The biggest, baddest, meanest....

[Paul]

Now Trej, as a Vong you are biased I prefer a Death Star myself.-Grand Moff Conway

[Trejiuvanat]

Now Trej, as a Vong you are biased

 

I could say the same about you, Paul

 

I admit that a Palpatine-Imperial and Vong encounter to be very interesting.

[kaja]

Indeed.

 

I can't decide, the vong would probably develop some goop that would cover the massive Imperium.

 

But then again, the Imperium might blow them to shreds before they could unleash somthing like that...

 

I don't see how gruchins could destroy somthing as huge as the Imperium

[Trejiuvanat]

They don't need to eat all of it... just enough... (Engines, open a way up to the main reactor core or something)

[Darktrooper]

I can see the first shot from the imperium would be a S-Laser blast to the nearest word ship; and I believe that this S-Laser recharges faster than the one in the D-Star. Imagine that:

 

DS S-Laser= 2 mins recharge

 

Imperium S-Laser= 30 sec Recharge (Aprox.)

 

Some bad math, I say.

[kaja]

Yep, those Organic approved Vong would probably be blasted away.

 

Besides, no grutchin could get close to it's engines without being blown away.

[BadSamaritan]

The grutching would have to ge close to the ship period. Imagine the number of turbolasers, heavy turbolasers, ion cannons, and cuncussion missles that thing would have on it. Not to mention the thousands of fighters it would be carrying, a fleet of star Destroyers flanking it, and probably a horde of Dark Jedi backing them all up.

 

And Im willing to bet Thrawn himself would be at the helm. Good night Vong!

[Darktrooper]

Oh... that's good.

 

The great Grand Admiral Thrawn in command of the Imperium and it's support fleet. I raise all in. (that will be 50 credits. I need a job )

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

You would have to consider all aspects of this:

 

First, though this hypothetical Str Destroyer is large, we have no knowledge of it's firepower. There is obviousley a super laser of some description on the bow, however it would suffer from the clear restriction of a good firing arch. Although this ship is huge, it is still much smaller than a Death Star, meaning the fore facing super laser would have to be of a signifigantly lower power, though no doubt it would easily destroy any ship of a much smaller size.

 

Clearly this ship would have far more weapon emplacements than any other capitol ship, but it would have far less surface area than a Death Star meaning it would not be able to bring as many of its standard weapons to bear at any given time. Also, because of the numerous protrusions many of the weapons would be blocked.

 

Then, consider the maneuverability (or lack there of) of this ship. Because of its size the ship would be restricted to a stationary combat role, ammounting to a battlestation with engines. This lack of maneuverability would also allow enemy ships to simply attack from a vantage point out of the firing arch of the super laser, leaving it useless.

 

I would also venture to guess that this ship would be vulnerable to any sort of fighter attack. If we look at The Empire Strikes Back we know that the Millenium Falcon was able to hide from a Star Destroyer's sensors by hiding on the back of the bridge superstructure. That would suggest to me that any small ship clinging closely to the Imperium would essentially be hidden, not only by the limitations of th sensors, bu also by the ships own signature (I should also point out that the sensor domes, visable on the bridge superstructure, aren't even scaled up for the size of the ship. This would lead me to beleive that it's sensor capabilities would be greatly compromised).

 

I now turn to the ships bridge. As we can see, it is huge. This is a turn away from the usual design of even the largest Star Destroyers. We see in the Executor, Eclipse and Soverign that the command bridge is roughly the same size as the Imperial-Class Star Destroyer. A bridge superstructure on the scale of the Imperium suggests to me that much of this ship is meant to be imposing rather than functional. This is only supposition and has no real bearing.

 

Now, there are two areas of the ship that are clearly weak-points. First, and the least obvious, is the area of the ship housing the Star Destroyer "hanger bays". We know that a standard Imperial-Class Star Destroyer is roughly 1.6 Km in length. We see at least two such Star Destroyers in line in one of the two bays. It is also quite possible (indeed, probable) that there are also other Star Destroyers abreast in there. Also, taking into consideration the design of the Imperial-Class Star Destroyers two bays (two bays connected by a "tunnle" through the superstructure) that these two Star Destroyer bays are connected by an extention of that bay in the space between them. Assuming that this hsip is symetrical, there should also be another such set of bay on the larboard side. SO, adding all that space up, you would find that there are a signifigan number of square kilometers of empty space within that ship. A concentrated fire from a group of capitol ships on these locations would pose a serious threat to the ships structural integrity. (yes assuming they can get through the shields. However shields in Star Wars can be reduced in certain locations and are not reduced as a whole, as suggested by many a Star Wars flight sim [my view is supported by the Executor in RotJ]).

 

A second weakness is the large hangar directly above the Executor-Class Star Destroyer. Here, as with the smaller bays, much of the ship would be hollow. In addition to that the space directly above, presumably along the grey centre of the ship, would house the "barrel" for the super laser, making this section of the ship vulnerable to amputation, not only causing critical and possibly fatal damage to the ship, but also removing it's most powerful weapon.

 

So, I suggest that any well commanded and armed fleet would be albe to easily destroy this ship. The resulting explosion would also deal with whatever smaller ships it was able to deploy.

 

I am also doubt that Thrawn would take command of such as ship. If we consider the rest of the EU (which alas we must do as Thrawn is an EU character), we see that there was an SSD at his disposal somewhere (Daala takes command of it), yet he did not utilise it, nor did he use it as his command ship. He also use an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer rather than an Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer as his command ship, suggesting he knew there was more than sheir size and brute force to combat.

[Paul]

Like I said, I prefer a Deathstar as my superweapon of choice! Though I prefer Imperial Star Destroyers and Victorys for most jobs.-Grand Moff Conway

[kaja]

Well put Grand Admiral!

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

Very well put indeed sir. I think we should find whoever made up that ship and e-mail that to them, see how cool they think their superweapon is then.

[kaja]

Bah, don't want to ruin there supership.

 

Don't get me wronge, The ship looks cool and all, but as the Grand Admiral put it, it has many flaws.

 

Probably took atleast several hours to make, Trust me, I know. I've been working on a GFFA Super Stardestroyer. It's taking forever.

 

If you want I could post it when it's done.

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

Better make sure there aren't many flaws if you don't want it ruined XD. But yeah it would be cool to see so please do...

 

OH and I got my rank up, I feel highly important now! Bwahahaha....

[Mad78]

Well done GAT.

You have well proved that this ship is a load of Bantha crap.

[Darktrooper]

The admiral has spoken. Now, how about we address this problem ourselves and redesing the Imperium to a more practical configuration.

 

I agree with the weakness of the hangar bays but that can be suplemented with heavy shields and more weapons in the area.

 

The Eclipse superlaser is, by the book, 1/3 of the DS S-laser. The Imperium is 200% bigger than the eclipse, so, the S-Laser of the Imperium must be stronger than the DS. I believe this in the position that the DS superstructure is SO big, most of the power of the reactor is dedicated to the other station components. The Imperium has one advantage over the DS. With so many reactors aboard the multiple Star destroyers onboard that can be pluged to the power grid, the main reactor doesn't have a large superstructure to support, enabling the S-lasr to fire stronger and faster.

 

Still, we can refine the specs here. What do y'all say.

[Mad78]

Well what happens if all the ISDs have left the powergrid during a battle. With that during the charging and firing my guess is that all the turbolasers couldn't fire.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Well, there is one flaw that I didn't point out. The positioning of the superlaser is impossible due to the forward "SSD hangar". If you look you'll find that the hangar occupies the space the "barrel" of the buperlaser would have to span.

 

Now, assuming they could plug the Star Destroyers in the hangars into the ships power systems, allowing the Imperium to draw power from them, we would find that the ship would be vulnerable to small fighter attack. Without those "smaller" ships to protect it fighters could attack at will.

 

Now, if we turn to the super lasers of both the Death Star and the Imperium we'll find that the latter has a superlaser of approximately 3.2 kilometers in diameter (two ISD lengths). This includes the superstructure surrounding the firing aperture. If we turn to the Death Star we find that, although the opening is smaller, the primary beam is augmented by three other beams, adding to the overall strength. So, from this, we can arrive at the following conclusion: the Death Star's superlaser fires a beam larger in diameter than that of the Imperium. Normally we could assume that because the energy is being spread over more area that the beam would be reduced in power. However, because of the three supporing beams of energy on the Death Star's superlaser we find that it is many times stronger. So, the Imperium's superlaser would be sufficient to deal with a ship, but still wouldn't have the power to destroy a planet. As for the rate-of-fire, it think this is more related to the time it takes to recharge the energy cells of the superlaser rather than the overall energy available. It might also be related to the heat generated by the superlaser. Repeated firing would result in the superstructure heating and possibly melting.

 

So, how can we fix this behemoth? Let's start with the superlaser. The ship would have to be made thicker at the area of the forward hangar bay, allowing the superlaser to actually travel that path. In addition, the front of the ship would have to be blunt wather than pointed. This would allow for a superlaser more along the lines of that seen on the Death Star. Fortunately, because there would be no wind resistance, nor anything of the sort, in space, friction wouldn't be a problem with a blunt bow. This would solve any problems with the superlaser.

 

Now, for those pesky aft docking basy. I would suggest a shielding piece of armor covering the entire area, with an aft facing exit for the rear docking pay, and a fore facing exit for the forward docking bay. This armor would span the area between the two bays and could be thick enough to defend the weak part of the hull while housing extra weapons emplacements.

 

I would also suggest the removal of the obsurdly large bridge, having it replaced with a bridge about the size of the small fin on the rear-most part of the ship. In addition, two secondary bridges to the starboard and larboard of the main bridge (possibly on those diamond shaped protrusions?) for secondary command centres. Also, placing more sensor domes along the surface of the ship would deal with any sensor blind-spots.

[Mad78]

Shall we mail them that?

[BadSamaritan]

Although this ship is huge, it is still much smaller than a Death Star, meaning the fore facing super laser would have to be of a signifigantly lower power, though no doubt it would easily destroy any ship of a much smaller size.

 

It doesnt need to blow up planets, just other vessels. I'm willing to bet that even an Eclipse-class would be vaporized by the blast.

 

Clearly this ship would have far more weapon emplacements than any other capitol ship, but it would have far less surface area than a Death Star meaning it would not be able to bring as many of its standard weapons to bear at any given time. Also, because of the numerous protrusions many of the weapons would be blocked.

 

Once again, this falls uder the "what we have and what we need" category. This vessel would have no need to bring all its wepons to bear on one target, just a fraction would be enough to lay waste to most vessels. And what a fraction cant accomplish, the support ships more than likely can.

 

Then, consider the maneuverability (or lack there of) of this ship. Because of its size the ship would be restricted to a stationary combat role, ammounting to a battlestation with engines. This lack of maneuverability would also allow enemy ships to simply attack from a vantage point out of the firing arch of the super laser, leaving it useless.

 

Im guessing the superlaser would be mofe for a kind of "Shock and Awe" kind of strike. Hyper in to the target, fire the laser at the biggest threat, and scare the rest of the enemies into either retreating or giving up. As for the firing arc, Im pretty sure that it has a large enough range that it wouldn't take much adjustment to hit a second target.

 

I would also venture to guess that this ship would be vulnerable to any sort of fighter attack. If we look at The Empire Strikes Back we know that the Millenium Falcon was able to hide from a Star Destroyer's sensors by hiding on the back of the bridge superstructure. That would suggest to me that any small ship clinging closely to the Imperium would essentially be hidden, not only by the limitations of th sensors, bu also by the ships own signature (I should also point out that the sensor domes, visable on the bridge superstructure, aren't even scaled up for the size of the ship. This would lead me to beleive that it's sensor capabilities would be greatly compromised).

 

One would think that they would have more than one set of sensor domes on a vessel of such size, More than likely several, perhaps with a entire sensor net system utilizing the sensor reading of the support vessels.

 

I now turn to the ships bridge. As we can see, it is huge. This is a turn away from the usual design of even the largest Star Destroyers. We see in the Executor, Eclipse and Soverign that the command bridge is roughly the same size as the Imperial-Class Star Destroyer. A bridge superstructure on the scale of the Imperium suggests to me that much of this ship is meant to be imposing rather than functional. This is only supposition and has no real bearing.

 

Sometimes, fear is your more powerfull weapon. Would you want to take that thing on, not knowing what it was fully capable of?

 

Now, there are two areas of the ship that are clearly weak-points. First, and the least obvious, is the area of the ship housing the Star Destroyer "hanger bays". We know that a standard Imperial-Class Star Destroyer is roughly 1.6 Km in length. We see at least two such Star Destroyers in line in one of the two bays. It is also quite possible (indeed, probable) that there are also other Star Destroyers abreast in there. Also, taking into consideration the design of the Imperial-Class Star Destroyers two bays (two bays connected by a "tunnle" through the superstructure) that these two Star Destroyer bays are connected by an extention of that bay in the space between them. Assuming that this hsip is symetrical, there should also be another such set of bay on the larboard side. SO, adding all that space up, you would find that there are a signifigan number of square kilometers of empty space within that ship. A concentrated fire from a group of capitol ships on these locations would pose a serious threat to the ships structural integrity. (yes assuming they can get through the shields. However shields in Star Wars can be reduced in certain locations and are not reduced as a whole, as suggested by many a Star Wars flight sim [my view is supported by the Executor in RotJ]).

 

A second weakness is the large hangar directly above the Executor-Class Star Destroyer. Here, as with the smaller bays, much of the ship would be hollow. In addition to that the space directly above, presumably along the grey centre of the ship, would house the "barrel" for the super laser, making this section of the ship vulnerable to amputation, not only causing critical and possibly fatal damage to the ship, but also removing it's most powerful weapon.

 

Every vessel has its weakpoints. The key is defending them properly. Hence, the support fleet. Add in the heavy armor and sheilding this ship is bound to have, and the weak spots are just as likely to be moot points as they are "Hit here to blow me up" spots. And devious designers would have put large amounts of weapons emplacements there, to lure vessels in for easy kills.

 

So, I suggest that any well commanded and armed fleet would be albe to easily destroy this ship. The resulting explosion would also deal with whatever smaller ships it was able to deploy.

 

A fleet, yes. But it would have to be a large one. Also, if they were to be in close enough to destroy it. If they did get in that close, the resulting explosionwould surely wipe out the attacking vessels, along with the remaining support ships. While the Vong may be overly suicidal, most people arent.

 

I am also doubt that Thrawn would take command of such as ship. If we consider the rest of the EU (which alas we must do as Thrawn is an EU character), we see that there was an SSD at his disposal somewhere (Daala takes command of it), yet he did not utilise it, nor did he use it as his command ship. He also use an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer rather than an Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer as his command ship, suggesting he knew there was more than sheir size and brute force to combat.

 

True, Thrawn would not take thiis vessel as his flagship. But he would realise its potential for mind games, and use it towards that effect if need be. I could also see him using it as bait to lure his opponents in for a devestating trap.

 

As for that SSD you mentioned, that would be the Night Hammer, and considering that the Ressurected emeror had several of those vessels, its likely that it was not around when Thrawn had control. He may not have taken it as his flagship, but I dont see him not using it to some extent.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

It doesnt need to blow up planets, just other vessels. I'm willing to bet that even an Eclipse-class would be vaporized by the blast.

 

True, it doesn't need to blow up planets, but then we have the two flaws I pointed out. First, this superlaser doesn't have the threee augmenting lasers to enhance it's power, so the destruction of even an Eclipse might be beyond it (though no doubt the damage done would make it's destruction inevitable).

 

Once again, this falls uder the "what we have and what we need" category. This vessel would have no need to bring all its wepons to bear on one target, just a fraction would be enough to lay waste to most vessels. And what a fraction cant accomplish, the support ships more than likely can.

 

When attacking with any large capitol ship, especially one of this size, attacking only one target at a time would be suicidal. So, we can assume that the weapons of this ship will be targeting more than one ship. Combine this with the limited number of weapons able to fire at any given time, recharge rate, and functionality (what type of weapons), we would find that a ship of this size wouldn't be a useful as it would seem. If we look at the Rebellion's strategy at the Battle of Endor, we see that none of the Death Star's anti-capitol ship weapons came into play. if a fleet maintained a position out of turbolaser range at the aft part of the Imperator they would be albe to use small fighter craft to take it out. That, or they could slowly destroy it from behind, out of range of most of it's weapons, and out of the firing field of it's superlaser.

 

Im guessing the superlaser would be mofe for a kind of "Shock and Awe" kind of strike. Hyper in to the target, fire the laser at the biggest threat, and scare the rest of the enemies into either retreating or giving up. As for the firing arc, Im pretty sure that it has a large enough range that it wouldn't take much adjustment to hit a second target.

 

Because of the design of the Death Star's superlaser, it is possible to adjust the angle of the blast using the supporting lasers, shorten two and lenghen one will angle the beam in a different direction. Because the Imperator doesn't have these smaller beams, it would only be able to fire at a target directly in front of it. This is very limiting, especially with it limited movement.

 

One would think that they would have more than one set of sensor domes on a vessel of such size. More than likely several, perhaps with a entire sensor net system utilizing the sensor reading of the support vessels.

 

There are only two sensor domes on the ship. They are quite visable at the top of the command super-structure. Even the support ships wouldn't be of any help if fighters moved into extreme close range. Their signatures would blend in with that of a ship so large

 

Sometimes, fear is your more powerfull weapon. Would you want to take that thing on, not knowing what it was fully capable of?

 

I agree that this is simply there for effect, but it is useless otherwise. The Empire was also big on funcionality, which is why every other class of Star Destroyer had the same size of command tower.

 

Every vessel has its weakpoints. The key is defending them properly. Hence, the support fleet. Add in the heavy armor and sheilding this ship is bound to have, and the weak spots are just as likely to be moot points as they are "Hit here to blow me up" spots. And devious designers would have put large amounts of weapons emplacements there, to lure vessels in for easy kills.

 

A concentrated attack from below the ship into the large hangar bay at the front would experience little resistance. because the ships would be heading directly at the ship, they would provide only a small target. And I don't think there will be any weapons emplacements inside the hangar. As for armor, it wouldn't be any thicker, it would be the same as an SSD or ISD, there would just be more ship to cover.

 

A fleet, yes. But it would have to be a large one. Also, if they were to be in close enough to destroy it. If they did get in that close, the resulting explosionwould surely wipe out the attacking vessels, along with the remaining support ships. While the Vong may be overly suicidal, most people arent.

 

The fleet would have to be about as large as the Rebel fleet at Endor. Using fighters, the Imperator could be taken out in short order, especially because the "soft parts" are more obvious than the Death Star's tunnel to the core.

 

True, Thrawn would not take thiis vessel as his flagship. But he would realise its potential for mind games, and use it towards that effect if need be. I could also see him using it as bait to lure his opponents in for a devestating trap.

 

Definitely! If the Rebels got a whiff of this, they would be jumping to attack.

 

As for that SSD you mentioned, that would be the Night Hammer, and considering that the Ressurected emeror had several of those vessels, its likely that it was not around when Thrawn had control. He may not have taken it as his flagship, but I dont see him not using it to some extent.

 

Was Daala after the resurrected Emperor? Anyhow, I choose not to recognise Dark Empire or Dark Empire II. It just doesn't make any sense.

[BadSamaritan]

No way in hell im quoting all of that again, so Ill just make some footnotes...

 

About the Eclipse: Ill give you that, it may not be able to blast an eclipse into scrap, but sometimes just criplling a ship is enough, as you yourself pointed out.

 

About weapon and fleet placements: No ships to target/apponents not fighting fair? Type for a jump to hypserspace!! Worse case scenario, you have to send inthe support vessels to blast an interdictor out of existance, and assuming Thrawn is in command, even the minimum eight Star Destroyers would be a major threat. And onec again, range of weapons comes into affect, as they would have to get within range of the ship, placiong them withing range missles, which arent as limited in their targeting as standard emplacememnts are.

 

About the superlaser itself: While it may not be able to adjust the vector of the laser, the usefullness of the weapon all depends on its range. At a fer enough distance, the amount the Imperius would have to move might not be that much. But that is just a hypothesis.

 

[About the sensors: You cant see the sensor domes on a Carrack cruiser, but you know they still have sensor systems. And dont even try to tell me that the designers wouldn't have thought of this already, and set up more of them across the whole of the ship.

 

About the bridge: Ill agree with you on functionality. But the scale of such a ship would have to be almost perfect for a true mental strike at your opponents. That, and perhaps the bridge section has more uses than we have thought of?

 

About the weakpoints: Ok, the armor may not be any thicker, but the sheilds will be. But like I said, a devious designer would set up the weakpoints to appear to be defenceless, only to have them be the direct opposite.

 

About the fleet needed to take the vessel out: The Endor fleet? With Thrawn in command, I wouldnt take that ship and its escorts on with anyting less than than few dozen heavy cruisers and destroyers, along with a horde of support vessels. Besides, the Endor fleet didnt have the fighter power that it would need to even come close to taking it out, that vessel could carry thousands of TIE fighters. The rebel starfighters would be overwhelmed before they could start their first run.

 

On Thrawns tactics: At least we agreed on this part....

 

On Daala and her SSD: Ok, so Dark Empire I and II didnt make the greatest amount of sence. Ill agree with that. But they still made more sence than say, Dark Star or Children of the Jedi ever did.....

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Yes, I hated Darksaber and Children of the Jedi, especially the latter. Luke gets hurt and suddenly he can't use the Force very well...

[Darktrooper]

What if we are seeing this wrong and the big point is not a S-laser?

 

What if this point is, in fact, the end of a galaxy missile delivery system?

 

What if the real S-lasers are eclipse sized and mounted in big turrets?

 

What if the bridge tower houses more GMDS in camouflaged single launch tubes?

 

With this comfiguration, the Imperium is a big super weapon platform and the support fleet fights the comventional warfare. The Imperium will have her normal weapons, but the act as point defence, leaving the S-lasers and GMDS to long range fighting.

 

Remember, this ship is also a BIG factory. It can replenish her missile ordinance with battle salvage.

[BadSamaritan]

Darktrooper, you just brought up a few very valid points....