Hehe, best to turn off the brain and look at the pretty ships and explosions.  Still, sometimes I like to look at what is possible versus probably impossible versus almost certainly impossible.

As for energy sources, we can (and do) presently use antimatter (take that Star Trek!)....it just is insanely expensive to make and contain.  Maybe our new Super Collider will help advance our understanding (and control) of physics.

Who knows, maybe one day we'll be able to 'trick' our way past the speed of light barrier (think space folding or subspace).  Barring that, we should still be able to 'evolve' our biology to the point that we can endure the massive centuries/millennia time frames it takes to travel between star systems at 80% light speed (using 'conventional' antimatter drives).

We should even be able to do limited amounts of planetary engineering/terraforming on planets that have Carbon Dioxide atmospheres like Earth/Mars/Venus (of course, Venus has way too much atmosphere and is too hot to bind up the carbon in its atmosphere = probably can't ever be terraformed).  As for Mars, we can make robotic ships that attach to and guide comets into collisions with Mars = thicker atmosphere.  We can do the same for asteroids (and Phobos and Deimos) in order to increase Mars gravity as well.  Still, Mars has the problem of no magnetic shield.

Oh, here is something I wanted to ask you guys.  Many of you have likely read about our new Super Collider and the fears some people have about it creating micro black holes.  The physisists are convinced that there is nothing to fear as Cosmic and Solar particles collide all the time and we are still here.

So, do you guys think that the infinitely small chance we destroy ourselves is worth the risk of using the collider to increase our understanding and control over our Universe? 

My answer is 'Yes'.

Hehe, here is another question for you.  The U.N. chief recently asked the industrialized nations to focus on food production to feed the growing numbers of people in poorer countries.  To do so would mean diverting funds and resources away from things like ethenol crops, research and development, certain types of industry, and so on.  My question here is whether you think we should reduce our way of life to feed the world.

My answer is 'screw them'.  If they want to have more kids than their lands can support, that is their problem.  Besides, if we dedicate ourselves totally to feeding them, they will only have more kids until even our efforts aren't enough (at which point they will demand we do more to feed them and that it is all somehow our fault).

The only problem here is that we will see massive migrations into better off countries = better off countries will be effectively wiped out.  But this is going to happen anyway...unless the governments of the better off countries actually have the political will to wipe out encroaching migrating masses.  Yay, fun times just around the corner!

I have a much better quesiot. The super colider mabob they built cost around 9 billion dollars tight? You think they couldve spent that money on something a little more closer to home, like aids research or cancer or something a whole lot better than some wierd matter device....

for some reaon my text was blacked out and I couldn't edit it

This wouldn't be a bad argument but let me ask something. Do you think it is better to spend money on sport programs for public school when they currently get 1.5mil for a stadium and only pay 50g for performing arts? The answer to that isn't two sided and neither is your argument about aide’s research. Billions of dollars have been raised to help the cause and yet our scientific advancements have been less profound because of business putting their resources into charities rather than R&D, look at Microsoft for example. To argue that one cause is better than another is imo juvenile because we all can benefit from both aides research and the super collider, question should be should we not treat each one of these endeavors with equal bias? We never know the answer to a question unless the question is asked first and that’s what they hope to do with the super collider answer questions, so new ones can be proposed and then answered. Wouldn't it be ironic if they find a way to cure aides or cancer through the use of this machine? We won't know unless we try Rudey19 so please try to keep an open mind....

kay it's definitavly Star wars------------------------->Star treck but if you add Warhammer 40k's Imperium of man it would look like this:

Imperium------------------------>Empire--------->federation

The sheer size of the imperial navy combined with highly advanced weapons technologies make the empire almost superior in every way. I don't really know how void shields work but i'd guess they are quite/very powerfull in comparison toimperial (starwars) ships. Another thing is that the range of Imperial ships is far greater than empire counterparts. Only way i can think of where the empire is superior is it's far faster travel speed. Flying across the galaxy in mere hours isn't an option for an imperial (warhammer) fleet.

9 billion dollars seems like a lot of money to spend on a science experiment until you consider that if the complex needed only 10 years to build (the super collider tunnel was installed in the mid 80's so the effective cost would be much higher when adjusted!) 4 billion dollars would simply pay for the people that constructed and operated it to date (leaving 5 billion for materials, preperties, taxes fees etc which is equiavlent to building a nuclear power plant)

remember 10000 professional employees is on average a billion dollar payroll a year. (at least in the US) and highly qualified workers would be double this in many cases (though dirt poor grad students doing forced labor does balance it out)

and this amount of money is incredibly tiny when compared to bond investments, corporate rainy day funds, and sovereign wealth funds (all money that isn't doing anything except earning more money for the people that control it and backing up debt for people that can't hold onto thier money) last I heard contries like singapore and dubai had a trillion US $ each just sitting around in cash waiting for the US market to show some signs of growth (not to even mention places like china which bought up a trillion in US coporate assets last year)

The main reason you don't see corporations investing money in charity and research is that investing money has to show a return (and be favorable to stock holders if the company is public) Corporate philanthropy usually extends the idea of 'if I support this charity/research it will make my products more efficient, give me new products or expand my market. So spending money on fighting aids in africa or hunger is only valuable to a corporation when it enables them to sell their products to those people at a profit, if the people wouldn't be able to afford the products then the only reason to engage in philanthropy is PR or tax write-offs. (your shareholders will eviscerate you otherwise)

Manual targetting.  Minuscule acceleration.  Typical of a biased argument, takes one facet and ignores important factors on it.  The Empire can't hit anything, thus the Empire can't kill anything.  Alongside those speed arguments, one needs to mention acceleration.  Entering hyperspace takes a long time, going to warp is a couple seconds.  Those massive Star destroyers can move real fast in a straight line, but they can't turn for shit.  The Enterprise can turn on a dime, and accelerate to full impulse in almost no time.  A gazillion jiggywhatsits is all fine and dandy, but it's like launching a mortar by hand.  If you have to kill someone a hundred feet away from you, a mortar is a lot less useful than a pistol.  Those guns are manned turrets mounted on rotating platforms, controlled by hand, fired by hand.  They literally can't hit jack shit.  They need a kilometer long flying brick as a target to do anything.  Hence the fighter on fighter dogfights instead of just blowing them away with light speed beam weaponry.

Now, if there weren't people manning all those turrets and they were automated like a sensible writer would have done, then you'd have a very sticky mess for the Federation.  The result of a fleet on fleet engagement as is would be a hilarious game of chicken as the Federation slowly butchered the enemy fleet, ship by ship, without ever getting hit.  Both sides, by virtue of first strike capability on the Empire's part, could systematically anihilate each other's planets, but it would be the trekkies ships still standing in the end.

The Federation is so slow they'd never get to an Imperial planet in time to 'Anihlate' it and since the major Star Wars planets have planetary shields they'd never get in.

The Slave 1 could destroy the Enterprise D in one shot of his main guns and that's a Bounty Hunter's ship imagine what would happen if a single Star Destroyer and it's complement of Ties could do to one.

Also if the Trade Federation ships from Episode 1 can knock out all but one of Queen Amidala's repair droids without severely damaging the star ship that they needed alive shows remarkable accuracy and since these were actually used as trade ships the targeting systems of war ships (Such as the various Star Destroyers) must be much more advanced and more accurate.

Well, a partial BETA-almost-ALPHA release was made and finished, starring one seriously overpowered and hideously un-balanced Empire.

And if/when Major Stress allows his mod to be merged with 7DS, then we can have this debate in-game, seeing as how the Empire is already in 7 Deadly Sins.

(BTW, Palpatine's Sovereign > Starfleet Sovereign.  Planet-busting superlasers = instant win.)

Do you even realize how much acceleration is needed to get off a planet? and I wouldn't say turn on a dime is remotely accurate, especially since every show or movie I've seen has them at point blank range when they are manuvering (same goes with targetting) Going to hyperspace takes a while because of the calculations, you could jump instantly if you wanted to, just wouldn't have a good idea of where you would end up, the warp spool up is the same way.

Ever think that the manual targetting isn't simply like WWII gunnery turning cranks and eyeballing it? That the gunnery is automated, but the human interaction is guiding the parameters the targetting comes up with because of massive ECM present? Maybe the okudawhatsists in star trek are just the mac version of the same thing? given the number of times the federation misses with torpedos even when the ships are touching I can't say that their automated targetting is any better.

Also if we're talking about Pre Endor Empire the Emperor can just pull Thrawn off his Unknown Region assignment and send him to the Federation and then they can win by giving Thrawn 12 drunk ewoks, 1 pointy stick and 40 kilos of sand.

Thrawn earned the Emperor's respect otherwise he'd be back on that planet he was exiled to or dead and certainly not a Grand Admiral.

He respected Thrawn so much that even though he refused to do things for him four times he was still a Grand Admiral.

Besides they're Grand Admirals for a reason any of them could go and win probably but Thrawn would be the quickest, cheapest and most absolute.