Superweapons of the Empire (Death Star, Galaxy gun, Eclipse SD, Dark Troopers)

[Darth_Yuthura]

Edited poll. --Jae Thanks!

 

The Empire had built many superweapons in the times beyond the battle of Yavin. Which was the most effective and why?

 

I personally chose the The Galaxy gun is a close second because it could restrict its damage to a small or large scale. It brought terror like the Death Star, but at a fraction the cost. They could strike anything anywhere without leaving the protection of the Imperial fleet at Byss. They were the most flexible of the weapons and controllable of collateral damage.

 

The Dark Trooper project was a close first because they were most effective for small scale assaults and there were few countermeasures other than attacking their construction facilities. It was stopped when Kyle Katarn destroyed the Arc Hammer(the construction vessel) and the Dark Trooper project was not resumed. Their vulnerability was due to how easily the mining and construction facilities could be destroyed... not the weapons themselves.

 

I think the Death Star and Sun Crusher were the worst because they each required such an expenditure of credits. (The original Death Star was 120 kilometers in diameter. Just to give a reference to the materials it needed.) They also were weapons of mass destruction, so not just rebel forces, but everything was obliterated by their weapons.

[jawathehutt]

Who cares how much a sun crusher costs when it has no vulnerabilities what so ever. Hell, they stored it inside a star for a while, try doing that with a dark trooper.

[CommanderQ]

Dark Troopers areprobably the best, they have no emotion, but cause great pain, they are not humans, they kill everything easily. The only downsize would be the pricetage for a million of these things.

[Samuel Dravis]

Yeah, the Sun Crushers were the closest that Star Wars has gotten to having cheat codes. I believe it was the most deadly as well, since IIRC Kyp blew up a few systems with it. The Death Star was great and all, but it can't blow up an entire friggan nebula.

[Chevron 7 locke]

I believe that weapons like the Death Star, the World Devastators, Galaxy Gun, and all the other big guns were a huge mistake. the bigger they are the more noticable they are and that made them easier targets for rebellion forces. and we saw how the death star, world devastators and the galaxy gun all faired in the long run. in my opinion, the smaller it is, the better. If it's smaller, the enemy has less chance of hearing about it and eventually hunting it down and destroying it

[Darth_Yuthura]

The Galaxy Gun was likely the most difficult to go up against because it was defended by the Empire's fleet over Byss. The means by which it was destroyed (R2-D2 taking control of a super star destroyer and ramming the station) was just unbelievable. Other than that, it was almost impossible to destroy with the Empire's entire fleet guarding it. It could attack anywhere at any moment. There was no way to protect yourself from it.

 

The Dark Trooper project was more realistic because instead of a single terror weapon, you could mass produce them and they would dominate any battlefield or installation. The difference between the death stars and sun crusher as opposed to the DT, galaxy gun, and Eclipse star destroyers was the sheer scale of their destructive power. There is no sense in having to destroy an entire world or system to take out a single target.

 

The sun crusher was virtually invincible, but its raw destructive power was simply too massive to make sense. Although these weapons were really to scare their enemies, it made more sense to have something that would be used for their given purpose and not cause so much collateral damage as well.

 

The eclipse could simply destroy a base with its superlaser and was much more mobile, cheaper, but still used raw power over subtlety. The Galaxy gun's power could be as massive or pinpoint as required. Dark Troopers were not effective against superior ships, so they were very subtle. Their strength came from numbers... not raw destructive capacity.

[SW01]

I personally choose the original - the Death Star. In theory, capable of repelling even the most determined attacker (provided it is the Mark II, complete, and there are no bears nearby...) and obliterating all resistance in one swift stroke.

 

However, I confess, I know little about the other save what was present in, for instance, Forces of Corruption. From that aspect, I found Dark Troopers interesting, but questioned their actual utility over the other 'conventional' weapons. Mobile, yes fair enough, and more firepower than a Stormtrooper, but I never liked them.

 

As for Eclipse, I think of it as a potentially devastating weapon, but a little too similar to the Death Star, not to mention possessing less destructive power.

[CommanderQ]

The Eclipse, by far, is the most powerful ship design ever created, second only to the sun-crusher. The Dark troopers, I still believe, are the most powerful superweapon. All you have to do is infiltrate one dark trooper phase 3 on a capital ship, one, and the ship may have well been obliterated, Dark troopers are super-soldiers, the best ever. Now, imagine a million advancing on a planet, the sheer number and their complete destructive power. Their weapons were darn good, arty rocket launchers, blaster cannons, jet packs, target control systems, they were awesome!!

[Darth_Yuthura]

How much did it take to build the death stars? I think that the original took more resources and credits than all the other superweapons combined. The idea behind the Eclipse destroyers was not to have something as devastating as possible. They were powerful enough to inspire terror at only a fraction the cost of the original death star.

 

Granted, they were nowhere near as 'invincible,' but both were not destroyed by conventional means. If they were under attack, they could have repelled an entire rebel fleet by destroying the capital ships with its superlaser, or be able to retreat if required. They couldn't destroy an entire planet, but they could destroy what they had to... like a base, ship, or city. Anything beyond that was simply unnecessary and excessive.

 

I think the death stars were the greatest mistakes of the Empire because one mistake doomed them and all that the resources that went into them were lost.

[CommanderQ]

The Death Star, indeed, was the biggest mistake ever. Imagine how much fuel that it needed to propel itself, or how much the reactors cost. Not to mention the pay of the tens of thousands meant to crew it. It's defenses weren't even adept enough to stop minor stunt fighters, the X-wings. Sure, they could've held off a determined fleet of Capital ships, but in the end, the Death Star was outclassed in every way by smaller more agile and deadly craft.

[Chevron 7 locke]

I think the Dark Troopers were the most effective. Granted, Kyle Katarn put an end to that little project but they were still very effective

[Marius Fett]

Either the Eclipses or the V-38's.

[CommanderQ]

Eclipse was better..

 

*does imitation*

 

EAT MY MINI-DEATH STAR RAY!

 

You see? Nothing can stand aganst power of that magnitude....

 

The V-38 would probably be destroyed by a well placed ray fire, or the batteries of the near-invincible Eclipse SD. But this isn't a SD vs. V-38 thread, I'm just saying that the Eclipse was probably superior...

[Darth_Yuthura]

The V-38 was effective, but it really wasn't sustainable because they required a certain crystal that was difficult to provide... and expensive. And if the Rebels had acquired one, they would have been on equal ground if they found a countermeasure. Dark Troopers would not have been so easy for the Rebels to counter or duplicate, due to their cost and capabilities.

 

The best Imperial weapons were those that could be produced on a large scale, but that the Rebels could not. So if something were more expensive, that may actually be a strength for the given weapon. The Eclipse star destroyers were better than the Death Stars, but they still were too expensive to have in large quantities. One could have been enough, but it meant they were restricted to single targets at a time. The Galaxy gun on the other hand had anything within its range at a moment's notice, so one was all you needed.

[CommanderQ]

That's where the effectiveness of the Dark Trooper comes in, you can mass-produce something that causes mass destruction, remember, 1 dark trooper, and that 1 kills a capital ship from the inside...

[Darth_Yuthura]

It's not really very realistic to assume that. Although they are effective as a boarding party, it doesn't mean that a single trooper... or many would be able to make it to the bridge. They just would have to set up the proper security systems and they can keep those troopers out... it might wreck the compartments, but they wouldn't really be able to take an entire ship unless you have dozens.

 

And the limitations of the Dark Troopers are that they can't really devastate ANYONE at ANYTIME like the Eclipse or Galaxy gun. I would say THE BEST OF THE BEST was the Galaxy gun. One was all you needed and the devastation they delivered was controllable. The Eclipse could only destroy as many targets as it could travel to where the Galaxy gun's only limitations were how fast it could fire and how long it took for the projectiles to reach their target.

[CommanderQ]

True, true, it isn't safe to assume such a boarding party would occur like that, a true mission for the Dark Trooper would be to severly damage or sabotage a capital ship. A task that one is more then capable of doing, even better with the element of surprise.

 

Dark Troopers can be very thorough and precise even more so then a galaxy gun or sun crusher, due to the fact that it can hunt individual targets and its near invulnerablity. It may need a bit in transportation, but it can definately get the job done correctly without unnecessary loss.

[Chevron 7 locke]

The Dark troopers are effective though. if you suck the air out of a corrideor, they keep coming, you release a biological agent into the air, they keep coming, they can't be intimidated or anything like that. in groups they are deadly. in my opinion, there one of the best weapons the empire came up with.

[CommanderQ]

They're like zombies, you hafta shoot in the right place unless they keep coming {of course this thing has almost zero vulnerablities to ground forces and fights better and moves faster then Zombies}

[Chevron 7 locke]

CQ...the only way i see someone taking out an army of Dark Troopers is by bombing them until nothing but dust is left

[Arcesious]

Well... The Sun Crusher was pretty 1337... So was Centerpoint... Then there's the Star Forge...

 

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

 

I would have liked to have seen the Empire employ some long-range intergalactic planet-destroying cruise missiles.. Edit: Oh wait the Galaxy Gun already did that...

[Darth_Yuthura]

I still think the Galaxy gun tops everything else because its missiles can potentially destroy an entire planet, but they can also destroy only a limited area of a planet. It also would have served exactly like the second death star in driving the Rebels to attack an Imperial fortification.

 

The purpose of the second death star was more to drive the Rebels out of hiding than for the purpose of the original. The Galaxy gun would have served just that purpose. It effectively shifted the loyalties of Rebel allies to the Empire in fear of it. The Dark Troopers would have done well, but even they were not unstoppable.

 

There was really no countermeasure available that could stop the Galaxy gun once it shoots a missile at you. Dark troopers would still have to fight through an enemy's defense and that might not be enough to scare an enemy before having to fire a shot. It was not as subtle as the Dark Troopers, but it was more flexible than anything else.

 

It was terrifying, efficient, unstoppable, and versatile. At least more so than most of the other weapons.

[Prime]

Who cares how much a sun crusher costs when it has no vulnerabilities what so ever. Hell, they stored it inside a star for a while...

Highlighting some of the problems with the EU...

[Chevron 7 locke]

All the rebels would have to do against those is blast emwhen they see em coming, or they could just throw a starfighter in front of the missle so it blows up a starfighter instead of a planet

[Darth_Yuthura]

Well... The Sun Crusher was pretty 1337... So was Centerpoint... Then there's the Star Forge...

 

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

 

I would have liked to have seen the Empire employ some long-range intergalactic planet-destroying cruise missiles...

 

They did... the Galaxy gun was just that. Only it could take out a target w/out destroying the entire planet. The Death stars and sun crusher used brute force that could not be restricted or controlled.