Armada Unicron

[Gomess]

The conditions of Prime and Megatron's fight were: the biggest all-out fight in recent TF history. Starscream could just have easily undermined Megatron's efforts, as Hot Rod got in Prime's way. It's all luck of the draw.

BUT, there's also the argument that Hot Rod's attempt at loyalty was just as much a legal factor of Prime's personality as Megatron's treachery, and use of extra weapons. "It's legal as long as it's believable", y'know? If Prime wasn't such an inspiration to his underlings, Hot Rod wouldn't have cost him the fight. If Megatron wasn't so resourceful, he probably would've retreated before Prime took him apart.

All interferences are legal; they're integral to the characters. ;]

[Dominic]

I agree that those factors are "legal". And, you seem to agree that they could influence the outcome of a fight. So, what I am saying is that in order to figure out who would win the "Death/Darth Star v/s Unicron" match, regardless of which iteration of either party we assume, factors like terrain and motive would come into play.

Dom

[Gomess]

Absolutely. If the Death Star is allowed to use planet-based forcefield generators (I'm not into Star Wars, but I know THAT much!), Unicron is allowed to remodel the survivors of dead planets into heralds. It's only fair!

[Dominic]

it is also a question of going beyond the basic stat-lines. For example, if we look at WH40K, we see many examples of this.

In that game, field conditions are considered to be a factor. Bad lighting or otherwise obscured terrain hinders marksmanship. Rough terrain hinders movement. And, there are psychological factors. Who wins, 30-odd points of Dark Eldar, or 30-odd points of Imperial Guard?

Dom
-assuming no special characters here.

[Rampage01]

The 60-odd points of Orks that just rushed out of the forest!

[donosaur]

and yet here I am wondering... what if instead of fighting, the Death Star and Unicron...fell in love?

I posit this as evidence of the unholy union.

[Gomess]

Woohoo. Galactus would spend a whole night on THAT baby.

[JediTricks]

That's right, I'm bringing this back a month and a half later. Suck it!

So, uh, wait, if we're letting the Death Star have its crew so it can operate, why aren't we letting Unicron have his heralds? I'm not really into the debate myself, but I'd like it to be fair at least! =p

I suggested that IG-88's brain could run the station even before we got into the Death Star TF, actually. The Death Star is its own thing, the little people who run it are like its bloodcells and nerve clusters, either you treat it like a vehicle or you accept that IG-88 can run it without them, but either way the same cannot be said for the heralds, they are entirely separate entities that Unicron runs fine without. It's a massive cheat, if you want the heralds then you are stuck with the Imperial Fleet, and then someone will call in more TFs to say it's not fair. This is Death Star vs. Unicron, not Unicron & Friends.

I was arguing that the Empire would hesitate to take out a planet like Bespin as it has those valuable gas mines. The only planet blown up in Episode 4 was Alderann. And, the Empire was willing to take out a moon of Yavin. But, there is nothing, as far as I know, to indicate that either was more than a nice place to live or spend the day.

That was only the beginning of who knows what reign of terror they were bringing. Bespin is not a major contributor of tibanna, they're off the Empire's radar even, so I can't imagine the Galactic Empire suffering hesitation over it. Alderaan was a major part of the Empire in terms of finances and political influence, and was supposedly a very nice place to visit (they built copies of it into resorts like Cloud City).

Unicron, through dimesion hoping, has demonstrated the ability to fold space and time, as the DS has. In that sense, I would give him something akin to FTL drive.

The DS doesn't fold space or time, it's not the same at all. Hyperspace is a system of routes, think of it like a submarine normally on the surface in the arctic sea, hyperspace is what that submarine submerges into, and then it can move faster down there but only the charted routes between the icebergs.

I thought we were considering the Darth Star his opponent, why would transformation alone have a huge impact when the Empire's no stranger to it?

True 'dat!

JT's argument is that the Death Star could destroy Unicron before he got close. If we're looking at Armada Unicron, I'll argue that his chest cannon could be a viable counter to the DS's main weapon, as demonstrated by the show.

I don't remember it being that hardcore on the show, it killed a relatively small swath of people on a moon IIRC, that's not anywhere near as big.

The robot modes' physics are an interesting call. There's really nothing remotely practical about a humanoid robot that big, but it 'is' awesome. Unicron lacks melee weapons, Darth Star's lightsaber would be a threat to him!

Nice! And he's got that smashing cape, he would dazzle Unicron with those swoopy cape moves, then cut him to ribbons and shoot him with a giant chibi stormtrooper blaster.

JT, go buy a Primus so we can discuss his weapons too.

Death Star destroys the Omega Lock, Unicron dribbles him like a basketball.

JT started using non DSX (Darth Star) ideas, so I thought we were back to the non-TFing DS. Either way, Unicron can cause fear.

Ugh, there you go again. That is such a large assumption, we're talking about an Empire that can build multiple Death Stars and Super Star Destroyers, they don't think of Unicron as a dark god, and they have the calming influence of the Emperor's Force powers over his minions (this is established in the EU).

The problem with saying "the Emire just blows up Unicron" is that it just assumes that Unicron does the stupidest possible thing, and lets himself get shot. Even the worst written cross-overs, ("Marve v/s DC" or "Countdown: Arena"), avoid this type of thinking. If we go by the movie, (and Unicron's least powerful incarnation), the Matrix is "the one thing, the only thing" that he has to worry about. At the very least, it would take a couple of shots from the DS planet-killer to stop Unicron. And, even with a (relatively quick) 5-minute recharge cycle, that would give Unicon plenty of time to do dreadful things, even discounting the use of henchmen.

All this (minus the stupid movie "the Matrix is the only deus ex machina!!!" junk since it completely ignores all rational thought) still assumes that Unicron somehow gets a shitload faster under your argument than he actually is. Unicron shows up and does his thing to a planet, the Death Star is called in and shoots him, it's not like he's The Flash, he takes a long time to even mangle small moons and planetoids, how is he gonna dodge 2 shots from the DS?

And how exactly would the first shot NOT finish Unicron off?

If we go by Moviecron, then one shot from the Super Laser should be more than enough. His armor was easily breached by the Dinobots' weapons, even though those same weapons never seemed to do much(if any) physical damage to the Decepticons. The Matrix was the only thing around that could destroy his entire body in one go, but from the looks of things, the other TFs could have taken him apart piece by piece if they could avoid being swatted. I'd say the only thing that made that Unicron a threat was his size.

Right on!

Which really brings us to another core arguement--how, precisely, do we determine when the battle is over and someone has Won? Arguably it's when one of them Stops Moving altogether and is in little tiny pieces, but given the above theory, what's to say Unicron can't just come back at a later date and continue on?

Well, a superlaser hit would be a hell of a breach, if it didn't vaporize him altogether. At some point, in even pretend realistic physics there is a point where he's not gonna pull himself back together, not in any effective manner, and certainly not in a timeframe that would matter to that battle. Because Unicron's fictional universe is so "generous" with his abilities, I think we'd have to tear him to pieces smaller than a regular Beast Wars character. The Death Star meanwhile is much easier to define, it actually DID vaporize but was moderately constrained to realistic physics, so a significant portion of damage to critical systems (not surface systems) should do it. Look at the Death Star II, that thing isn't half there but still fully functional.

It's like the argument about who won with Prime vs. Megs--Prime Died, Megs went on to become Galvatron. Megatron Won.

True enough, which is a problem when you use cartoon entity vs movie entity thinking, there is a lot more permissible ridiculousness about cartoony stuff (Optimus Prime coming back is one of those). Megs even won the overall ideological concept of that battle because the successor to Optimus lost Autobot footing and left them in a poor state until OP made his return.

Yeah, yeah, the Autobots beat the Decepticons in that *battle* (big surprise), but the fact remains, Megatron won his and Prime's duel.

A lot of people still have a hard time dealing with that. X]

Blame the cheap manner in which Megs won that duel, Hot Rod was an X-factor brought into the movie and immediately screwed our main hero over, and what does he got for his misdeeds done to OP? He gets promoted.

Megatron wasn't in much better shape at the end of the fight. He had to be carried back to the shuttle to escape, and couldn't even fight back against Starscream when he threw him out the door. Unicron would have let him "proceed on his way to oblivion". So he 'won' only in the sense that Prime died first... Megatron was on his way to the same fate.

While I do like this thinking, it's not fair, Starscream's betrayal came AFTER the battle, if Megs hadn't been on board Astrotrain he would have probably survived. Ultimately, OP lost the battle, he did die right there. Both characters were brought back to life later by deus ex machina events, but Megatron remained alive and was later betrayed, he didn't die.

Of course, Prime was doing pretty well, right up until Hotrod jumped in. Had Hotrod stayed out of the way, or shot Megatron from a distance while warning Prime that Megatron was going for an abandoned gun, the fight would have gone differently.

The bottom line is that if you take out shitty X-factors like Hot Rod, Prime would have clearly won that battle, he was pretty much there when Roddy fucked it up. If you set that same fight up minus Hot Rod, Prime would win.

The conditions of Prime and Megatron's fight were: the biggest all-out fight in recent TF history. Starscream could just have easily undermined Megatron's efforts, as Hot Rod got in Prime's way. It's all luck of the draw.

BUT, there's also the argument that Hot Rod's attempt at loyalty was just as much a legal factor of Prime's personality as Megatron's treachery, and use of extra weapons. "It's legal as long as it's believable", y'know? If Prime wasn't such an inspiration to his underlings, Hot Rod wouldn't have cost him the fight. If Megatron wasn't so resourceful, he probably would've retreated before Prime took him apart.

All interferences are legal; they're integral to the characters. ;]

Well, unless you're planning to get out your 12-sided dice, it's unacceptable schoolyard oneupsmanship. "Superman can use his heat vision!" "But the Flash can outrun his heat vision and spin rings around him!" "Superman can go find a huge warhead to drop on the battle!!" "The Flash can vibrate his molecules so the blast goes right through him!!!" "Superman can use freeze breath to freeze the Flash during that!!!!" "The Flash can run all around the world collecting Kryptonite and use it on Superman!!!!" "Superman even wounded can call Wonder Woman to pick him up in her invisible jet!!!!!!" "The Flash can cross the Speed Force and bring in all the other Flashes, they spin their arms real fast creating vortexes which bring the invisible jet down!!!!!!!" "Superman and Wonder Woman are assisted by a sudden boom tube that pops black-suit Spider-Man out and he helps them!!!!!!!!!" "NO FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!"

Bottom line is always going to be how the 2 individuals perform against each other when there's nothing left but their personal fight, when it's just fighter against fighter.

Absolutely. If the Death Star is allowed to use planet-based forcefield generators (I'm not into Star Wars, but I know THAT much!), Unicron is allowed to remodel the survivors of dead planets into heralds. It's only fair!

What are the survivors of Endor going to be remodeled into? Meat and dirt.

This optimal realistic Death Star vs optimal realistic Unicron means they don't need to be hampered by planet-based forcefield generators, the theoretical Death Star has its own when it's finished being built.

Bottom line, we're making a slugfest here, not a comic book and not some fuckin' D&D game.

[Dominic]

If we assume that the DS (regardless of iteration) has IG88 controlling it, then the crew are supefluous, and should be considered to be equal to the heralds. I can see the Emperor mitigatin the fear Unicron would cause. And, it shows why I was trying to clarify who was controlling the DS and/or how.

So, for the DS, the variables are crew/command and support ships, to say nothing of if the ship can transform or not.

For Unicron, the variables are what powers are being allowed.

I am drafting a "Mosaic" about this.



Dom
-still listening to that TFA combiner review.

[Gomess]

...JT, I think you think I'm a lot more nerd-savvy than I really am; I tuned out a little after you said "twelve-sided dice" because I wasn't sure what you were referencing.

However, "not some fuckin' D&D game" made me lol like a tiny child. Fictional giant space-fights are serious business, amirite?? Swearing and violence! X]

So, on that note, I think I'll bow out of this rather heated debate. Looking forward to a Mosaic on it thought, as long as it's funny, and doesn't involve twelve-sided dice, or Speed Force(?). >_>

-Go "This Whole Nerd Persona is a Total Sham" Mess