What can beat the Andromeda Ascendant?

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

This is a thread for discussion (scientific debating; not railing and ranting) on ships that you think are candidates for beating the Andromeda Ascendant.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, this is Stargate-related. This thread was created because the 'Daedalus vs. Andromeda' thread, which has determined that Daedalus as currently portrayed cannot defeat the Andromeda, has turned into a 'who can beat Andromeda' thread itself. This is to take the pressure of it and allow it to fade back into the background.


List of Candidates: (will be updated)

1. A Farscape Command Carrier (possible)

2. The Lexx (likely)

3. The Culture's Ships (likely)

[Ouroboros]

Here's the reasoning I came up with from the other thread for the Command Carrier and the Lexx.

Some things that can beat Andromeda.

In written sci-fi there's a lot of things that could do it, some of them very very easily. In televised/movie sci-fi there's really slim pickings, largely due to the fact that most telivised sci-fi falls victim to the same sort of visual range fighting that screws the daedalus.

I can only think of two things aside from superweapons like Dr. Who's Tardis that could maybe do it, one of them is one of the Command Carriers from Farscape.

A Command carrier has one thing going for it that might let it nail the Andromeda. It has FTL fighters and gunships that could actually catch it and from what little info is available; absolutely ridiculous shielding/hull strength. There's one episode where they talk about ramming one of them with a roughly bus sized vehicle capable of FTL speeds and rule out the plan because even if they crash right into the bridge it'll only stun the carrier.

Carriers themselves are huge, about the size of a Wraith hive or bigger, depending on what scalings you use and they're crewed by 50,000 people so fighters are likely to be very plentiful. The fighters themselves seem to use some sort of disintigration weapon/torpedo thing that eats massive holes in Scarran hulls in PK wars so it should ruin the andromeda's bare hull if they can hit her.

There's the problem...

A Command Carrier's fighters can catch the Andromeda Ascendant, they can kill it with their weapons but I doubt very very much that they'll ever survive it's point defence and defensive missiles, let alone it's own fighter wing.

The Carrier itself will be essentally invincible given it's apparent resiliance to kinetic impact attacks and with "defence screens" to keep the AP away but other than its fighters its weapons are also limited to sci-fi "pulse guns".

There's one other candidate though.

I'd say the only thing that can really probably do it in televised sci-fi that's not also from the Andromeda universe is the Lexx. There's one episode in season 4 where it fires a shot at Pluto from Earth orbit and blows it up a few seconds later so it can do likewise to the Andromeda, even at the very long rangs it fights at. I'm not sure how well it'll surive Andromeda's counter attack though. It's literally swallowed nukes before and not even been annoyed by them going off and it's resisted what was probably continent wrecking firepower right from the first episode, but there's also been times when things have pierced it's hull and got inside it fairly easily, though I can't remember every specific example of that.

So basically there's a very slim chance a Farscape Command Carrier could kill it and a veryy good one the Lexx could. That's all I can really think of at the moment.

Ok, que a bunch of people who didn't even bother to read these two posts posting one line replies about how the Daedalus could do it.

[Jeffala]

The Daedalus could do it.





My first thought is the Doomsday Machine from Star Trek, but a nova-bomb (or less) could take it out. A Species 8472 ship maybe, especially if it joins with other ships and they combine to create a more powerful beam.

Shadow Battlecrabs? Maybe. Vorlon planet killer? You better effin' believe it.

[jonos101]

borg cube?

[Ouroboros]

Outlining just why the Andromeda is such a pain in the ass again would probably be a good idea.

-It moves and evades at fractional light speeds in combat: None of that "sit still and shoot the other guy until he blows up" stuff. If your ship can't keep up with the andromeda it'll be at a disadvantage. This is one of the points that kills a lot of visual sci-fi verses because they tend to always depict combat as "sit still or slowly wallow around and shoot the other guy"

-It can attack you from extremely long ranges: This is another point that really hurts televised sci-fi verses where in addition to the wallowing, most combat tends to be shown at very short "naked eye" visual type ranges. The Andromeda on the other hand could quite credibly attack you in Earth orbit from Mars or further. Missiles range anywhere from several light seconds to several light minutes to multiple AUs in rage for extended range varients. Using fighters it's even feasible the Andromeda could attack you from another starsystem, maybe even another galaxy, as it's fighters use the same type of FTL "slipstream" drive as it does. Obviously though it's going to need to have some general idea of where you are before it can sick fighters on you.

It's got considerable firepower: The ship's most commonly used weapons are 1KG kinetic kill missiles that are fired 8 per second from 40 launch tubes at velocities of around .90 -.95c. It's also got larger more powerful strike missiles and AP cannons that fire anti matter at you at .99c. Given their size, speed and agility as well as jamming and stealth measures the missile weapons are very difficult for a lot of potential competitors to handle. Just absorbing them all on the genre favorite "shield" type system basically amounts to conceeding that your ship will spend the entire battle in what's essentially a reletivistic sandblaster. If your ship's been shown in the past to take damage from things like bumping into asteroids or other ships at low speeds or having shuttles crash into it at similarly low speeds, it's probably not going to enjoy literally hundreds of missiles smashing into it every second at extremely high speeds.

-It's quite well defended: In addition to evasion, stealth and active jamming measures the Andromeda also makes use of a multi layered defence consisting of a CAP of fighters and drones, ship launched counter missiles, ship and fighter/drone based point defence lasers and a GFG anti gravity device that lets it shunt away and or alter the angle of incoming objects that can be affected by gravity. Keep in mind also that the GFG system is capable of, and designed to, deal with the reletivistic remains of plasmified missiles and even intact missiles to some degree. As a result if your ship is planning on tagging the Andromeda with a slow moving blob or missile of some kind with very little speed or potential thrust behind it your ship is going to need a new plan.

-It's controlled by a sentient AI: While the Andromeda is captained by a human the ship itself is basically alive with all ship functions being controlled by a sentient artificial intelligence. This basically means that any factors concerning crew reaction times to any sort of sudden event become a lot less important than they are with ships crewed entirely by living beings. It also means that the ship can still fight even if the entire living crew is dead or compromised somehow.

That's most of the key points I can think of. It's also worth mentioning before the onset of any potential debate that Andromeda's canon policy works differently from that of most series. With Andromeda the written information on official websites like this one as well as episode dialog is to be treated as a more accurate reflection of what's actually going on in a given situation than any visual effects depicted on screen.

[titan_hq]

List of Candidates: (will be updated)

1. A Farscape Command Carrier (possible)

2. The Lexx (likely)

3. The Culture's Ships (likely)

The Culture ships, I completely forgot them. Assuming we're on about the same culture, as in Iain Banks Culture novels? If so then whoohoo.

But yeah, a 200km long GSV(General systems vehicle) could do it. Can engage a ship from trillions of miles away and can destroy a 'halo-style' ring, that is 14 million miles in diameter, relatively quickly.

[morrismike]

304 with zpm (nothing can touch the shields)
btw rommie is not intergalactic and was nearly owned on several occasions by a couple of essentially "traveller" type ships

[JSPuddlejumper]

The most unbeateable one is Atlantis with 3 ZPMs. Unparalleled god shield power, it would take out all the ships mentioned above and anything else in the sci-fi world has created.

[Crazy Tom]

304 with zpm (nothing can touch the shields)
btw rommie is not intergalactic and was nearly owned on several occasions by a couple of essentially "traveller" type ships

Wrong. Even with three ZedPMs the Daedalus woudl sstill be completly incapable of actualy hiting andromeda.

Resons:
Supersonic railguns
Supersonic Missiles
Slow Asgard Beams

All of these wepons are too slow to even become a threat to the Andromeda. Beming atacks are also out of the question, aas reveled in S5x01 wraith be,m jamming is traditional electomagnetic variety, and teh Andromeda jamm svirtualy al electomagnetic frequencies.

The most unbeateable one is Atlantis with 3 ZPMs. Unparalleled god shield power, it would take out all the ships mentioned above and anything else in the sci-fi world has created.

Sme as above. Reasons:

Drones too slow

Even with three ZedPMs, they would face the same prreblem as the Daedalus- actually being able to hit the andromeda, which they cant.

[morrismike]

Those point singularity weapons so effective against rommie would probably slice and dice 304 or atlantis shields zpm backed or not. The main weapon from excaliber would seriously hammer the shields too.

[morrismike]

vorlan or shadow battleships

[Crazy Tom]

Those point singularity weapons so effective against rommie would probably slice and dice 304 or atlantis shields zpm backed or not. The main weapon from excaliber would seriously hammer the shields too.

Excalibur?

vorlan or shadow battleships

That point needs to be resolved. Shadow death rays have a estimated power of neartly a million terrawats. and are speed of light wepons. The Shadows also poses hyper-phase technology, which menas they can enter and exit their version f hyperspace witout a jumpoint, which takes a lot more time.

THeri aror and "shields" can take 1.31 exajoules of energy, based on teh nuke detonation in "Into the Fire".

All figures optained from teh B5 Tech Manual, look it up.

Edit: now will someone please tell me what all those numbers mean?

[JSPuddlejumper]

Main weapon from the Excalibur would damage a 304 shields, say Ori main weapon power, but how about 304's beams and nukes?

Babylon5 ships are very very suspectible to nukes. While shields eat nukes for lunch.

Atlantis shields wont even feel the Excalibur's main weapon. Atlantis has god shield power with 3 ZPMs. Ancients withstood many many weeks of continuous Wraith FLEET bombardment, we are talking of many 100's of ships here.

You are assuming that point singularity weapons would be effective against shields, any shields for that matter, not just SG shields. Daedalus shields with a ZPM withstood a coronal mass ejection from a sun.

"Slow Asgard Beams" Generally beam weapons on various sci-fi shows approach the speed of light. Any difference is due to CGI. Same for Star Trek, those phaser speeds are similar to SG, even talking of lasers and not phasers on ST.

As a ship, nothing in sci-fi touches Atlantis at prime.

[JSPuddlejumper]

Vorlon mothership > Shadow mothership.

Only one on one combat shown, Vorlon mothership owned the Shadow one.

The Shadow's main weapon did little damage to the Vorlon ship.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4FJn5lpB4

[Crazy Tom]

Main weapon from the Excalibur would damage a 304 shields, say Ori main weapon power, but how about 304's beams and nukes?

Sorry, what's your point?

Babylon5 ships are very very suspectible to nukes. While shields eat nukes for lunch.

No, exactly the same susceptibility, just B5 had the idea to detonate teh nukes before they slamed into shields harmelesly.

Atlantis shields wont even feel the Excalibur's main weapon. Atlantis has god shield power with 3 ZPMs. Ancients withstood many many weeks of continuous Wraith FLEET bombardment, we are talking of many 100's of ships here.

Then why was the first stryke wepon, suposetly the most powerful thing we've ever seen, stoped by an asteroid while teh Excalibur's main gun blew one up in a sinle shot, there is an explanation for this, the main "beam" is made of antimatter, which would have reacted with teh matter in the asteroid. But would be useless againt shields exept as a kinetic wepon, assumun of course Atlantis is in space.

You are assuming that point singularity weapons would be effective against shields, any shields for that matter, not just SG shields. Daedalus shields with a ZPM withstood a coronal mass ejection from a sun.

Andromeda doesn't have them anyways.

"Slow Asgard Beams" Generally beam weapons on various sci-fi shows approach the speed of light. Any difference is due to CGI. Same for Star Trek, those phaser speeds are similar to SG, even talking of lasers and not phasers on ST.

I fail to se the comparison. Anyways, the "slowness" has been shown, you can't assume othwise, untill it's said thsat they aproach the speed of light.

As a ship, nothing in sci-fi touches Atlantis at prime.

Who has the figure for atlentis's shield strenth, with three ZedPMs?

[JSPuddlejumper]

"Sorry, what's your point?"

This should be obvious, naquadah enchanced nukes, if the Exacalbur is unable to shoot them down = instant death.

Nukes do little damage to shields, see Earth's nuke launch against the Ha'taks of Aphosis.

Excalbur's weapons are great, main weapon is superb, still it has a disavantage of not having shields. See Babylon 5 Third Space movie, when facing ships with shields.

You are assuming the asteriods are of the same size and composition. I would say per 'shot' Exacalbur's main weapon is more powerful, but it is not a sustained beam. Replicators weapon which is a sustained beam and it required 24 hours to drain Atlantis shields with 1 ZPM! Excalbiur's main weapon is similar to the Ori one, 1 shot kills of ships and the beams continue on.

Exacalbur can fire about 1 shot per minute from the main cannon (30 second wait and 'recharge time')...Unless Atlantis is facing 100 Excalburs, they are toasted. 100% certainity of this. 1 Excalibur class ship would be a fly against Atlantis. Drones would take down so so many ships, unless they had advanced shields to withstand some drone barrages (Ori class).

"Anyways, the "slowness" has been shown" It is no slower than other beam weapons on various sci-fi shows. They approach the speed of light.

So easily the beams would hit the Andromeda, unless your are saying hitting the Andromeda is imposible? The Andromeda get's spanked by many less advanced ships on the show regularly.

Andromeda doing Michael Jackson's moon walk to avoid all incoming fire. =)

[morrismike]

With the point defense turrets and the fire control system from excalibur, any zpm backed 304 would be unstoppable.

[apollo22]

i think anything would really be a tough match against atlantis. we have easily seen drones evade almost everything that has tried to intercept them. they are very maneuverable. also, atlantis shields are probably the most powerful in the shield universe, ex.

1. it was able to withstand the pressure of a deep ocean for 10,000 years, which would have been under many atmospheres of pressure

2. it was able to survive bombardment form an untold number (probably in the hundreds) of wraith hives from what i have read a good 100 years war.

3. also, from what i have read, unlike most shields, when they take a certain amount of damage they have to essentially shut down to recharge, for atlantis, as long as you can pump the power into it, it will remain active and there is no need for recharge.

[Cap.Dylan Hunt]

Alright heres the thing. Most of you(with the exception of a few) dont know, or show lack there of, Gene Roddenberrys Andromeda. And if you had ever watch the show enough, you would know that the only ship capable of destroying the Andromeda Ascendent, was from its own show.

ITS HOUR COME ROUND AT LAST 122

THE WIDENING GYRE

It in those two episodes, Season 1 finaly and Season 2 opening, that Andromeda is nearly destroyed.

If you have seen them then you know that it is the Magog world ship, that is the only ship capable of destroying Andromeda.

[a6346]

SG1 could beat the Andromeda, They beat everyone .

Suprisingly I think a Battlestar could do reasonably better than most ships as lets say Pegasus doesn't use shields it relies on stopping the projectiles in flight. Would be hard to stop the amount of projectiles battlestars put into the air against the Andromeda but it would just have to out speed them.

They have impressive Ewar/Countermeasures against missles. They can scramble Cylon missiles effectively and have good armour. But a nova bomb getting through wouldn't be a very good ending for the Battlestar. Also Pegasus has that brutal forward battery, Remeber destroys a basestar (Must be about the same size as Andromeda) in 1 shot.

Asgard beams are to slow to hit it, We have to take into account what we see and they aren't lasers for all we know it is just ejected superheated plasma which wouldn't go the speed of light. We know they aren't lasers because they are to powerful to be lasers.

The Federation (Startrek) could do well if they were allowed to bring a fleet, Or the Jemhadar I say this because they can fire there Torpedoes at warp speed so they could definetly keep up with Andromeda (Because warp speed goes faster than light but stays in this dimension) and do reasonable damage depending if Andromeda could shoot them down but a quantum torpedo going faster than warp 9 would be pretty hard to stop.

Lexx could probably do it. Most powerful weapon in what 3? universes. And it can just eat Andromeda

Halo ships wouldn't do a thing except the actualy Halo superweapon but thats not a spaceship.

Atlantis could survive the fight easily but doesn't have the weapons speed to destroy the Andromeda so thats a draw.

Magouge world ship. Thats point singularity weapon OUCHIES and it survived several Nova bombs. The Magouge overan the ships internal defences aswell.