What the hell happened??!! I hit edit not quote! Will sorry about this everyone, stupid edit or quote button.

Set phasers(yes, the ship phasers) to stun, city wide dispersal.  Pick up grunts at leisure.

Beam all aliens of a particular species into space several dozen at a time.

The problem with ground battles in Trek is that only a lunatic would be geared for them, you'd need to be able to carry a warp core around and generate a shield bubble to avoid doing anything but take a nap or see how long you can hold your breath while the blood boils in your veins.  It's just the space hippy morality in Trek that keeps them all from being genocidal maniacs that blow up solar systems at the drop of a hat.

okay... im going (probably foolishly) to try to make sense of that...

but first off i want to say im a massive fan of both Halo and Star Trek, im just calling it as i see it

i am unsure. we see covenant plasma weapons from the perspective of a race that still shoots massive bullets in space... However we see Star Trek plasma weapons from the perspective of a interstellar alliance that has the combined technology of many species and the best minds from those worlds and others working on new weapon tech all the time...

so basically, while a British Empire era pistol may seem incredibly powerful to, say, a native american, it would be seen as pathetic and underpowered by a person born in the 90's.

however, it is possible that covenant plasma weapons are more powerful... i think Star Trek shields could handle it though...

i have read those books, thankyou very much, dont be so rude as to assume im an ignorant random just posting here for shits and giggles. when i said plasma weapons, i meant it as a general term to include all Covenant weapons, as the UNSC does

Transporters can and will work inside Covenant ships for 2 reasons:

1. Covenant shields must retract over the turret itself for the weapon to fire (so as to not damage their own shields) so the shield is already vulnerable.

2. The magnetic interferrence caused by plasma weapons etc would not interfere with Transporters, as they are designed to channel plasma. not interfere with systems. so for this reason, a star trek ship could bypass, compensate for or even not be affected at all by said interference.

size doesnt matter as much as you make it out to. if you have an impenetrable shield system (a la 'Dune' by Frank Herman) then a small ship can survive just as long as a big ship. conversly, if you have a poorly or unshielded large ship, and hit it in the reactor or the bridge, it will go down as surely as a small ship. the only difference is on a big ship, its easier to hit the ship but leave it relatively 'undamaged' (for instance, an empty cargo hold) and with a small ship its easier for said ship to get out of the way.

How do we know Star Trek sensors cant detect ships in Slipspace? But I disagree, most if not all Federation combat ships are alot more manouverable and faster than Covenant ships. Impulse drives are limited to 1/4 lightspeed to avoid relativistic effects, but if a ship needs to go faster, it can. also, Warp speeds are much faster than those reached via Slipspace. Voyager travelled (given, not entirely on their own power but still) 70,000 light years in 7 years. Unfortunately, Halo writers have not put a number on the max speeds of covenant engines, sub-light or otherwise so its impossible to really quantify.

I really doubt any of the races in Star Trek would believe in The Great Journey Prophecy... there arent too many impressionable races in Star Trek, and the ones that are religious are set in their beliefs. Most if not all of the races would want proof and, when you get down to it, what the benefit is. They are not crazy like us humans right now with the wanting another 'perfect' afterlife, they are much more down to earth than that, excuse the pun. So really, its a moot point.

the exact same applies for covenant forces, or any ground based forces, unless you have a sufficient fleet defending you from space, you will lose. Covenant ground forces would get drilled by a federation ship firing at them from space. I am talking on an "even" playing field where space based weapons dont come into it. i mean, federation shuttlecraft can double as air-support fighters and troop transports, with weapons powerful enough to disable even larger ships. Also, they have their own shields, transporters, replicators, and most importantly, warp drives. i dont think the covenant have ANYTHING that could destroy a squadron of those without taking significant losses first.

hey.. not to sound like an ass... but its sometimes hard to understand what you type... idn, maybe you are drunk or trying to type to fast idn, but if you could maybe proof read what you type? it would make it alot easier to read, understand and respond...

anyway, no, i am fairly sure Federation weapons are more powerful. i dont think covenant weapons can drill many thousands of meters into the crust of a planet (there is a TNG episode where the Enterprise drills into the crust of a planet to plant some devices to stop some very destructive seismic activity, i cant find the name now but if i can later ill edit the post) they also have a distinct advantage, they can target covenant weapon turrets and destroy them, effectively disarming covenant ships and turning them into big slow moving targets. also, i doubt the covenant will know the local politics and will be so secure in their arrogance they will most likely try to attack every race they come across, without thinking about how outnumbered they will make themselves.

as for borg, well, borg go where they like when they like, look at the end of voyager. they had a nexus that opened trans-warp conduits all throughout the alpha sector. even without that, they have faster warp drives than even the federation. as for the others meh, its not so much about exact specifications, its more about the fact that each race has different weapons, abilities, shields and ship configurations, so the covenant would have to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of a whoel lot of ships very quickly

yeah, like i said i was unsure... but then we dont see many ground forces in Star Trek, after all, its a space based Sci-Fi. For all we know, the Federation has an Air Force and an Army (dont think a navy would be appropriate or applicable... maybe Air Force and Army have their own ships etc, but then why sail when you can fly?) I really can't back up any arguements for Federation ground forces, there is just no info, but i dont think we should assume one is better, just cause we havent seen evidence of the other... on the other hand... Phasers can be set to a power setting that will stun a target, injure a target, kill a target, or even vaporise a target... aside from the fact that only the bridge crew can aim accurately (which is just poetic licence anyway) i think we can say a phaser would be more dynamic and definitly more accurate than a plasma pistol, rifle or brute mauler...

and once again, the Federation can do the exact same, park their ships in orbit above cities or bases and say "your move". one could argue they wouldnt attack civilians because they always try not to (as seen in the different series), but in a war, i think the tactics would change.

ultimately, whoever has supremacy in space wins, just like whoever had/has air superiority in modern warfare wins. There is a book called Footfall by Eric Heinlin (i think thats his name) anyway, it was set in the 1980's when Russia was still a super power, and is about a race of aliens who came to earth to invade and make it their new home. their technology was greater, but it wasnt theirs, they found it from somewhere else. so basically they knew what it did and how to make it do its thing, but not how to repair it or do any fancy tricks with it. regardless, for the beginning half of the book, they handed out ass kicking's left and right, because despite the fact the earthlings had superior numbers and firepower on the ground, the fact the aliens could destroy most human ground forces before they even came into range of the ground based aliens, meant the humans lost every time. it was only after the humans neutralised the aliens space superiority did they have a chance to fight back.

one other thing id like to add is im pretty sure the Federation has more ships than the Covenant. i mean, at the end of halo 3, both sides were going all in right? and they had, what, maybe 50 ships all up both sides included? if the Federation and its allies went to town and went for a fully fledged, no holds barred invasion fleet, or simply groupe all their ships in every sector for one big battle, i think the Federation would definitly win in numbers, if not technological superiority as well.

p.s. i made this post over a couple of days, my girlfriend came over and she doesnt like it when i go on the forums when shes here... ahh, the price we pay....=P so sorry if anything seems incoherent, ill try and rectify it if thats the case

niiiiice =P

very niiice =P

cant say i understand this... why are we taking a nap during a battle? why do we need the warp core? the shield i understand, but those can be generated without a warp core, and if there is a ship in space who doesnt like you, even a starship grade shield wont protect you for long... and lastly, why would the blood be boiling in your veins? do you mean from direct vacuum exposure? Star Trek troops get Zero-Gee and space-suit combat training...

well, yeah, thats the idea. Star Trek was created in a time after 2 world wars, a few American Wars and when communism was next to satanism, so the whole idea was to talk about morality and hope and hypothetical situations etc etc. i mean, the original series opening speech (you know, where no man has gone before etc) says "its 5 year mission" as opposed to the next generation and the new movie, which both say "its continuing mission". reason being the producers didnt think TOS would run for more than 5 years...

the point is to talk about what would happen if people from the Star Trek universe would become persuaded to use their full military might against an enemy such as the Covenant. i wont insult you by assuming you didnt realise this, just pointing it out to anyone who didnt click...

oh... and btw... there have been a fair few Star Trek maniacs who have tried to blow up stars (and succeeded) and other things. Despite the heros of each series... there are some seriously fucked up people in Star Trek

Star Trek is original, more intelligent, more provoking, and more in-depth. Halo... let's not get too jumpy here: Halo, in my opinion, is just a mass-marketed sci-fi franchise.

Star Trek is one of the original Sci-Fi series that allowed people to look into the future with hope and also to examine and explore the extents of morality etc.

Halo is a first person shooter (which is inherently gory, simple to play, and has no-intelligence-required stamped on the front) video game that was made primarily as a stand alone product (as opposed to being part of a trilogy) as part of a very small repertoire of games for the quite new Xbox console, and really aimed to do nothing more than "create 30 seconds of fun, and then repeat that 30 seconds all throughout the game" (not quoted verbatim) as the developers of Halo, Bungie, said in an interview.

Dont get me wrong, im still playing Gears of War 2, and i love Halo and Star Trek. For different reasons, granted, but nonethless, its just like saracen16 says, these two sci-fi's are largely uncomparable due to the fact they meant to do different things.

Still, it is interesting to postulate...

Ok, the warp core.  Massive power requirements, as are needed for ship shields, fullfilled by the warp core.  It's relatively small, the most efficient power generation source they have.  To power a ship weapon absorbing shield, you'd need one, or something fairly equivalent.  As opposed to a backpack generator like the trained monkeys have in Halo.

Taking a nap and having the blood boil in your veins would be in relation to the two simplistic methods of ending a ground assault by an alien race that can't blow up your ships, stun them all or beam them out into space.

ahh... it all makes sense now, very good, cheers

The Seraph fighters, the main fighter-bomber of the Covenant, have extremely tough shields.  Their weapons are able strong enough to take out starships in around a dozen hits.   Spirit and Phantom dropships hold dozens of troops, and are much better armored than a Fed. transport.  Longsword fighters have enough bang to blast through fifty to sixty meters of Covenant armor in one run, as evidenced by Master Chief's return of the Covenant bomb in the First Battle of Earth.  the Phantoms are even armed with Active Camoflage, making them undetectable by sensors.  This is evidenced in the levels Covenant and Floodgate

you just compared accuracy-wise the single main weapon of Star Trek to a sidearm, an assault rifle (short range) and a shotgun pistol that's meant for such short-range combat that it might as well be a longsword.  a Covenant Carbine would be a much better comparison, as it is the primary weapon for medium-to long range large-scale combat.  The carbine would likely rival or even beat the phaser in accuracy and effectiveness.  a single shot could kill someone from ST, as they wear no armor or personal shields.

1) there were many more than 50 ships in the battle.  Earth had hundreds of ships defending her, and Truth came with an armada.

2)that may have been "all in", but there was definitely not the entire fleets of the various factions at that battle.  those were merely the ships that happened to be in those fleets and could reach Earth in time to head through the portal.  And most of the Fleet of Retribution was left behind quarantining High Charity to prevent the flood from escaping.  in fact, the Shadow of Intent led a "small detachment to pursue an infected cruiser that broke quarantine while the rest of the fleet maintained the quarantine on High Charity.  This detachment took part in the second battle of Earth."  the detachment had at least 9 CCS-Battlecruisers and an Assault Carrier.  it likely had even more, as those were merely the numbers of ships shown on-screen

3)the Second Fleet of Homogeneous Clarity numbered in the thousands.  a single fleet.  the covenant had hundreds of fleets.  And the Sanghili fleets were otherwise occupied with securing peace on their other worlds.

4)Covenant have the numbers.  if they can make an their entire Capitol World a spaceship, then they have many, many, many ships.  and if they can guard that city with thousands of ships without making a dent in their other fleets' combat efficiency, then they probably have millions of ships.  probably dozens of millions.

The Covenant Energy Projector is a focusable beam.  when glassing planets, it is set to its widest and still crystallizes the upper ten to twenty meters of planetary crust.  and it can boil away oceans.  that's a shitload of power being weaponized.  enough to flash-boil about 1.4 metric Exatons of water.  an Exa- is 10^18.  Pure water requires 4.186 joules per gram to heat it by 1 degree C.  assuming that the average water temperature is rrom temp (20 degrees C, which is actually very generous heat-wise.  The real average is lower), that means that it would require about 450 zettajoules of energy to heat Earth's water to boiling temperature. 

FYI: zetta = 10^24

the Energy Projector can be easily set to a ten-foot diameter beam, rather than a kilometer-wide beam, so there is plenty of power to drill into a planet.  Cortana would have to work out an algorithim for the depth, but it would still work like a charm.

but I would have to say your other points are fair

Because the magnetic interferrence would be on one 'frequency' only, while transporters can have their 'frequency' modulated, routed through other sensors, have the power boosted, etc etc. yeah, maybe it will 'happen' to interfere on the transporters natural frequency... and if thats the case, the transporters can just be modified to compensate. even so, there would be a fair amount of magnetic (and other kinds of) interferrence coming from the federation ship itself. Impulse drives are Mass Drivers after all, so if the transporter can be used in those conditions... (im using the word 'frequency' because im too lazy to think of the appropriate word atm, so dont look into that too much)

true, and conversely, the slower they go, meaning its harder to miss, and a higher percentage of incoming weapons fire will hit it. It like Potato/Potato... that phrase looses all meaning when you read it... whichever way you look at it, smaller ship, less armored/shielded, but faster, so you can 'dodge' more incoming fire than a larger ship, with more armor/shielding, but slower, so can take a beating, but will definitly take a beating, no matter what, unless your enemy is so unco-ordinated he couldnt hit the ground with his hat...

and how do we knock Chuck Norris and the Carebears wont jump out from behind a space anomaly and destory the universe? Honestly, im not the first person to have argued in this fashion, and at risk of sounding childish by saying 'he started it', i simply assumed that arguing as such was acceptable. Star Trek and Halo are so different and generally uncomparable that its hard not to argue without some speculation. For all we know, the Federation has some seriously badass weapons of mass destruction, with fleets and fleets of super heavy warships capable of destroying entire solar systems? We dont know, so truly comparing is difficult.

For another reason, comparing is difficult because different Sci-Fi have different lore. In Stargate, near instantaneous interstellar travel is possible via the Stargates. In Star Wars, the Empire ruled with an iron fist and their 'dreaded imperial fleet', yet the most common weapons system on a Star Wars ship is a 'turbo laser' which wouldnt even scratch a Star Trek shield. I said it before, in Star Trek, plasma weapons are pretty low yield, and nothing to worry about, whereas in Halo, they are the 'shit'. If thats anything to go by, its already apparent that no real conclusion could possibly be reached.

Given, i had forgotten about Seraphs and Longswords, but you so rarely see them used in atmospheric operations so...

On the other hand, how exactly do you know that a Federation troop transport is not very well armored? or shielded? it may not be, but it could very well be better armored etc than a Spirit or Phantom. We dont know, there is so little info about Federation ground forces if it wasnt for DS9 and their continual wars in that part of the galaxy, we may have never known the races in Star Trek keep standing armies.

However, Federation Shuttlecraft carry weapons comparable to the larger ones carried by larger Federation starships, as evidenced by the hundreds of times in Star Trek when a few story critical characters are being attacked while in a shuttlecraft, yet somehow manage get out of dodge by disabling or destroying the other (often larger, faster) ship. (http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/sovereign.html#9.0%A0+AUXILIARY+SPACECRAFT+SYSTEMS)

Again, given, i had forgotten about the Carbine, and i had actually meant the spiker not the mauler (jeez, im really showing how long its been since i played Halo 3...). Given, the Carbine could and would be comparable accuracy wise, but how often do you see it on the battlefield? Really, only jackal snipers (who themselves are fairly rare) and maybe a few brutes carry them. I was comparing them to the more widespread, commonly used weapons in the game. Just like US soldiers could use P90's, G11's, M4's or AK-47's, if you want to get a general idea when comparing your weapons to those of a US soldier, you compare it to the M-16, because it is the standard weapon of most US forces.

And still, power wise, Federation phasers are more powerful and dynamic. The Covenant have no single weapon that can stun, injure, kill, vaporise or cut like an industrial laser, be tuned to multiple 'frequencies' to overcome shielding, or set to wide dispersal to take out multiple targets at a time, and is still accurate at great distances. And this is the standard weapon, and even then, just for starfleet vessels. We know that there are many more types of much more powerful weaponry, as evidenced from this quote from Star Trek Insurrection:
                            
                                           TROI
                             Taking the Captain's yacht out
                             for a spin?

                                           WORF
                                     (examining the cargo)
                             Seven metric tons of ultritium
                             explosives, eight tetryon pulse
                             launchers, ten isomagnetic
                             disintegrators...

                                           RIKER
                             You must be planning on doing
                             some hunting.

In Star Trek Enterprise, Captain Archer tells Reid that the Earth Army has tactics and weapons 2-3 years more advanced than that of Starfleet. So its possible the Federation army remains more advanced in ground combat than Starfleet, which means we are actually underestimating Federation ground forces.

And again, Starfleet personnel dont wear armor or personal shields, but then they are really supposed to stay nice n comfy up in their starships while the soldiers fight, and for all we know, the soldiers have some very effective armor and shields. We know they can errect shield barriers much like covenant deployable cover, and, if the situation calls for it, and they have the appropriate technology/support, they could possibly transport a flanking force in behind the enemy troops, or even transport a bomb right into the middle of them, or transport the entire enemy group 200 meters in the air...

Also, if you've read Dune by Frank Herman, you know a scientist in the book developed impregnable, indestructible shields that could only be defeated by moving very slowly (so like, attacking with a knife or blade, as opposed to shooting them), or by firing a cutting laser at the shield, which would cause a massive explosion... its very possible Covenant shields could have a nasty allergy to Federation phase weapons, but we dont know that so we wont go into that...

And still, we dont have enough info about Federation ground forces so its pointless to debate the point.

that could be, except if that was the case, how come they never attacked the UNSC with anything more than a few hundreds of ships? and i dont think you realise how many 'dozens of millions' is. there is really no evidence of there being even 1 million ships. Halopedia only records 9 fleets http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Covenant, and even if you say each of those fleets had 10,000 ships, thats still not a million ships. but fine, so my numbers were off, i was being conservative, but the Federation is still comprised of a great many civilisations. i counted 102 before i figured it no longer mattered http://www.geocities.com/therinofandor/UFP1.html. The Covenant have, what, 7? 8 civilisations tops? Lets take humanity right now, 7 billion or so on the planet, lets extrapolate, with 27 known planets in their 'empire' (and not all of them will have populations numbering in the billions) lets put a number at idn, 100-120 billion 'people'. So, with the 3 Covenant Armed Forces, the 9 fleets comprised of thousands of ships manned by thousands of crew members, High Charity with probably 10 billion beings living on it, plus an unknown number of other space stations.... We are running out of people to put on ships... whats the point of having tens of millions of ships if you cant man them? And just because they can defend their capitol with thousands of ships, doesnt mean they have millions of ships, it just means they have a fleet defending their capitol, and one less fleet to use in battle.

Federation phasers fire a steady focused beam of phaser energy at speeds approaching .986c (which works out to about 182,520 miles per second - nearly warp one, which also happens to be the speed of light). The phaser arrays also rotate frequency automatically to attempt to lock on to the frequency and phase of an enemy vessels shields for optimal shield penetration. Each array takes energy directly from the Impulse engines and auxillary fusion generators (which means that the phasers can be overloaded for a one-time massivly damaging burst, as seen in Star Trek Enterprise)

And, most importantly, Federation phasers have a max effective range of 300,000 kilometers, thats three times the range of the Covenants most powerful and long range weapon.

A single emitter generates 8.0 megawatts per second, however, during standard operations, usual firing technique involves firing at least 2 emitters at once, resulting in a discharge of approximately 16MW per second. Extreme situations can see more than 2 emitters being fired at once, thereby increasing power output.

A Soverign Class vessel has 14 phaser arrays located around the ship, each housing 4-6 emitters each.

Also, a standard compliment of 325 Mk 4 Photon Torpedos (which are not even the most advanced torpedos in Starfleets arsenal. The most advanced is Mk 25) and 175 Mk Q-II Quantum Torpedos, (though the ship can be outfitted with up to 500 of one type or the other). Both types can be fired from any of the 18 torpedo tubes located around the ship. In the event of needing resupply, Photon Torpedos can be manufactured on board with replicated and off-the-shelf parts.

Mk 4 Photon Torpedoes have a maximum un-modified yield of 25 Isotons, and a maximum modified yield of 80 isotons. Mk 6 Photon torpedos have a yield of 175 Isotons, Mk 9 a yeild of 200 Isotons, and ive been unable to find yield values for Mk 25, though ive seen multiple references to the weapon, so its possible no one has attributed a value.

Mk Q-II Quantom Torpedos have a yield of 275 isotons (according to what values i have found)

The maximum range of both types of Torpedo is 4,050,000 kilometers, although some sources state it as being closer to 8 million kilometers

Both Torpedos travel at .9993c (approaching Warp One, also the speed of light) when fired from a ship travelling at Impulse, while when fired at warp the Photon Torpedo will travel at 110% of the ship's warp factor, and the Quantom Torpedo travels at 115% of the ship's warp factor.

Both Torpedos can be self guided, or guided by the firing ships computer, they can be detonated before impact for splash damage, are themselves heavily shielded and armored, and have shield modulators that enable them to pass through the shields of the firing ship, enabling them to be fired without lowering shields.

(Source: http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/sovereign.html#3.0%A0+TACTICAL+SYSTEMS, http://www.deepspace12.com/frame.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_Star_Trek)

Dont count Federation weaponry out just yet. And i didnt even go into regenerative shielding, ablative armor plating (which, by the way, is very effective at dispersing 'focused plasma beams'), or the tactical applications of the tractor beam (used to push ships into each other, which would most definitly down a Covenant ship's shield)

AND! Federation ships have Holosuites, Gymnasiums, a Firing Range, and A BAR! as well as carrying 16 Shuttlecraft of varying levels of sophistication and ability.

So, considering there are more than 102 individual civilisations within the Federation umbrella, and there are at least 8 completely seperate, yet allied races including Klingons, Romulans and El-Aurians (the El-Aurians are the race Whoopi Goldberg plays in TNG. As if you WOULDNT run =P)

(Source: http://www.geocities.com/therinofandor/UFP1.html, http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets,

So not only are the Federation and the Covenant "evenly" matched in technology, to put it very conservatively (i still maintain Federation tech is more advanced, and the large array of weaponry available to the Federation far outnumbers Covenant Space-based weaponry) But the Federation has more numbers than the Covenant, AND more allies.

Due to the lack of Info about Federation ground forces, its impossible to speculate, but, like GrandAdmiralSova was saying, whoever has superiority in space, has superiority fullstop. Once Federation ships wipe out any covenant ships in orbit, they can proceed to decimate any forces on the ground.

Ill grant you, that the Energy Projector is a powerful weapon, but it is outranged, outsped, outclassed by Phaser weapons, and outranged and outdone (damage potential) by Quantum Torpedos (i have a wikipedia page with technical specs on the power generated with zero-point energy, but i doubt anyone would really understand it unless you sat down and thought about it. I just remember the destructive power of ZPM's from Stargate when they happen to explode...)

Anyway, i think ive proven that Federation weapons are not to be trifled with, and that the Federation could potentially have more numbers than the Covenant, especially after the War with the UNSC and The Great Schism...

Your Move, slick =P

The mindset of the Federation is probably the largest weakness it has.  It has the weapons and technology to destroy suns and planets, but lacks the will to use that technology in warfare.  I think that the Federation would eventually start using its technology but not right away.  The question is: can the Federation survive long enough that it becomes willing to destroy suns and planets?

I think there should also be a little focus on the UNSC as they could become a larger threat than the Covenant.  If left alone, the UNSC will be able to rebuild its fleets and more importantly start mass production of NOVA bombs.  There is also the fact that the UNSC may come across Forerunner technology and learn how to use/produce it given time.

However, there is a very good chance that the UNSC would join the Federation, so there would be little or no conflict between them(unless the OP says they have to fight).  The major bonus the Federation gets is that the UNSC has very powerful kinetic weapons which will be useful against the Borg.  Mix Federation and UNSC tech and you could end up with super MACs that fire like machine guns(and move a lot faster).  Heck, I would love to see the emergency thrusters on UNSC ships put on Federation ones for insane dodging.  Plus Federation ships controlled by AIs like UNSC ships would be insane.

 Sorry I haven't been here the laster few days, I just don't have much time right now.

I am sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or insult you, I was just giving you and everone the sources for the info.

And I think Orodum and Unknown924 have taken care of most of the things for me. Now, in First Strike we have a Covenant ship using it's Energy Projector to drill down through the remains of a mountain to an underground Forerunner temple-type thing. I think at min. we're looking at 3 kilometers, and if I remember correctly the beam left a 100 meter wide hole in the ground.

And as for the UNSC size, at Halopedia they give 800 worlds. Now the Federation has 150 major worlds plus I think 1000 minor colonies and out post. The UNSC had around 20 to maybe 50 major worlds during the entire Human-Covenant War plus hundreds of outpost and minor colony worlds. So now I would like to know how you went from the 27 major colony worlds of the UNSC to the Covenant running out of personnel for their ships and stations? Humanity was never taken as a true threat to the Covenant, why would they throw around hundreds of ships needed else where when only a few dozen in a fleet can take on nearly any human fleet? They didn't need to send more ships then they thought was needed. And I gave the Covenant before a max of 25,000 ships, but now that I think about it we could be looking at 100,000 ships or more.

Know I'll just answer everything I can about the plasma weapons and the UNSC view point. The UNSC shoots giant bullets that can do Gigatons of damage to the 5.8 Terratons of the Super MACs. 20 Super MACs have the power to re-create the crater that killed the Dinosaurs. Now for Covenant ship plasma weapons power: they can in only one hour destroy the surface of entire worlds, first the landmass, then boil away the seas and then glass the seabed.     The atmosphere of most worlds is blown away by the next day. Reach shall having it's after a week or two after all but one area being destroyed. I think that should do for now, need to be fast. Now I would like to know how the SW plasma weapons that fire 200 Gigatons and can fire every 5 or so seconds can not "scratch a Star Trek shield"?         Remember this: the Death Star's defense systems were built to take down large scale capital ship assaults, they overlooked the one weakness and paid for it when the 7200 Ties on the DS were not sent out even when they knew.   I have to go now, see you guys later. And forgive me if I made any mistakes or forgot anything, I just don't have the time right now.      

Ture that, isn't HALO the brain child of some people at Microsoft?

Brain and Microsoft in the same sentence? Wow, you've got guts =P

anyway, in reference to the posts by Unknown924 and GrandAdmiralSova, the fact that we dont know exactly what an Isoton is, is not my problem. Those are the numbers. The fact remains that Star Trek was designed to investigate current moral and ethical issues, while giving a hopeful vision of the future (including the appointment of black people and females to bridge positions, the widespread popularity of short skirts, and global, unified human peace)

It WAS NOT designed to be a super action-packed space shoot'em up with weapons of unbelievable firepower, destroying planets and solar systems every other week on tuesdays, and huge land battles with armored units, air cav and shielded super soldiers.

Halo, on the other hand, was designed to do just that, it is more modern, and, ultimately, is all about who has the bigger gun, not "how can we fix the damn problem without using our guns". One other thing that no-one seems to care about: its all fiction! The producers etc of Star Trek could just have easily said there were 1 million individual species over 1 billion planets and colonies in the Federation, and that they had developed impregnable shields, insta-death rays that completely iradicate anything they come into contact with instantly, and have a fleet of 10 thousand billion gazillion ships! They didnt, because it doesnt serve the purpose. Halo is about war, and fighting, and big explosions, hence why the fiction supports it with ships that can melt planets and an enemy with enough troops for every man woman and child in the UNSC.

Its like comparing Lord of the Rings and Transformers 2, yes, they are both about war (basically), but even the magic in LOTR would barely be able to stop all the explosions in that movie (Transformers).

Also, in reference to the OP line that states the duration of the timeline to be examined is Mid-TNG and just after the Battle of Reach, the thread is already biased, as the OP chose a point in Star Trek time when it wasnt all about the weapons, but, still about the core principals of Star Trek, and wants to compare it to a time when the Covenant fleet was, most likely, at its strongest.

Um... well first of all... SW weapons arent plasma based, they are Laser based. That said, all spacecraft would have what are called Navigational Shields, which basically act like an O-Zone layer or Magnetosphere does for a planet (shielding the planet from cosmic rays like protons and certain hard radiation etc etc go on wikipedia)

So, lasers cannot penetrate Federation Navigational Shields, let alone their main shields.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ijDlbvAxw

Aside from the silly force thing at the end, see what i mean.

Still, we are getting off topic

All I can say, really, is that these two are uncomparable. Star Trek is not about big explosions and mind blowingly powerful weapons, the fact that The Next Generation was first aired 32 YEARS AGO is itself proof enough, they didnt even know HOW to count up to zetta anything. If you want that, you'd be better off comparing it with Star Wars or maybe even Stargate.

If you really want to compare it to some seriously powerful weapons, compare it to the weapons on the Commonwealth Saga or Dreaming Void Trilogy, both by Peter F. Hamilton. Then you could have a real decent comparison.

Otherwise, meh, im over this thread. I shouldnt have even posted here in the first place, but, sillyness of me to think i could compare 2 very different Sci-Fi's...

1. I agree that brain and Microsoft don't really go togather.

2. I know that it is not your problem with the isotons, that goes to the writers who seem to not have been able to keep track of that stuff.

3. I know that ST was not meant as a massive action packed sci-fi setting, but they do have weapons that they can use in a war with the Covenant here and either of them could win.

4. I said before in an older post that if anyone wants to bring up a another timeline go ahead. I when I chose right after the Battle of Reach I did that to make sure the Covenant would have the ship to attack with and not will they are fighting each other. So if you have a timeline that would make this better for ST bring it up.

5. So since SW weapons have the word laser do they have to be "lasers" as humans know them to day? If we go by the name then I could say that ST torpedos use propellers to move them through space since they have the word "torpedo" in the name. And then the fact that SW plasma/laser weapons don't move at light speed in a vacuum so they can not be lasers, in a vacuum lasers move at kight speed. So either they are like a plasma weapon or something else.

6. I have already done a HalovsStar Wars thread, I started this one after everone stopped posting.

7. And you can compare to different Sci-Fi's, I have taken my side and you have taken yours. If ST has weapons that they could use within a few months of the timelines that has the power then they could win. And if you have a better ST timeline bring it up.

And please point out anything I made a mistake on or forgot. See you all later to night if I have the time.   

Halo was created by Bungie, before the Microsoft buyout.

4. Well, the Federation becomes much more technologically advanced weapons wise after Voyager returns from the Delta Quadrant. They developed shields and armor that were much more resilient vs all weapons fire, including that of the Borg, they developed weapons that could destroy a Cube in just a few shots (im extrapolating here, we only saw them in action against less advanced borg vessels from the past. See ST:Voy Endgame Parts 1 and 2). I feel that that timeline would be better since after a war with the Dominion and the Borg, (given, at different times, but nonetheless), the Federation would have placed a greater importance on shields and weapons technology.

5. A Harpoon anti-ship missile is a missile, not a harpoon. Honestly, a missile used to be anything you launched. Catapaults used to fire 'missiles'. A pocket slingshot fires 'missiles'. Honestly, its semantics... but why would you call a Laser a Laser if it was a plasma cannon? And, given no evidence to the contrary, you just have to take things at face value. Really, i dont think the creative consultants and writers gave it that much thought. "TurboLasers, wow, sounds cool, write it in. What does it do? I dont know, does anyone really care? *Communal 'no'*" You are forgetting the "Rule of Cool". What fun would Star Wars be without its signature Pew Pew sounds during all space battles? So if all their lasers were fired and hit their targets instantly, it wouldnt be fun to watch. Even if it was plasma-based, Federation shields and armor are very well suited to dissapating the damage done by plasma weapons. Regardless, once again its called a Laser, and without any evidence to the contrary, why should I assume they meant the OTHER kind of turbo laser, the one that isnt actually a laser, but a super powererd, overcharged Duracell Bunny rotary launcher with laser sights, a flat screen tv and a cup holder.

7. See point 4

I was commenting on another thread about the weapons in Sins of a Solar Empire (or those used in any space battle for that matter). Why would two enemies get in close and fire at each other with lasers and railguns and missiles. it would be much more logical to sit millions of kilometers apart and fire nukes, thermo-plasmic bombs, super-charged antimatter bombs, relativistic missiles, FTL kinetic bolts and whatever other weapons of mass destruction they could come up with. If you had some of that weaponry on just one ship, sitting a few millions of kilometers away from an enemy Covenant fleet, guess who the winner would be. I can tell you who it wont be. It starts with C and rhymes with Covenant.

Though I'd drop in and give some reliable data about the Star Trek weapons technology. First off, I wouldn't really trust the tech novels given for star trek because

1) they are contradictory

2)They aren't written by anybody with any education in science. "Isotons" is a completely made up unit and, given the way they are arbitrarily used, it is completely meaningless.

This site: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/

gives perhaps the most reliable figures for the power of ST weapons I could find, and they seem reasonable enough. To summarize:

Photon Torpedo: ~25 Megatons (Maximum)

Photon Torpedo Array: ~1 Gigaton (Maximum)

Phasors: About 300 TW plasma cannon, or 30,000 TW laser cannon. For comparison, the strongest real world laser, the NOVA laser, is about 1000 TW. So, it's not a particularly strong weapon by Sci-fi standards, and certainly not by real world standards.

You can read more about the real world laser here: http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news-hpc-Worlds-Strongest-Laser-Unveiled-at-California-Lab-060509.aspx

Here is also a full depth analysis of their shielding system, which you can compare with the Covanent and the UNSC:

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Shields/Shield1.html

You can also compare ground combat technology on this page: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Ground/index.html

It may be a ST vs SW page, but it has all the info for any sci-fi debate, in particular star trek. What is interesting is that the page says that present day technology is already enough to defeat pretty much all of the star trek universe (except perhaps the Borg), so I really can't imagine how badly the Federation will fare against the UNSC, let alone the Covanent....

Well, happy debating, I hope this clears things up somewhat.

Oh yeah, it also has a page on the so called "high technology" myth of Star Trek (since alot of ST fanboys like to use this card when dealing with ANY sci-fi debate of this kind):

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Myths/Myths_Tech.html

and

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Myths/index.html

And one more thing, you can compare ship sizes on this website:

http://www.merzo.net/

Not only does it seem that ST ships are heavily outgunned, but they are also outsized by even the UNSC ships too. It's certainly not looking good for the ST universe...

To be honest, the only real advantage that the ST universe has over the UNSC (NOT the Covenant) is that they have transporters, but this is a questionable advantage at best. Throughout the entire show, they only seem capable of transporting people, and they don't appear to be capable of much else, let alone transport a weapon that can do any damage at all to, say, the MAC orbital station.

They also have very limited range; a MAC gun would shoot them down before the Enterprise could get anywhere near close enough to fire their weapons, or transport onto their ships...

Also, I think it's worth mentioning that the UN in the Halo universe is a great deal bigger than the United Federation of Planets; it's an organization encompassing hundreds of planets, compared to UFP's 150, much of which are not even human owned.

I gotta stop calling people stupid.  All it does is depress the hell out of me later when someone else makes them look really smart.

Actually it was a decidely UNINVENTIVE method of selling The West on the idea of Communism ..

I still wonder how many ships the federation has.  In the large battle in DS9 (sacrifice of angles episode) the federation had to full fleets for a total of 600 ships.  If we can found out how much of the federation navy (ie 1/3, 1/4,.,,,,ect) we can find out just how many ships they really have. 

I convenant fleet accord to halopedia is about a 100 ships.   The larget fleets are really combined fleets, which means its made up of many fleets.  We know the The Second Fleet of Homogeneous Clarity was something like 2500 ships.  This fleet would easily destory the 600 ship fleet found in star trek.

What an absolutely pointless topic.

You are talking about two completely different universes, they weren't meant to be compatible, you are comparing apples to nuclear reactors!

Sounds about right for the technological scale, excellent analogy.

Josef, give it a rest already, 2500 one hit kills that move like slugs up against solar system destroying doomsday ships with faster than light combat capabilities.

Just the waste product from a warp core is powerful enough for just one ship to wipe out solar system after solar system simply by transporting a minute amount into the star, while at warp.

This thread was pointless from inception, don't regurgitate your retarded arguments again just for a necro post.

I am pretty much done with this thread (nothing left to add).  Star Trek ships are much more powerful then covenaut.  That much  I am sure of.  2 to 1 star trek wins.  3 to 1 sims like an even fight, 4 to 1 now trek has some problems.  Now this is just assuming a strait up fight with no warp shooting or anything else (such as halos or blowing up stars)

Shooting from warp, I agree 2500 ships that can't do anything back.