up on the whole story and numbers of them but from what I have seen in the movies they have the technology and the skills to really go toe to toe. 

Just some thoughts I came up with while reading the posts. It really is looking like the Imperium is a bit favored on most of these.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

I think it was summed up nicely above, no other series has the entire galaxy (give or take a few systems and bits of the edge). The imperium would win by sheer weight of numbers.


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## Cyleune (Nov 10, 2010)

> Just some thoughts I came up with while reading the posts. It really is looking like the Imperium is a bit favored on most of these.


Just because GW has made the Imperium Stupifyingly huge and uber facerolling...




> I think it was summed up nicely above, no other series has the entire galaxy (give or take a few systems and bits of the edge). The imperium would win by sheer weight of numbers.


Zentraedi are as big as the Imperium in their univers I believe, and also have Protoculture, which makes you the size of a titan, roughly... so maybe they stand a chance


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## Geist (Mar 9, 2010)

I think the point we should all take from this is: Warhammer 40k is over-the-top. It's how it was designed. Every Battlefleet(plus individual ships owned by Inquisitors and some RTs) have planet ending weaponry. Space Marines, even in the 40k fluff, are demi-gods that can bring entire planets to their knees by themselves(well, if it's a human planet, since they can usually convince a large portion of the planet that they are a 'God', and raise an army to conquer the rest), and all of the mind-bending DAoT tech.

No other universe can really keep up with that kind of exaggeration, which I believe was the point of the exaggeration in the first place.


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