... or actually... more like the Frictionless/Weightless Object versus the Completely Lacking Any Force...
Let me explain.
One of the Youtube video series I watch fairly regularly is DeathBattle by Screw Attack. They pit video game, comic book or other geek-source characters against one another. They've had Goku vs Superman... a Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtle battle royal... Wonderwoman vs Rogue of the X-Men... and so on. They actually do it scientifically too. They give you data on each combatant, cataloging their weapons, etc. Then they show a video of the battle itself.
So, I was thinking of battles I would like to see... Jack Bauer vs John McClane... Gandalf vs Lord Voldemort... NCSoft vs the Death Star... that sort of thing.
Then I thought of what would likely be the worst... the most horrible... the LONGEST and most FRUITLESS Deathbattle of all time...
Star Trek Red Shirts vs Imperial Storm Troopers.
Consider it... Star Trek Red Shirts are the most frail and flimsy ground units in all geekdom. The Enterprise once lost a hundred of them because the ship lost hot water for a week and they all died of pneumonia. On the other hand, you have the Storm Troopers, the reputedly worst shots in the galaxy. Those black holes in their helmets where their eyes are supposed to be? Those aren't tinted lenses... they're painted black. I don't want to say they're horrible shots... but are we entirely sure the cloners didn't substitute a Blues Singer's DNA for Boba Fett's at some point during the cloning process?
So what do you think? Who would win in a battle between a squad of Red Shirts and an equal number of Storm Troopers? Or would anyone win at all? Maybe the battle would just go on and on forever... like a Zwillinger tangent...
Storm Troopers, easily. They only miss a lot when attacking main characters (and/or fuzzy and cute marketable characters). When they attack no-name extras (like at the very start of Episode 4), they're crack shots. And since Redshirts are the very definition of no-name extras (and are neither fuzzy nor cute), the Troopers would tear them apart.
;D
Talking stereo typed storm troopers and red shirts, then it invariably will be the storm troopers.
Talking the storm troopers as they actually appeared in the movies(namely, the opening scene of Ep. 4, or Empire Strikes Back during the assault on Hoth), then yes once again it's the storm troopers.
In the first instance, the red shirts would have a transporter accident or their shuttle would crash on the way to the fight, or some other spontaneous incident that renders their fighting force moot, and storm troopers - however bad of a shot - are not as prone to random death, and therefore would be the only ones left alive on the field even if every blaster bolt missed the Star Fleet members directly, because something - even if it's just a power conduit overloading - will happen to kill the red shirts...
In the second instance(assuming red shirts are not going to spontaneously die for no reason), the red shirts would likely first try to use diplomacy(they're diplomats and scientists, after all), but storm troopers are not really known for their diplomacy skills(that's Vader's and the Emperor's departments, assuming you can call that diplomacy...), so they'd come in blasting at anything that moves, and with deadly precision(and I do mean that litterally, not sarcastically). Second of all, storm troopers are trained soldiers, Star Fleet personal are scientists generally, so the storm troopers are much better prepared and equipped for a fight than the red shirts would be. All of which means that right from the start the red shirts are less protected(no armor versus battle armor), not very heavily armed(standard hand phasers versus combat ready blaster rifles) and completely outmatched tactically(scientists and engineers {or a "security/tactical" crewmen at best, which roughly equates to them being moderately trained mall cops...} versus trained soldiers).
Suffice to say, the odds are not in the red shirts' favor using either version of storm troopers/red shirts...
But that's just my opinion. :P
Quote from: Steelclaw on September 04, 2013, 04:45:49 AM
So what do you think? Who would win in a battle between a squad of Red Shirts and an equal number of Storm Troopers? Or would anyone win at all? Maybe the battle would just go on and on forever... like a Zwillinger tangent...
That's tough to call. On the one hand you have Storm Troopers, who couldn't hit the ground by falling on it. But on the other hand you have Red Shirts, who can bend time and space to take shots that actually should have hit someone else. (They're like the Secret Service that way, if you think about it. A really, really...
really inept Secret Service.)
I imagine the battle going something like this:
The Red Shirts take cover behind a big rock, and the Storm Troopers take cover around a corner. The Red Shirts pop up just long enough to fire a single shot from their phasers, and the Storm Troopers duck out long enough to fire a short burst from their blasters. Repeat over and over.
At first the two sides are firing slowly and deliberately in each other's direction. Clearly that's ineffective, and with time their aim starts to waver. They begin firing off to the side, and up at an angle, then directly behind them, all to no avail. Finally one of the Storm Troopers gets frustrated, grabs his buddy's blaster, and leaps over the barricade into the middle of the battlefield, where he yells "DEATH BLOSSOM!!!" and starts spinning around in circles firing wildly every which way with his twin blasters.
If you could film the whole thing with a slow-motion camera, it would look like standing in the middle of a Pink Floyd stage show after stepping out of the Grateful Dead's party van. The blaster bursts are wiggling around like twitchy dragon kites. They're Storm Trooper shots, so they're
curving in mid-air to avoid hitting their targets, but since they're meant for Red Shirts, they're curving
back around to seek their targets yet again. Neither force prevails however, and the shots just fizzle into the ground. Meanwhile the laws of physics in the area are being disrupted by the presence of these two unnatural forces, and the phaser blasts are zig-zagging through the sky like the trails behind a Tron Light Cycle gang. Everything
but the Storm Troopers is being disintegrated on contact. It's utter chaos.
Eventually the Storm Trooper's blasters run out of energy and he stops to look around. The entire battlefield is a smoking pile of rubble riddled with holes and scorch marks. He turns around and sees that the only thing he hit with his blasters were
all the other Storm Troopers. Then he locks eyes with the last remaining Red Shirt, and they both realize at the same time that
his entire team was disintegrated by their own phaser fire.
At that point they agree to just walk away; nobody ever has to know what happened. The Storm Trooper drops his blasters to either side, and the Red Shirt tosses his phaser out in front of him. As it's falling it swerves just enough to land sharply on a rock, causing its power cell to fracture and overload. They're both taken out in the explosion.
Quote from: Steelclaw on September 04, 2013, 04:45:49 AM
NCSoft vs the Death Star...
Why do these options have to be mutually exclusive (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5707.msg105933.html#msg105933)? :)
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.imagecoast.com%2Fimages%2Fblondeshell%2Fcohtarkin1.jpg)
The Stormtroopers weren't all clones, actually. By the time of the OT, more than 50% of Stormtrooper forces were supposed to be regular human recruits.
Quote from: Blondeshell on September 04, 2013, 07:32:54 AM
Why do these options have to be mutually exclusive (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5707.msg105933.html#msg105933)? :)
LOL! I read the whole thing. That was BRILLIANT! Great work Blondeshell!
Ok, I have to come down on the side of the red shirts here.
Sure, they'll start by trying to be reasonable but, (in a very typical Trek way) once that fails, they will start vaporizing things. The typical redshirt carries a disintegrator gun as a standard sidearm. Yes, there is something about a stun setting but, in a situation like this, they've dialed it up to eleven. And, in a pinch, your average phaser can be come a grenade.
Stormtroopers have powerful weapons that will kill in a single hit but, as we've been shown, it is possible to survive a glancing blow from one (should you get hit at all.) Think of blaster rifles as laser muskets and you'll see where I'm going.
In an even number fight, I'm calling for the red shirts. But only just barely.
Quote from: The Fifth Horseman on September 04, 2013, 08:19:06 AM
The Stormtroopers weren't all clones, actually. By the time of the OT, more than 50% of Stormtrooper forces were supposed to be regular human recruits.
That's interesting to think of, because that's about when they start not being able to hit anything. Stormtroopers in the prequels and in either of the clone war series (I know I know, not exactly the best series, but still starwars) are pretty decent shots.
Quote from: JWBullfrog on September 04, 2013, 01:24:28 PM
laser muskets
Want one. Wanna buy one. Gimme. Gimme gimme.
Well, the way I see it is that, even though redshirts die really easily, they can still hit stuff, and the stormtroopers are none to hardy either.
That being said, I'm surprised no one posted this yet:
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg13%2F3913%2Fyba9.jpg)
Quote from: JWBullfrog on September 04, 2013, 01:24:28 PM
Think of blaster rifles as laser muskets and you'll see where I'm going.
/em CommanderRiker "Those aren't muskets...!"
;)
Okay, now that I've let some other people voice their opinions, I think I'll posit mine.
Don't think in terms of skill or lack there-of. You have to understand why each team was created in the first place. I'm not talking about "the Emperor created the Storm Troopers to aid in his bid to turn the republic into an empire" reasons. I mean the reasons the WRITERS created them.
Storm Troopers: Shock troops basically made to present a threat that can be overcome by the heroes with reasonable effort. Other than providing a threat they have no real intrinsic value to the plot other than "boy the Empire sure does have a lot of guys in plastic suits don't it" impact.
Red Shirts: These men and women exist for one reason and one reason only... to die and thus become a motivating factor pissing off Kirk and sending him into a "your deaths shall be avenged!" berserker rage. In other words, these guys existed to provide an impetus to a main character.
A primary function to a major character always beats out filler and minor obstacles.
The Red Shirts must die. Storm Troopers win, but it's not cause for celebration as Kirk will show up a few minutes later and kill them all single-handedly.
You want a 3 way battle with all the badguys from the A team who never hit anything.
I don't really know who'd win--I just want to express my new found love for this idea. It's awesome. XD Seriously, one of the best "most epic fail" to the death competition ideas EVER.
(https://i.imgur.com/xs4es0W.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Qnukv7Z.jpg)
Quote from: healix on September 06, 2013, 11:35:42 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/Qnukv7Z.jpg)
My guess would be....Anthony? :P
Quote from: Steelclaw on September 04, 2013, 10:03:54 PM
Okay, now that I've let some other people voice their opinions, I think I'll posit mine.
Don't think in terms of skill or lack there-of. You have to understand why each team was created in the first place. I'm not talking about "the Emperor created the Storm Troopers to aid in his bid to turn the republic into an empire" reasons. I mean the reasons the WRITERS created them.
Storm Troopers: Shock troops basically made to present a threat that can be overcome by the heroes with reasonable effort. Other than providing a threat they have no real intrinsic value to the plot other than "boy the Empire sure does have a lot of guys in plastic suits don't it" impact.
Red Shirts: These men and women exist for one reason and one reason only... to die and thus become a motivating factor pissing off Kirk and sending him into a "your deaths shall be avenged!" berserker rage. In other words, these guys existed to provide an impetus to a main character.
A primary function to a major character always beats out filler and minor obstacles.
The Red Shirts must die. Storm Troopers win, but it's not cause for celebration as Kirk will show up a few minutes later and kill them all single-handedly.
I think you win here. Add in that Storm troopers have been shown to be more than able to hit no name characters such as droids and no name rebels, and you have the scenario quickly happening.
The battle would go something like this. As they enter the battlefield, the Redshirts take cover as the Storm Troopers march in shooting. Despite having superior weapons and an enemy that is just standing in the open, the Redshirts circle around behind cover, outflanking the Storm Troopers until one of the Redshirts can jump a Storm Trooper and start grappling with him in hand-to-hand combat. Meanwhile, the other Redshirts stand around the fight in a circle watching it. Storm Troopers pause for a moment in bemusement at Redshirt tactics and kill Redshirts. Storm Troopers win, zero casualties.
I always liked to explain it away using the Torg RPG system. The game involves competing Realities, so you can have a party consisting of an elf wizard, a cyberpriest, a Victorian werewolf, a pulp superhero, and a minigun-toting lizardman.
The system uses points called Possibilities, which can be used to do a number of things, including negating or reducing damage. PCs are called Storm Knights, and are always considered to be Possibility Rated. Some NPCs can also have them, but usually only on powerful foes. NPCs that do not have Possibilities are called Ords.
Stormtroopers and Red Shirts are the classic Ords. Kirk, Spock, Han, Luke, Darth Vader, etc. would be Possibility Rated. In game terms, it isn't that the Stormtroopers and/or Redshirts are incompetent, it is that the Possibility Rated PCs are changing the outcomes using their Possibilities.
Redshirts were trained in tactics while Stormtroopers were trained to strictly adhere to the protocols of their tactician masters.
So...
If a Redshirt were standing between 2 Stormtroopers, the Stormtroopers would crossfire with their blasters set to "kill", and most likely all 3 would die in the volley.
Wereas if a Stormtrooper were standing between 2 Redhirts, the Redshirts' tactical training would kick in - they'd set phasers to stun, bag themselves a stunned Stormtrooper, don his armor and infiltrate the Stormtroopers' ranks.
I like Star Wars a lot more than Star Trek, but in this case I'd have to vote Redshirts.
Well, i would have to go with Storm Troopers on this one.
Even though it's pretty much a competition to see who can realise they are holding their gun backwards, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. In a deadliest warrior scenario i think the battle would end with one on each side extremely wounded at melee range, the redshirt would get close enough to the stormtrooper so that the stormtrooper's cone of fire would be filled enough for him to not possibly miss. The stormtrooper would still miss but the redstirt wouldn't be able to get through the armor. The stormtrooper chokes the redshirt to death.