Topic: 40K vs Babylon 5

[sergeantbrother]

Yeah, its another vs thread, but these can be fun sometimes 

How does everybody think that the Imperium of Mankind would fair against the major powers of the Babylon 5 Galaxy? I get the general idea that 40K is more advanced in most respects, but could the Imperium take on multiple nations with B5 at once? What about the Vorlons and Shadows? Are the bioships in B5 inferior to the ones of the Tyranids?

Can a Minbari ranger have a chance against a space marine in a fight?

[Kage2020]

Two different game universes and, thus, two different requirements for conflict resolution, assumptions of superiority, etc.  Weapons work differently, etc., etc. 

Thus the question doesn't work.  Then again, I dislike the premise of the "versus" thread.  So I'll bow out immediately and just watch it for the flame wars that occassionally grow out of them...

In other words?  Play nice.

/Kage

[qwertypp7]

YAY!!! finnaly a VS thread i can't get involved in cos i know nothing about Babylon 5!

oh yea and... this has been done before methinks... let me find the link(s)...

[The GrimSqueaker]

Like this one?

It has been done to death before and never actually goes anywhere. The universes are not supposed to be compatable.

[qwertypp7]

yes thats the one but i m sure there are more.... i just really cant be bothered to go back and find all of them.

[Wurzelmaniac]

Sooner or later I'll get around to making BFG:ACTA. Until then this is pointless.

[Irandrura]

In the interests of making sure things like this don't happen again, this is a rough sci-fi universe comparison chart I obtained during my meanderings on the internet. I think it came from Space Battles originally, but I couldn't show you a link or anything.

--------------------------------------
{A}Extrauniversal Omnipotents (1)
{B}-
{C}Excession
{D}-
{E}Intrauniversal Omnipotents (2)
{F}Blight (VV) / Countermeasure (VV) / Arisians (ES) / Eddorians (ES) /
{G}Demi-Omnipotents (3) / Xeelee / Photino Birds / Powers (VV) / Transcendant Order (DB)
{H}The Culture (IB) / Homomda (IB) / Foundation Federation / High Beyond (VV) /
{I}4th Empire (DW) / Idirans (IB) / Skylark (ES) / Triad / Lorien / Lensmen (ES) / Thrint (LN) / Tnuctipun (LN) / Technocore /
{J}TA (4) / 5th Imperium (DW) / Antarians / Precursors / ST Furies / 29th ST / Moties / Rifts / Uplift Orders (DB)
{K}Steltek / ST Builders (5) / NAFS / MoO races / Alpha Centauri / Replicators / Krikkets / Lesser Beyond
{L}WH40K (6) / Pax / Hegemony / B5 First Ones (7) / Krenim / Voth / Jurai / Asgard / Dune / Magog / Furyverse (DW)
{M}Shivans / Exordium / Systems Commonwealth / B5 Advanced Elders ( / CW / Honorverse (DW) / Macross / Starfire (DW) / Galactic Empire / Old Republic / RW Humanity (LN) /
{N}B5 Elder Races (9) / WC / GTVA / Beast / Adamists / Edenists / Yuuzhan Vong / BSG / Ad Astra / Renegade Legion /
{O}24th ST Races (10) / Concordiat of Man / New Republic / Book Psychlos / 24th Drakaverse / Kushan / Taiidan / Star League / Kzinti (LN) /
{P}B5 Younger Races (11) / Peacekeepers / Book SST / Terran Hegemony / 23rd ST Races (12) / Traveller / Battletech 3K (13) /
{Q}Battletech 2K (14)/ Dark Reign / Protoss / 22nd ST races (15) / Visitors / Goa'uld /
{R}SaaB / Aliens / Ogreverse / Heavy Gear / Gundam / UED / Zerg / Space: 1999 / 20th Drakaverse
{S}Modern Earth / EFC / SG-1 Earth / Skynet / Kazon /
{T}ID4 / Movie Psychlos /
{U}The Race / WW2 Earth /
{V}Movie SST / Pakleds

Notes:1 place = major threat, 2 places minor threat, 3 places = barely a threat, 4 places = no threat whatsover to combat vessels, 5 places = no threat period.

1. Beings, like L-sama, the creators of the Excession, or Yog-Sothoth, who could survive the end of the universe(s).
2. Beings, like Galactus, Q, the Douwd, Guardian of Forever Builders, and the Chaos Gods, possessing power to warp the universe, but could not survive its end.
3. Beings of vast power, yet not on the level of changing the entire universe. Lina Inverse, AD&D ubercreatures, DBZ main characters, the Timelords, Mike Callahan, and many Marvel/DC characters are up here.
4. With Canon fiction.
5. Builders of the Probe, V'ger, Dyson Sphere, Unity Device etc along with the Iconians and T'kon.
6. Most reasonable numbers for just the regular forces.
7. Vorlons, Shadows, Walkers, etc. For all out fighting
8. Builders of Great Machine, Technomages, Kirishiac, Ikaarans etc
9. Minbari, Drakh, First One Toy Forces, etc
10. Alpha Quadrant, Borg, etc.
11. EA, Centauri, Narn, etc.
12. Movie era only. I'm not touching TOS here. By the cult of connies standards, they are demi-omnipotent.
13. 2800-3035
14. 3035-
15. Enterpise-era races

(DB) From the works of David Brin
(LN) From the works of Larry Niven
(DW) From the works of David Weber
(VV) From the works of Vernor Vinge
(IB) From the works of Iain Banks
(ES) From the works of E. E. Smith

Will that do? A nice, neat ranking of science fiction stories.

[Bumbles]

Putting my Doctor Who nerd hat on, it's implied in some of the books that the Time Lords are capable of surviving the end of the universe (the Great Old Ones in the Doctor Who universe (ie nicked from Lovecraft) are Time Lords from the previous universe).

Also, there's something in the Doctor Who expanded universe called the City of the Saved, which is an extradimensional City roughly the size of a galazy where every human who was ever born and died is reborn in a State of Grace (unable to die, feel pain, hurt each other etc). The City exists beyond the end of one universe and before/into the beginning of another. So technically humanity in the Doctor Who universe survives the end of the universe as well.

Now, you want to get into nasty weaponary, then in the City where groups like the Last Riech and the Forgivable Crusade have been stockpiling Weapons of Mass Obliteration for 300 odd years, and are all effectively indestructible warriors (when they die, they're reborn into the City again).
Ohh and logically all the Marines to ever die are reborn into the City, (if you want to combine the unvierses, which given the setting of 40k could work).

So we win 

[Irandrura]

They're Time Lords.

They travel through time.

They win by default, you don't need to bring out the other examples. Time travel means that they pretty much automatically defeat anything but other time-travellers (e.g. Daleks), beings to which time has no meaning (Extra-universal omnipotents, which basically means God in the sense of being all powerful with no exceptions), and beings which can prevent time travel. Or settings in which time travel is explicitly impossible, of course.

If the Time Lords were denied time travel as a weapon, they would have a harder time as they don't appear to have an army. Though I'm operating on vague recollections of Arc of Infinity, their soldiers looked unimpressive there. The technology the Doctor uses regularly isn't very impressive either (apart from the TARDIS, that is).

Doctor Who isn't hard sci-fi, though. Mentions of a Dalek bomb capable of blowing up a galaxy, for example, exist but they're not internally consistent. Scale is very messed up on that show because each writer has their own perspective and continuity consists of what each one can remember while writing. You may notice that the entire Dalek race has been wiped out half a dozen times now.

Oh... I'm being sucked into to talking about this again! Curse my feeble will, curse it I say!

[Bumbles]

Doctor Who isn't hard sci-fi, though. Mentions of a Dalek bomb capable of blowing up a galaxy, for example, exist but they're not internally consistent. Scale is very messed up on that show because each writer has their own perspective and continuity consists of what each one can remember while writing. You may notice that the entire Dalek race has been wiped out half a dozen times now.

Oh... I'm being sucked into to talking about this again! Curse my feeble will, curse it I say!

Actually, the City is almost enitrely human tech, with the exception of the underlying structure (which is a sentient TARDIS). It's from a Faction Paradox novel, purchasable from Mad Norwegian on their website (it's a bloody great read, IMO).

Anyway, what about the sonic screwdriver and the psychic paper? They're cool tech.
And discounting the Time Travel abilities of the Time Lords, they can create soliders from the raw biodata (aka DNA) have super weapons that fry suns, weapons that can write people from history and are devious buggers.

[Irandrura]

Actually, the City is almost enitrely human tech, with the exception of the underlying structure (which is a sentient TARDIS).

Wouldn't that make it not Time Lord technology, and thus irrelevant to their abilities?

Anyway, what about the sonic screwdriver and the psychic paper? They're cool tech.

The screwdriver is a screwdriver, not a magic wand. The new one appears to do anything and everything with no regard for what it actually is. It exerts force on objects from a distance. Neat, and with multiple uses, but not particularly advanced.

Psychic paper merits another 'meh' from me. Once you've opened up the area of mental manipulation as a valid area of study, the paper is a fairly simple utilisation of that technology. It doesn't look to be very hard to resist, if you know what psychic paper is, as that guy in Army of Ghosts ignored it.

And discounting the Time Travel abilities of the Time Lords, they can create soliders from the raw biodata (aka DNA)

You mean genetic engineering? That's never been done before...

have super weapons that fry suns

So? As of Earthshock, the Cyberman have a bomb the size of a suitcase that can destroy a planet, which I find more impressive. Destroying a sun is something I would hope that a race that had mastered time travel could do.

weapons that can write people from history

Which is time travel.

and are devious buggers.

With silly hats.

[Bumbles]

You mean genetic engineering? That's never been done before...

Actually it's got something to do with forcing the possiblities of a person's history into one single timeline, thus creating mutliple iterations of the person, each roughly the same but different at the same time.
It's got all the advantages of creating an instant(ish) army of loyal soldiers but without the downside of an Enemy creating a genetic weapon to attack a certain person and unwrite their DNA.

And the silly hats.
Are silly.
Very silly.

Time Lords, in a word... suck.
Certain Time Lords are cool.
But the society is full of dry, dusty bookworms who couldn't find the right end of a gun by firing it.


I prefer Faction Paradox.
Iconclausts by nature.
Terrorists by choice.
Trouble makers by boredom.

[CRKrueger]

Scale is very messed up on that show because each writer has their own perspective and continuity consists of what each one can remember while writing. You may notice that the entire Dalek race has been wiped out half a dozen times now.

What you're talking about is something I call "The Myth of Canon", and you're describing almost every single science fiction setting that's ever made it to television or had a host of novels written for it, 40k included.

When an author or series of authors writes in a setting concerned more with the crafting of the individual story (or the playability of a tabletop wargame) and that concern takes precedence over the consistency of the setting in which the story takes place (ie EVERY single setting I can think of offhand these days) then there simply is no canon, despite what the copyright holders of that particular Intellectual Property will try and claim.

[Bumbles]

In DW fandom, we act under the conception that we each develop our own canon.
For example, to me the TV series, the books and CDs are all Who-Canon.

But to others, only the TV is canon, and so on and so forth.


And we also have the canon-cannon. We on Outpost Gallifrey wheel out whenever someone trys to tell us that their canon is more canon then our canon's canon.

[CRKrueger]

You DW people are a bunch of nutters.

I mean that in a good way, of course.

The "canon cannon" gotta love it.

[The GrimSqueaker]

Return to the topic matter at hand if you please people.

[CRKrueger]

Return to the topic matter at hand if you please people.

I want to see the Babylon 5 psion that Chekov plays fail a Perils of the Warp test.

[The GrimSqueaker]

The Psi-Cops don't use powers beyond the minor and mundane. Now, when Leta tried to control a Shadow Battlecrab for the first time she was really, really, pushing it (blood from eyes generally a bad thing.)

[Bumbles]

Return to the topic matter at hand if you please people.

I want to see the Babylon 5 psion that Chekov plays fail a Perils of the Warp test.

I can't see a Deamon wanting to mess with Al Bester. Or even a Chaos god. He's scarey.
Now Vorlon's on the other hand... Alpha Plus psykers or less?

If memory serves Bester was a level 12 and was scared of the sheer mention of Kosh.
Who was a 'nice' Vorlon.

[Irandrura]

Now Vorlon's on the other hand... Alpha Plus psykers or less?

Less. Ravenor is only a Gamma, I think, and his feats in the novels are at least on par with what Kosh does. Alpha Plus is a ridiculous level of power, while Vorlons thus far have shown minor telekinesis, energy absorption, a bit of pyrotechnics... nothing that impressive compared to an Alpha Plus.

If memory serves Bester was a level 12 and was scared of the sheer mention of Kosh.

Indeed, but Bester is around an Eta or Theta level in 40k terms.